Blog Journal #5: In the Red and Brown Water

Due Friday, November 16th by 9pm


For your fifth blog journal, you will write a response to your experience of attending a showing of the play, In the Red and Brown Water, at the Playhouse Theater on Penn State Campus.

In a post of about 500 words, please provide answers to the following:

1. Summary. Who were the main characters and what was the main plot of the show?

2. What struck you as the most important thing about the story for the main character(s)? What was at stake for her or him? Did she/he achieve what she/he set out to achieve?

3. Who/what were you most compelled by in the performance? Why? Provide specifics.

4. Do you have any critiques of the performance? What are they?

5. Was this your first time seeing a live theater performance? If so, what did you think? Did it meet/exceed/fall short of/change your expectations? If it was not your first time seeing live theater, how did this performance compare to others you have seen?

Assignment: The Project Update

Due Wed, 11/7 by 9pm

Each group must create a document that persuades the teacher that they are on track with their Curated Arts Exhibit Project. Please answer the following questions THOROUGHLY and THOUGHTFULLY.

1. Who are your group members? List them here.

2. What is the TITLE for your project? Don't have one yet? Time to get one. Remember that titles are the first key we give our readers for comprehension. If this is the only thing they see while surfing the web, would it make them want to stop and visit? Would it tell them enough about the work that they would have an idea of what they were likely to encounter there?

3. What research have you completed? What research do you still have planned? You MUST be able to list sources in the "done" column at this point. 

4. Who is responsible for what part of the project? How are you dividing the tasks at hand?

5. Has anything in your research or work so far taken you into new territory for your project? If so, what is it? Be specific. 

6. What are your plans for production of this project. At this point, you need to be able to say more than, "probably a blog." Be specific. 

7. What is your timeline for completion of the following tasks:

* annotated bibliography
* 750 word "art statements" about each individual piece that will speak specifically about the art, the artist and the reasoning for its inclusion in the exhibit. 
* 6-10 page introduction to the project that will orient your audience to the rhetorical situation and help them understand the main purpose of the collection, and situate your work inside of a larger conversation about the arts.

8. Is there anything specific you need from me? What is it? 

Assignment: The Annotated Bibliography

Due Wednesday, 11/14 by 9pm

Each group is required to prepare and submit an annotated bibliography with the textual materials for their project. You will hand this document in twice; one version on 11/14, and a possibly revised version with the final project itself.

So what is an annotated bibliography?

It's a document that lists all the research sources you've used for your project but it's more than just a works cited page.

The annotation part of this bibliography calls for you to summarize and evaluate each individual source (book, article, website, interview, etc.) you called upon during your research and writing.

What is a summary?

What is the main argument of this source? What is the book/article/interview about? What topics are covered? If someone asked you what it was about, what would you say?

What is an evaluation?

How does this source fit in with your research? Why are you using it? Has it helped you formulate your argument in important ways? Has it inspired you to change directions?

What's the point of writing one of these?

From Purdue's OWL: 

To learn about your topic: Writing an annotated bibliography is excellent preparation for a research project. Just collecting sources for a bibliography is useful, but when you have to write annotations for each source, you're forced to read each source more carefully. You begin to read more critically instead of just collecting information. At the professional level, annotated bibliographies allow you to see what has been done in the literature and where your own research or scholarship can fit. To help you formulate a thesis: Every good research paper is an argument. The purpose of research is to state and support a thesis. So a very important part of research is developing a thesis that is debatable, interesting, and current. Writing an annotated bibliography can help you gain a good perspective on what is being said about your topic. By reading and responding to a variety of sources on a topic, you'll start to see what the issues are, what people are arguing about, and you'll then be able to develop your own point of view.

How long do these things need to be?

Each source in your annotated bibliography, you will begin with an official MLA works cited entry and then move on to dedicate one paragraph toward summary and one toward analysis. Paragraphs can be anywhere from three to many sentences long, depending on how detailed the individual source is.

For this project, you are required to list at least five sources on the version due 11/14. You may include more than that on your final version.

Can you give me an example? 

Of course! Go here and see the top example. Also note that you can click on a pdf link at the top for more.

Isn't there an online tool that can help me do this? 

YES!

So You Wanna be a Zombie!

THE STATE THEATRE NEEDS YOUR HELP!

We need additional volunteers for our Haunted Theatre next week! This is going to be a BLAST and we need cast members to play ghosts and zombies throughout the theatre. The Haunted Theatre runs Monday-Wednesday, October 29-31 from 6:30-11:30 pm and you can choose specific shifts. Most roles are non-speaking (but lots of grunting and groaning!), except for the Usher tour guides, who work from a script.

There is a training/rehearsal session this Sunday evening at 8 pm. It would be helpful to provide your own costume and makeup but we can help you!

If you are interested, please contact Richard Biever: Richard@TheStateTheatre.org or call 814-272-0606 ext. 307

Please spread the word-- and thanks!

Richard Biever, Executive Director

Memoir Assignment

Draft Due: Friday, November 9

Final Due: Monday, November 12

Length: 4-6 pages double-spaced

Purpose:

Recall, retell, and analyze a significant experience in your life, carefully choosing a sequence of events that supports a specific thesis and helps you fulfill your rhetorical purpose regarding a specific audience.

A narrative based on personal experience can serve to communicate some insight into our experiences, our feelings and our values. A meaningful narrative is more than just a list of things that happened: “I woke up, answered the ringing telephone, heard my mother’s voice tell me that my dog, Rover, was killed by a hit and run, threw the phone down, threw myself down and began to cry…” A meaningful narrative makes a point: “After my dog died,  I threw myself into the work of cleaning out my top desk drawer, culling and sorting through bits of love letters scribbled on angel-blue paper, red ribbons from swim team in seventh grade, a matchbook from Senior Prom at the Fireside Inn, a swatch of taffeta that was ripped from my dress as I clambered over the country-club fence to have a night swim with my date—the domestic energy and descent into living memory distracting me and pulling me through the grief of losing my beloved pet…” That’s the purpose of this writing: for you to draw upon your memory of a real, true experience that makes a point that all of us can learn from.

Invention:

Write about an experience that changed you. Think about a time in your life when something caused you to question or shift your perspective on life. This does not mean that it must be a tragedy or a death, though these are appropriately fertile options as well. A life-changing experience could very well be something that seems, at first, insignificant, boring or small: the summer you spent on your grandmother’s farm, the stranger you talked to at the bus stop this morning, how eating ice cream at the Creamery made you reconsider what it meant to be on your own for the first time. What did you learn from this experience? How are you different for having gone through it? In any case you will need to think of a moment which has stayed with you, one you know deep down had some real effect on you, and try to figure out what and why. Tell us the story so that we may feel what you felt, react as you reacted and learn what you learned.

Remember that you must limit your scope. You can’t possibly write about your entire life (Nor should you! That is autobiography, not memoir.), or even about your entire experience playing high school basketball in one essay. You must focus on some one thing: an experience within a larger context; a moment of change in a relationship.

Be sure that whatever you choose to explore in writing interests you and then write to interest readers and affect them in some way. As you decide what to write about, keep in mind:

* What do you want to say? What point are you trying to get across?

* Who are you writing to and why should they care? What do you hope they will do or feel as a result of reading your memoir?

In the end, you must work to evoke a powerful pathos response in your reader through the use of vivid, memorable, language, concrete details, plot, character and setting.

         

           

Expectations:

A successful personal narrative will:

• Focus on a significant experience;
• Use ample sensory details;
• Include dialogue that reveals information about your characters;
•  Employ transitions or a clear structure that will help your reader follow your narrative and/or logic;
• Showcase a personal narrative voice—your voice! (e.g, use a variety of sentence patterns and Lengths, don’t sound like you come from the bureau of statistics, and so on); and
• Provide reflection and analysis in order to help your audience understand the significance of the experience.  

Project Plan: Curated Art Exhibit

Due Wednesday, October 17^th, 9pm via email

Your subject line should read as follows: 

Group Project Plan/Section #/Last Names of Group Members

Instructions: Please answer the following questions as specifically and thoroughly as you can.

Group Members______________________________________________________________

1.       Describe the art you will be curating. Be very specific here. Not “photography,” but “photographs of Central PA barn doors from the 20^th century.” See the difference?

2.       Describe the medium in which you plan to work. (Podcast? Visual images? Written anthology? Etc.)

3.       Describe your vision for how to produce it. How do you imagine the final project will work?

4.       Explain your connection to this art. Why are you motivated to celebrate it?

5.       Who is your audience for this exhibit? Again, be specific. Not “everyone,” or “college students,” or “my teacher.”  How do you believe this project will help or connect with them? Why should they care about it?

6.       What research (if any) have you done at this point? What research do you have planned?

7.       Describe your plans for the division of labor among group members.

8.       When do you plan to meet again to work on this? Give me an actual date that has been agreed upon by all group members.

9.       Is there specific help you need from me at this point? What is it?

Blog Post #4: A Movie Review

DUE  Friday, October 12 at 9pm

300-500 words

For your fourth blog post, you will write a review of one of the "college" films you saw during the IAH Film Festival weekend.

Follow the guidelines we discussed in class, and refer to this list of "review parts" for help and reference. Remember to read (and re-read, as necessary) the reviews I posted in the schedule.

I will be looking to see that your criteria are stated clearly ("A great college movie includes, X, Y & Z") and that you use specific examples from the film to support your evaluation.

As always, I am expecting clean, error-free text, and thoughtful writing in your own voice. 

Have fun!