Sunday, December 8, 2013

LA 190 UPDATE

For tomorrow, I will be available to you online if you need me during the hours our our class. The few that had expressed interest in meeting up there and I decided that this would be a satisfactory option.

Note: We will not be meeting tomorrow but you can reach me via email. Use the time to finish your portfolios, go to The Writing Center, etc.

See you Wednesday.

TOMORROW LA190

I will not be holding class, as such. As your final portfolios will be due on Wednesday, I want to give you time to work on them on your own.  Email me with any concerns.

Good luck with finishing everything and see you soon!  I have thoroughly enjoyed your class.


Tuesday, December 3, 2013

ADV CREATIVE WRITING NOTE

I have had a car/husband health emergency.

I have a specific assignment to post here that you can do if time permits after any workshopping, etc.

Please save me a stack of any distributed pieces (and put in my office on my desk, if you'd be so kind). If anyone is not clear on the amusement park ride assignment and in what form to turn it in to best facilitate our class chapbook, please check with Emily.

Come up with a title (Max had a good one) and a press name.

I will post a writing assignment here before class. Thank you so much for understanding. I'll explain more in a bit--have to get the car back to the husband for the doctor's visit. 

Writing Assignment:

1. Go to the library.
2. Find three books.
3. Go to page 37 in each and count the third sentence in. Use it as a trigger.
(That's three sentences.)
4. Now go to three random pages and find five words per page to use in a piece of writing. (Three pages per each text=9 pages of 15 words each).
5. Using as many of the above as possible, write a new story, poem or scene.

Bring to the next class along with your amusement park ride piece.




Monday, December 2, 2013

496-02 Presentation Reading List

 
Read for Wednesday
1. Billy Collins Litany (poemhunter.com/poem/Litany
 
For Monday:
2. The Lesson p. 3061-3072 Toni Cade Bambarra
3. Not Somewhere Else But Here Adrienne Rich p. 2326
4. A Thanksgiving Celebration Nicholas Mohr 3006
5. Woman Hanging from the 13th Floor Window Joy Harjo p. 3393

Digication Video for LA-190


Research Paper: 
Remember, we'll be gathering hard copies of your research paper on Wednesday (12/04) and uploading to your digication portfolio,

Watch this video before class to learn how. If you think you can do it on your own and have it uploaded before class, then you get to come in, drop off your paper and be on your way to work on your final portfolio which will be due a week from Wednesday (12/11).

Final Portfolio:

First drafts and final copies of your first two papers. Remember that the first draft is the one where I wrote on it and graded it. You don't need to include Building Blocks or anything besides those items. 

Sunday, December 1, 2013

496 Contemporary Literature BOTH M-W and T-H

1.  Below you will find our game plan for the next few classes. Please note that those of you yet to present your ekphrastic pieces will be allowed to do so, but will have lost one letter grade due to the late presentation. Being absent on a day when what is due is to be presented is hard to make up without disrupting the class. If we spoke and it was cleared before you left, then I will take that into consideration. Otherwise, plan to present and avoid further damage to the grade in any further delay.

The revised syllabus

Week 12/02-12/05  

M or T (depending on your class)
Presentation of the remainder of your ekphrastic pieces. 
Following that, you will break into groups and select your pieces for presentation from your anthology. The class will be given the names and page numbers of the pieces to be presented and everyone will read in advance and be ready to participate in your group's discussion. You will have the class period to prepare with your group. 
This will begin with the selection of one work or author we've  not yet discussed to be "taught" by your group.  Individual process sheets describing the division of labor will be gathered FROM EACH group member.

W & H Presentations begin. 

Week 12/9-12/12
M & T Group Presentations continued
W & H TBA

Friday, November 22, 2013

LA190 Ideas and Updates

1. This was a pretty intriguing piece that has some potential for a paper topic for any of you still hunting about for one, or for those of you working with street art.  At the very least, looking around for big names that began or were invited to do a piece of the wall might lead you to more artists or articles of interest.

2. Let's say your paper is due on the WEDNESDAY after Thanksgiving. With the short week ahead, I want to give you all a chance to head to The Writing Center and do more research. Remember to revise your other papers, significantly and to be cautious about papers and crediting sources.

3. Just a reminder:  I have a good sense of your writing and syntactical styles and would know if a paper veered from that. Be careful about academic integrity and be sure to credit your sources. Any suspicious papers will be checked-out and could result in grave consequences if found to contain plagiarism. If you are in doubt, ask me or talk to me before it gets to that point.

4. REMEMBER  TO UPLOAD YOUR RESEARCH PAPER TO YOUR DIGICATION PORTFOLIO & TO GET YOUR FINAL PORTFOLIO READY FOR ME

The final portfolio (hard copy) to be turned into me will have both versions of your first two papers (narrative and rhetorical analysis)
 Include your first drafts (marked up by me and graded) as well as the new versions, re-written, revised, proofread, edited.  These must all be binder-clipped together and turned in by the final day of class.


Wednesday, November 13, 2013

LA 190-Research Paper Guidelines

Imagine that you enter a parlor. You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about. In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before. You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him; another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you, to either the embarrassment or gratification of your opponent, depending upon the quality of your ally’s assistance. However, the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress.
            --Kenneth Burke, The Philosophy of Literary Form (1941)

But what if it’s not a parlor that you are entering, but a gallery, or a museum, or Bryant Park? What’s going on in the design world? What are industrial designers talking about? How many fine artists are feeling the pressure to abandon oil paints? Should fashion designers cut out the leather? 

This essay will ask you to find out what is going on.

For this essay you will identify and research an art and design debate. You will seek out a particular debate to respond to—and the easiest way to ensure that you are engaging in a debate is to respond to specific writers. You will then write a persuasive essay that takes a stand in that discussion—you will, as Burke writes, “put in your oar.” You will present the conversation for your reader and enter the conversation.


In order to help you research and to draft the essay, you will complete three Building Blocks. I am including the descriptions of these below (scroll down).

A summary of the debate should appear early in the essay. Your reader should know what is at stake. You are encouraged to use your own perspective as a way into the conversation. That is, your personal experiences can supplement your sources. Be sure to try to employ specific rhetorical strategies (the three appeals, anecdotes, literary techniques, and so on) when drafting your essay.
Your essay should address counterarguments, or naysayers, and these perspectives might come from your sources. When addressing your opposition’s point of view, be careful to cue your reader so that it doesn’t seem like suddenly you have changed your mind. We will be discussing strategies and templates for maintaining control of an argument. We will also discuss various organizational strategies for the essay.

The Guidelines:
           The essay should be at least 1500 words.
           Follow MLA guidelines: use in-text citations and include a Works Cited Page         that contains a total of four sources.
           This should be a thesis-driven essay, one that develops a substantiated, thought-out          position on an issue related to your art and design area of interest, or issues that             consider creativity in more general terms. However, you have the option of using a            traditional, front-loaded thesis statement, or a delayed thesis. 
           Your topic and research should be relevant to studies at CCAD (no papers             regarding the legalization of marijuana, or the drinking age, or college football, or       judo, etc.)
           You are encouraged to find an art and design topic that does engage a socio-            political issue, though these essays won’t be graded more favorably. For example,          a fashion student might explore issues of green design. A fine art student might      explore precautionary methods that might make for a healthier studio environment         (proper ventilation, etc.) 








Thursday, November 7, 2013

Both 496 classes

M-W I am trying to be fair with students who did well, as well as trying to give all of you incentive to do better. In light of that: we will have two more tests.
If you did well on this one, you can skip the next or take it and if you don't do well, drop that grade.
If you did poorly on this first one, you can do well on the next and drop that first grade. If you do poorly on the second (and the first) you will have to keep the higher of those two grades, no matter how well you do on the third.
Class participation from here forward would really help, too.

T-H Please refer to the hot links on M-W for the readings of the Confessionalists. They will be your homework, too.

Thanks, and have a great weekend.

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

LA 190 Conferences & Research Paper Due Date

Thanks to all of you who attended the Monday conference and arrived on time. I managed to complete the conferences right on schedule.

Two of you  missed your time and lost the credit for that assignment. Unfortunately, as you saw, the times for Wednesday are booked. I have your papers and you are welcome to stop by and pick them up on Wednesday by 10:30 or so, but I cannot make up the time that day without costing others their time.

Please note, Wednesday people, that you will need to be there and on time so that the schedule is able to be maintained and your peers are able to meet.

Your papers will be due on Monday, November 18, typed, stapled, complete and at the beginning of class.  All of next week will be spent discussing the architecture of a paper and the common errors made in the last round. I would plan to be there and also to hit the library this week for research and allow time to get to The Writing Center. It really does help the final drafts when you get outside eyes to help proofread.

Thanks and see you soon!

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

496.01 T-H

Charles Bukowski readings

At your leisure:
http://bukowski.net/poems/

Week 10/29-10/31
NY School discussion

Discussion: NY continued
Homework:  Selected readings: Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell.

Week 11/05-11/07
T  Bukowski discussion
H The Confessionalists Discussion.
Homework:  Reading: Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin, Michael Cunningham’s White Angel,
Miranda July: The Shared Patio
**Your ekphrastic pieces and process papers (500 words minimum) are due on Tuesday 11/26. 
The short version of this assignment is that you will be responding or imitating a piece of literature through visual art. Examples abound: W.H. Auden’s Musee de Beaux Art or WCW’s Icarus (myth-painting-poem).  Or Charles Simic’s poems that respond to Joseph Cornell’s boxes (for the reverse).  Consider the poetry poem: http://www.tcj.com/a-bianca-stone-interview/

Week 11/12-11/14
T Confessionalists continued
H Cunningham and Baldwin discussion

Week 11/19-11/21
MONDAY 11/18  Stories Discussion continued (including Miranda July)
 6:30 p.m. MIRANDA JULY YOU DO NOT WANT TO MISS THIS, I PROMISE!!

T 11/20  Discussion of readings continued.  
H 11/22 TBA

Week 11/26-11/28
T 26 Discussion. Ekphrastic pieces to be presented. Process papers (only) to be turned in to me.
H THANKSGIVING BREAK!  Safe travels and happy Thanksgiving!

Week 12/02-12/04
T  Group Presentations of Essays from Touchstone Anthology. (There will be an oral and written component for each group member. More details forthcoming.)
H  Group Presentations continued

Week 12/09-12/11
M  Group Presentations
TBA

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

496.02 M-W


Week Nine
M 10/21  
Discussion of Joyce Carol Oates

W 10/25  Discussion Colonel Carolyn Forche (in class reading of poem) 
Homework: New York School 
Frank O'Hara bio and all poems
Kenneth Koch One Train...

Charles Bukowski readings

At your leisure:
http://bukowski.net/poems/


Week 10/28-10/30
NY School discussion, Bukowski.

Discussion: NY continued
Homework:  Selected readings: Anne Sexton, Sylvia Plath, Robert Lowell.
All biographical material and all poems. Plus, any additional selections from your books on any of the three.

Week 11/04-11/06
M  Bukowski discussion
W  Test on NY school and Bukowski. The Confessionalists Discussion. (Links above will provide the selections.
Homework:  Reading: Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin, Michael Cunningham’s White Angel,
Miranda July: The Shared Patio
**Your ekphrastic pieces and process papers (500 words minimum) are due on Monday 11/25. 
The short version of this assignment is that you will be responding or imitating a piece of literature through visual art. Examples abound: W.H. Auden’s Musee de Beaux Art or WCW’s Icarus (myth-painting-poem).  Or Charles Simic’s poems that respond to Joseph Cornell’s boxes (for the reverse).  Consider the poetry poem: http://www.tcj.com/a-bianca-stone-interview/

Week 11/11-11/13
M Confessionalists continued
W Cunningham and Baldwin discussion

Week 11/18-1120
MONDAY 11/18  Stories Discussion continued (including Miranda July)
 6:30 p.m. MIRANDA JULY YOU DO NOT WANT TO MISS THIS, I PROMISE!!

W 11/20  Discussion of readings continued.  

Week 11/25-11/27
M/25 Discussion. Ekphrastic pieces to be presented. Process papers (only) to be turned in to me.
W THANKSGIVING BREAK!  Safe travels and happy Thanksgiving!

Week 12/01-12/03  
M  Selection of one work or author we've  not yet discussed to be "taught" by your group.  Individual process sheets describing the division of labor due FROM EACH group member.
W Presentations

Week 12/08-12/10
M  Group Presentations
W TBA


Monday, October 21, 2013

LA 190 Syllabus Update

Week Nine  10/21-10/23

M  Discussion towards research essay



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XM3vWJmpfo

W  


Week Ten 10/28-10/30

M Jay Z Picasso Baby

Homework: Read  Jerry Saltz  Ben Davis The Jealous Curator
Choose five of the names referenced in the Saltz article and find one article on them to cite as if doing an MLA citation for your research paper.

Example: Marina Abramovic
1.  "I am not a Vampire." The Guardian. Jonathan Jones Blog. July 2013.

For the final piece of this assignment, write a one-line artist or thesis statement for what you think that Jay Z was attempting in his video. (As if you are Jay Z.) This should be YOUR idea of what HIS idea might be. (Do not look for his words on the matter, use your own.)


W Citations and "thesis" due.
Building Block One Due

Week Eleven  11/-04-11/06

M Conferences (Hills) Come on time for your designated conference.
W Conferences (Hills)

BUILDING BLOCK ONE:BB#1: Debatable Question Worksheet


Think about your topic for a while and then start to draft a question that asks something debatable about that topic. Revise your debatable question so that it can be as specific as possible. When you have settled on a topic and feel confident about your question, type this information at the top of a document using the following template.

Art and Design Area of Interest:
Topic:
Debatable Question:

Here are a few examples:

Art and Design Area of Interest: Fashion
Topic:  Body Image
Debatable Question: What can designers do to help reverse the trend of the “skinny” model?

Art and Design Area of Interest: Fine Arts
Topic: Foundations/Skills
Debatable Question: Are there a set of foundational skills that all fine artists require, and if so, what are they?  


Once you have filled out the above template, write 150 words about why you have chosen this topic.

Friday, October 18, 2013

Friday, October 11, 2013

LA 190

This is an artist that I have always found to be pretty interesting both her life and her work.
Remember that your research papers are next and that any ideas that you've unearthed during this process that seemed too large for the paper you are doing now, might lend themselves nicely to your research papers.


Tuesday, October 8, 2013

LA-496-01 T-H Changes in Due Dates


 
Look over these forms:  sestina, sonnet, and villanelle, and begin to decide which you will imitate (and discuss in a 300 word minimum formal letter to your readers).  We will look over some examples for both components of this assignment: due 10/11
H 10/02    “  “  “ continued.Formal verse discussion


Week Seven
T 10/08 Formal Poem discussion completed 
Homework: Read  Everyday Use by Alice Walker. Cathedral by Raymond Carver. 

H10/11    Discussion:     Walker/Carver
Homework: Read Natasha Trethaway's Thrall entire.

Week  Eight
T 10/15 Discussion of Thrall   FORMAL POEMS DUE TODAY
Homework: Reading Where are You Going, Where Have You Been Joyce Carol Oates (anthology)

10/16WEDNESDAY: 6:30 Canzani Auditorium. Natasha Trethewey visit. MANDATORY.     

H 10/17   Discussion Oates



Monday, October 7, 2013

LA 190--Don't Forget!!

Your first drafts, graded with comments by me, must come in with your final portfolios.
Do NOT lose the papers that I returned to you. Put them in a file to include with your final portfolio.

Today's group work counts as one of your building blocks, but does not need to come in with those final pieces. (Nor does the Miranda July.)

Sunday, October 6, 2013

LA 190

Here's an example of how I might refine or hone my topic and find text for the analysis:

Let's say I have decided to talk about a very complicated, ornate but intriguing piece of art. I select this piece because I have been thinking a lot about beauty and excess lately and the notion of "less is more" after reading an interview with Stanley Elkin who argued that less is less and more is more.  I recall that Pallavi Sen, a CCAD graduate, often argued for beauty, the intricate and ornate in classrooms where she felt the trend was toward the cleaner, simpler design.

NOW since I have selected my artwork, I need to get text on this piece. Either I address an article that analyzes or reviews the piece OR I find use the ideas in the interview and use those with the artwork to create a thesis.

Ex:  The current aesthetic trends toward the serif-less font, flat-design underlines the old adage of less is  more.  Arthur Artman's work interrogates that in a number of ways....

 

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

496-02 Monday Wednesday

Wednesday 10/02:  Intro to Formal Verse.
Homework: Readings: Homework: Readings: Design by Robert Frost, (Yes, we've read it before, but it bears review for the sonnet form.)  Elizabeth Bishop's Sestina and her villanelle: One Art, Dylan Thomas Do Not Go Gentle...
 Look over these forms:  sestina, sonnet, and villanelle, and begin to decide which you will imitate (and discuss in a 300 word minimum formal letter to your readers).  We will look over some examples for both components of this assignment: due 10/14

Week Six
M 10/07 Continued Formal discussion
W 10/09
Homework: In addition to completing your formal poems to be turned in on Monday
Read:  Everyday Use by Alice Walker. Cathedral by Raymond Carver. (Carver to be discussed Monday and Walker on Wed.)

Week Seven
M 10/14  Discussion Carver. Formal Poems due


W 10/16 Discussion Walker