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.

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 this Unit we will be considering essays that take stands on various art and design issues. You of course have the option of entering one of these debates and using these essays as sources.

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.) 

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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.

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!