English 123 Final Assignment

Working with a group of peers, plan and deliver a podcast about some of the works we have studied this semester.

Begin by selecting a recorder to keep track of the group’s work.

Next, decide upon a theme that you want to cover in your podcast. Themes might include love, work, change, family, identity, gender relations, traditions, and so on. As you pick a theme, also consider the texts that you wish to work with. Keep in mind that texts that have a film version will allow you to play clips as part of the podcast. Stories we have covered that I have film version for include The Story of an Hour, Cathedral, A&P, The Yellow Wallpaper, and A Rose for Emily, Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been. You can also think about other media elements you might use—perhaps music to help discuss The Things They Carried or documentary radio pieces, etc.

Once you have a theme, conduct research to inform your work on the project. You might learn all you can about authors, or track down interpretations of stories you will use. You can locate essays related to the themes you wish to touch on. Imagine ways the podcast might function as an audio research project; the more seamlessly you can incorporate engaging information into the podcast, the stronger_it will be.
Next, select roles for the various members of the group—you might choose a host or co-hosts. You could then identify guests, callers, reporters, or other ways for everyone to participate. As you identify roles, you will also be refining your thinking about the overall shape of the podcast session—how you might sequence the speakers and integrate audio into the show. You will need to tell me what media files you wish to play by Tuesday the 15th.
Next, compose a script outlining the podcasting session. Your script should use speaker tags and stage directions to indicate what will happen during the podcast
Do not write out what you intend to say in the podcast—just script the points you will cover. The key to doing a successful podcast is knowing your topic--research as much as possible and get to know the works you will discuss, and your conversation will be engaging.
Let me emphasize what will make the podcast strong: good research and knowledge of the works and the topic combined with an informal conversational recording session. Don't write out everything you intend to say.

Your group will deliver its podcast on Tuesday April 22nd

Here are the instructions for submitting the final portfolio of your
work:

First, remember the goals of the portfolio. The portfolio serves two
main purposes: 1.) to drive continued revision of your projects, and 2.)
to promote reflection on what you have learned as a writer and thinker
in the class. To demonstrate your strengths in these areas, you'll need
to compose reflections about all of the materials that you submit.

The portfolio is also meant to create a representation of your work and
learning as a whole in the class. To this end, you will need to write a
cover letter that reflects on the entire body of your work
and on your progression as a thinker and writer for the class. For the
portfolio letter, you should know that portfolios work well at
demonstrating learning, growth, effort, and excellence in the final
products of your work. Your letter, then, can serve to educate readers
of the portfolio about the materials you have collected in terms of
these kinds of criteria. Additionally, for my own sense of teaching, I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on the methodologies of the course and on issues of creativity and internal/external motivation. If you have ideas about these topics, feel free to weave them into the portfolio as appropriate.

Finally, since the portfolio serves as a hub that leads to a collection
of other materials, you will want to ensure that the materials that you
link to are cleaned up and contain all the necesseary elements for each
assignment--lists of sources, short descriptions, links to all
revisions, etc.

Remember you can look at the portfolios of your classmates and you may want to look at some of the portfolios from other classes.

A portfolio from
a first year seminar

A portfolio from a
sophomore literature class

You can use the portfolio that you started for the midterm as the basis for your final portfolio. There is no need to start a new entry. Just open the existing portfolio and begin editing.

For the materials that you have already submitted, continue to make revisions. Make links to as many drafts and revisions as you have and revise your reflections to address continued revisions you have made and to support your cover letter and reflections on your work as a whole.

Add a link to the video project. Include all drafts and revisions and compose a reflection for the video.

Add a reflection and link to the group podcast you will do as your final assignment. (I'll show you later how to link to these projects.)

Update the postings to the blog that you have made for every week. Note that these can also include comments that you have made about the work of others.

Finally revise the cover letter reflecting on the portfolio that you are submitting. Think about the goals for the portfolio--demonstrating effort, learning, growth, and excellence. Think also about reflection as the activity that drives the writing of the letter. What have you learned? What do all of these projects prompt you to say about writing, literature, art, learning, teaching, school, the world, or any other areas that matter to you?

When you have collected and reflected on everything, submit the
posting--you may want to submit it as you work several times to save
your thoughts.

To submit your video, you must first export it in WMV format. Go to the File menu in MovieMaker and select Save Movie File. Choose My Computer and then Click Next. Enter a name for the movie and check the location where you are saving it. Click Next.

On the next screen if there is a link saying "Show more choices" select it (if that link is not there, then you are fine.) Select the Other settings option and then choose Video for Broadband (512kbs) from the menu. Click Next. You can try other settings. The higher quality the bigger the file size, so you want to try not to make the file sizes too big, but still get good results.

Your movie will be exported. If your video is more than 10 megabytes it may not work attach to the blog posting. If that is the case or if you have trouble, just let me know.

Here are some Web sites for ripping online materials. If you know of others, add them as comments on this posting.

http://vixy.net/

http://www.zamzar.com

If you want to make screen recordings, you can try CamStudio which is free. You can also download the trial version of Camtasia, which is really powerful but will expire in 30 days.

This assignment has a specific due date of Tuesday April 1st.

In this assignment you will bring many of the skills you have developed together to create a video collage. The video collage will feature an audio track, which will can be a mix of music, interviews, or your own recorded comments. While this audio track plays, you will sequence images and text to develop your message. (You can also integrate video samples from the Web.) You will mix images, audio, and text to offer an interpretation of a literary work, to offer information about an author, genre, period, or other aspect of literary study.

You will need to be aware of the intellectual property decisions you have to make. You can use images that you collect online—be sure to keep track of their location as you collect them; you will include this information in the credits for your video.

For music, you will need to be a bit more aware. You may not simply insert a commercial piece of music into your collage. If you wish to use commercial music as a simple background element, then you will need to layer sections of 30 seconds or less into the overall composition or use music that is released for use online; this will allow you to use an entire song. I suggest starting with the songs available on the Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org/) but you can also find other public music sites where you can locate songs. If you have other non-commercial music sources, you can use them as well. Again, keep track of the information for the sources you use. An alternative approach is to use music in ways that are integral to your project--if the song and the video are co-dependent or if the work with the music results in a new creative form, then you can use the materials.

Of course, you can use your own voice, interviews, or snippets from audio found on the Web.

For composing the video collage. You have a few options. If you have a Mac, iMovie is probably best. For a PC you can use the Movie Maker application--it is quite simple. You may have Premiere Elements bundled with your CCI laptop and can use that. Or if your laptop is reasonably new you may be able to get a copy of Premiere Elements and install it. All of these programs are based on a timeline composing process. You will import the audio and image clips—you can also import video—and then layer them in a sequence using the timeline. I will go over the process in class, but you will need to experiment to learn to work the programs. The main skills you will need to emphasize are timing, sequencing, and integrating text into the collage.

Successful video collages will

• Demonstrate a thoughtful treatment of the topic. Again, you will want to ensure that the topic lends itself to multimedia representation. Viewers should finish the video with a sense that it has spoken to them meaningfully about a literary work or issue, that it has taken them on an interpreting journey, or that it has illuminated work done in the class.

• Appropriately use materials. We will be making our collages public, so we must respect intellectual property concerns. You need to use no more than 30 seconds of any copyright-protected song. You also need to list all of the sources you use in your credits.

• Smoothly integrate relevant images, sounds, and text. Begin with an idea for a video collage. Select images, videos, or sounds that convey ideas related to your topic. Work with the composing process to sequence and layer all of the elements together artfully.

To think about copyright you might look at an

(IP Issues Video)

Some examples: Emo, Protests, JackJam, Such Great Heights

http://www.unc.edu/~fujita/fujitavc.wmv

http://www.unc.edu/~mclare/mclarenvc.wmv

Here are the instructions for submitting the mid-term portfolio of your
work:

First, a bit about the goals of the portfolio. The portfolio serves two
main purposes: 1.) to drive continued revision of your projects, and 2.)
to promote reflection on what you have learned as a writer and thinker
in the class. To demonstrate your strengths in these areas, you'll need
to compose reflections about all of the materials that you submit.

The portfolio is also meant to create a representation of your work and
learning as a whole in the class. To this end, you will need to write a
cover letter that reflects on the entire body of your work
and on your progression as a thinker and writer for the class. For the
portfolio letter, you should know that portfolios work well at
demonstrating learning, growth, effort, and excellence in the final
products of your work. Your letter, then, can serve to educate readers
of the portfolio about the materials you have collected in terms of
these kinds of criteria. Additionally, for my own sense of teaching, I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on the methodologies of the course and on issues of creativity and internal/external motivation.

Finally, since the portfolio serves as a hub that leads to a collection
of other materials, you will want to ensure that the materials that you
link to are cleaned up and contain all the necesseary elements for each
assignment--lists of sources, short descriptions, links to all
revisions, etc.

To submit your portfolio, follow these steps. First, you may want to
look at some of the portfolios from other classes. These portfolios
represent the final work that has been turned in, so they include more
items, but they should give you an idea of what a portfolio can look
like

Here is a collection of portfolios from another literature class.

To begin the writing process of your portfolio, you will need to create
a blog posting and then compose reflections in the posting while
creating links to your materials. You will also need to revise your
materials and include discussion of your revisions in the portfolio.
Here is a breakdown of what you can submit for now:

Revise and resubmit your playlist. Begin by looking over the playlists
of your peers and getting a sense of what makes a playlist excellent.
Think about what will make your playlist stronger, and then open the
playlist blog entry, and then select all of the text. Create a new blog entry, paste the text into the entry, and then begin the revision of the playlist.

Find the links to your work with "The Yellow Wallpaper" scholarly text.

Submit your collages. Look at the collages of your classmates. Think about what will make your own collages stronger. We will revise them later in the semester.

Find the best three postings to the blog that you have made for every
week except the first week of class (2 for week one). Note that these can also include comments that you have made about the work of others.

Once you have revised the playlist, identified your wiki postings, posted your collages and collected
the blog postings, you are ready to work on the portfolio.

Open a new blog message and title it Portfolio. Select the Portfolio
option in the Assignment pulldown category menu. In the message, make a
link to your playlist draft and revision--open the playlist entry to get the
address. After you have made the link, write a reflection on
the composing of the playlist. Think about what you learned related to
the subject of the playlist. Think about what you learned related to
writing and communication. What did you learn personally from the
assignment? Think about how this item fits with the larger message you
want to get across in your portfolio. Add any other thoughts on the
assignment. Also discuss any revisions you have made and why you made
them.

Next, make a link to your annotations for "The Yellow Wallpaper." Find and create links to the eight glosses you have worked on--you'll want to make sure that the glosses are in good shape, as well. Reflect on what you have learned about the story by participating in the process of creating the wiki version of the text. Share your thoughts on the work you have done and the project as a whole in terms of the points you wish to make in your portfolio. Share any additional thoughts you have about the project.

Next, make a link to your collage drafts, and then write a reflection on the work. What have you learned about your subject and what
can you say about the assignment and writing? What will you do to revise
the collages? How does it fit with the message of your portfolio? What else stands out about the project?

Next, make links to your blog postings, and then write a few sentences
reflecting on these postings.

Finally write the cover letter reflecting on the portfolio that you
are submitting. What would you like to say about the entire body of work
that you are submitting? What thoughts do you have about writing so far
this semester. What have you learned about literature? What
goals might you have for the rest of the semester? What else can you say
about your work? What can you say about the learning processes you have experienced? Think about the goals for the portfolio--demonstrating effort, learning, growth, and excellence.

When you have collected and reflected on everything, submit the
posting--you may want to submit it as you work several times to save
your thoughts.

In this assignment we will work together to create an online scholarly edition of a literary text. Our edition will vary somewhat from what you might find in typical versions of texts in that we will embed intepretations into the text; most editions merely provide contextual and editorial notes, which we will also offer.

To create the online text, we will use wiki software. The software allows anyone to edit the text of the story. As you edit the text, you will also make links from phrases that call for either interpretive or editorial glosses. To make a link, you simply type two brackets before and after the phrase: [[a link]]. Then, you can follow the link and edit the new page to add the content.

We will also make use of the discussion page related to each link. The software allows us to continually and collaboratively edit each gloss, but it might be best to move much of the behind the scenes negotiating about interpretations to the discussion pages.

To begin you should go to the Yellow Wallpaper Text. Use the link at the top to create an account and then log in. You can then begin adding glosses to the story.

To compose glosses, you should first know the requirements of the assignment. You need to post/participate in the development of at least eight glosses. Of these eight at least two (and not more than four) must be a new gloss that you create and add to the text. Participation in the development of a gloss will involve either creating the initial annotation, and then following the discussion and refinement of the page that develops, or joining in the development of existing glosses. This joining might focus primarily on discussing the page under development, or you might take a hand in editing and revising the page.

Additionally, at least one of the glosses you create or participate in should involve some form of literary research that you contribute. You can conduct research online/using the library. You can research the author or "The Yellow Wallpaper" or you can look more broadly into theoretical approaches or the historical contexts of the story. Be sure to keep track of any sources that you use so that you can include them on the pages.

You will need to add your first gloss to the story or begin participating in the development of a gloss by the beginning of class on Thursday the 21st of February.

Here is the address of our Yellow Wallpaper Site:

http://www.teachmix.com/litwiki/index.php?title=The_Yellow_Wallpaper

Here are the instructions for uploading your collages:

In the GIMP program, go to the File menu and select Save As.

In the dialog box that opens up, open the Select File Type option.

Choose the Jpeg format, and then save the collage somewhere you can find it.

Choose the Create content option on our blog, and then select Image.

On the next screen, select a gallery where you can upload the image.

Enter a brief explanation for your collage, and then paste in all of the sources you have used for your images.

Choose the the image to upload and then submit the posting.

Before we get too far along on our collages, I'd like to discuss some aspects of images that might be helpful. We will use some sample images:

Black and White

The Waiting Room

Train Station

And, more collages