Thanks again for a great semester. (I feel like I'm just now catching my breath.)
I've been wanting to teach a course like that for years, and you guys helped make it a reality. I hope it's a benefit to you in the long run, and it was a pleasure to get to know all of you.
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Friday, May 6, 2011
Deadline Extension!
Some of you already made extension arrangements; those still stand.
Breathe Easy: Someone asked me if we have a final exam next week. Um, no. Thankfully.
Link: One guy playing various parts from Season Five of The Wire. Seems weird at first, but it works. Acting! Links here and here.
Announcement: Grades have been finalized and sent for the 9:00 section. Thanks for your patience. Should be about another 24 hours for the 10:30 grades.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Late Night Thoughts
On moving from first to final draft of a research paper...
1) If any sensible person would agree with the point you're making, what is the purpose of you arguing it?
2) Are you using the source because it presents an argument you want to consider in detail, intellectually engage with, agree, disagree, twist, reframe, etc? (A friend, enemy, frenemy, etc.) Or are you using the source as a plug-in for a certain fact or view you're already convinced to argue? Not to be a prude, but nothing but one-night-stands does not make a great dating life.
3) Notice how those previous two points go together. If you take one of those "off the rack" book report topics like, to cite a general template, "Social Problem X Exists and Is Bad", then you are disagreeing with basically nobody. So then when you go to the party, you're not really looking to meet anyone you'll want to see after tomorrow morning. You just look for those plug-in sources.
And yet somehow I still manage to keep this job. So far.
Another, less innuendo-laden metaphor would be Carver not actually knowing any of the kids in the neighborhood he is policing with his "rip and run" style. As discussed in this article.
On a related note, please include either page numbers for MLA style or year dates for APA style within your parenthetical citations!
1) If any sensible person would agree with the point you're making, what is the purpose of you arguing it?
2) Are you using the source because it presents an argument you want to consider in detail, intellectually engage with, agree, disagree, twist, reframe, etc? (A friend, enemy, frenemy, etc.) Or are you using the source as a plug-in for a certain fact or view you're already convinced to argue? Not to be a prude, but nothing but one-night-stands does not make a great dating life.
3) Notice how those previous two points go together. If you take one of those "off the rack" book report topics like, to cite a general template, "Social Problem X Exists and Is Bad", then you are disagreeing with basically nobody. So then when you go to the party, you're not really looking to meet anyone you'll want to see after tomorrow morning. You just look for those plug-in sources.
And yet somehow I still manage to keep this job. So far.
Another, less innuendo-laden metaphor would be Carver not actually knowing any of the kids in the neighborhood he is policing with his "rip and run" style. As discussed in this article.
On a related note, please include either page numbers for MLA style or year dates for APA style within your parenthetical citations!
Updated Grade Spreadsheet: Here. But only updated to 7:00pm on Thursday night.
Research Lab #8 post-game and reminders for next week
Thanks for sharing your thoughts today, thanks for a great semester, and best luck in your future pursuits! I will be in the same office until at least December, and my email will last as long as Google does, so keep in touch.
Reminder: I will be responding to the essay drafts in "first in first out" order. Make sure you include your three questions, as this will guide my response. The turnaround time should be about 24 hours. Please email me again if you think I missed you somehow. Remember that these comments are not meant to be comprehensive! You guys are doing well but a lot of you have kind of a glued-together annotated bibliography so far, so there is a lot more to do past the first draft.
Reminder: Final drafts due by Google Docs or email by Sunday night, unless you schedule with me otherwise ASAP.
Clarification(s): A document containing the updated grade spreadsheet will be here later tonight. For those experiencing peer review holdups (giver or receiver), just email me tonight and I'll do my best to fix it.
Clarification: Sorry this got rushed in class, so I'm writing a note here to put my thoughts in order. About conventions for titles for academic papers, there is usually a one-part format or a two-part format. In the two-part format you have more flexibility with the first part to be a bit more creative/informal/general, and then the second part is the more hardcore research part. Usually you want that part of the title to be somehow expressive of the precise topic, or better yet the method or thesis.
Now as to conclusions. I said that the first part of a conclusion is usually reiterative of the thesis, and the second part usually answers the questions "what's next." In they say I say terms, this means explaining how future researchers may extend/rework/rethink/reapply/critique your ideas toward investigating the same topic or a related topic. Or how the research could somehow be applied in the real world. So you're basically setting up your next "they" to follow after you. To put things in more wacky terms, think of the essay as a sort of journey that you've guided a reader through from start to finish. You've circled back around to where you started, but like Odysseus, McNulty, or Bella (?) you're not the same as when you started and you now have a capacity to think about things in a new way, ask further questions, propose a new speculative argument, research direction, or application, etc. I often picture it like this; NASA uses the orbital gravity of the sun or Jupiter to slingshot satellites into deep space using less fuel. So circle around and then launch further outward; conclusions allow you to be more speculative after being disciplined throughout the paper.
Just In Case: Of the several things I forgot to say today, this might be the most important. Because I enjoyed working with you guys, and because I realize that many of your classes are quite big and you don't often have true personal interactions with the professors, feel free to ask me for any recommendation letters you may need in the future. You're always better off to ask a more established professor or boss within the actual field/discipline/workplace etc. that you're applying for, but oftentimes I wind up being the wild card type recommender, and I'm happy to do so.
Link: I think Bill Simmons peaked as a writer in 2004 and I find him increasingly tedious, and would also like to go all Sophie Jones on his a**, but given that many of you are sports fans and Wire fans, you might enjoy this.
More Things I Forgot Will Inevitable Go Here Later...
Method Man lies. He actually auditioned for Writing 302H professor first, and I was going to play Cheese, but David Simon changed his mind at the last minute.
Reminder: I will be responding to the essay drafts in "first in first out" order. Make sure you include your three questions, as this will guide my response. The turnaround time should be about 24 hours. Please email me again if you think I missed you somehow. Remember that these comments are not meant to be comprehensive! You guys are doing well but a lot of you have kind of a glued-together annotated bibliography so far, so there is a lot more to do past the first draft.
Reminder: Final drafts due by Google Docs or email by Sunday night, unless you schedule with me otherwise ASAP.
Clarification(s): A document containing the updated grade spreadsheet will be here later tonight. For those experiencing peer review holdups (giver or receiver), just email me tonight and I'll do my best to fix it.
Clarification: Sorry this got rushed in class, so I'm writing a note here to put my thoughts in order. About conventions for titles for academic papers, there is usually a one-part format or a two-part format. In the two-part format you have more flexibility with the first part to be a bit more creative/informal/general, and then the second part is the more hardcore research part. Usually you want that part of the title to be somehow expressive of the precise topic, or better yet the method or thesis.
Bad: "Needle In a Haystack"
Bad: "So That's Where Bin Laden Was. Huh."
Better: "New Investigative Tactics in Terrorist Counterinsurgency"
Best: "Satellite Forensics as a New Investigative Tool for Terrorist Counterinsurgency"
Best: "A Quantitative Analysis of the Counterinsurgency Applications of Satellite Forensics"
Best: "A Dance Suite Exploring the Counterinsurgency Applications of Satellite Forensics"
Best: "Satellite Forensics as a Complement to Interrogation in Terrorist Counterinsurgency Operations"
Other Best: "Needle In a Haystack - Satellite Forensics as a New Investigative Tool for Terrorist Counterinsurgency"
Other Best: "Needle In a Haystack - A Quantitative Analysis of the Counterinsurgency Applications of Satellite Forensics"
Other Best: "Needle In a Haystack - A Dance Suite Exploring the Counterinsurgency Applications of Satellite Forensics"
Other Best: "Needle In a Haystack - Satellite Forensics as a Complement to Interrogation in Terrorist Counterinsurgency Operations"
Now as to conclusions. I said that the first part of a conclusion is usually reiterative of the thesis, and the second part usually answers the questions "what's next." In they say I say terms, this means explaining how future researchers may extend/rework/rethink/reapply/critique your ideas toward investigating the same topic or a related topic. Or how the research could somehow be applied in the real world. So you're basically setting up your next "they" to follow after you. To put things in more wacky terms, think of the essay as a sort of journey that you've guided a reader through from start to finish. You've circled back around to where you started, but like Odysseus, McNulty, or Bella (?) you're not the same as when you started and you now have a capacity to think about things in a new way, ask further questions, propose a new speculative argument, research direction, or application, etc. I often picture it like this; NASA uses the orbital gravity of the sun or Jupiter to slingshot satellites into deep space using less fuel. So circle around and then launch further outward; conclusions allow you to be more speculative after being disciplined throughout the paper.
Just In Case: Of the several things I forgot to say today, this might be the most important. Because I enjoyed working with you guys, and because I realize that many of your classes are quite big and you don't often have true personal interactions with the professors, feel free to ask me for any recommendation letters you may need in the future. You're always better off to ask a more established professor or boss within the actual field/discipline/workplace etc. that you're applying for, but oftentimes I wind up being the wild card type recommender, and I'm happy to do so.
Link: I think Bill Simmons peaked as a writer in 2004 and I find him increasingly tedious, and would also like to go all Sophie Jones on his a**, but given that many of you are sports fans and Wire fans, you might enjoy this.
More Things I Forgot Will Inevitable Go Here Later...
Method Man lies. He actually auditioned for Writing 302H professor first, and I was going to play Cheese, but David Simon changed his mind at the last minute.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Research Lab #7 post-game and reminders for Wednesday
Peer Review Exercise: For full credit on the remaining portion of the class participation grade, you need to do this twice, meaning for two different classmates. See the white space below. Depending on our timing on Monday, that might mean finishing at home. To make sure your work gets properly counted, please co-share me on your Google Doc, or c.c. me on your email correspondence. If you are short a partner and did not have an opportunity to give/receive two reviews, please email me ASAP and I can get you a partner in the same situation from the other class section. Same thing if you missed class due to illness, celebration, or a secret mission to Pakistan.
Bookkeeping: As soon as all this draft and peer review stuff gets sorted out, like Wednesday afternoon, I will be reposting the grade spreadsheet so everyone knows where they stand going into the final research paper deadline.
More Bookkeeping: The English department is asking 302 students to take this survey.
Reminder: Once you are able to absorb the advice from your classmates and get a chance to incorporate some of it, you then have the opportunity to ask me up to three questions about your draft. I will answer these in the order received, so regardless of whether you sent me a draft document Sunday night / Monday morning, please share or send a new document by Wednesday night at 9pm with your three questions at the top (even if it's just the same one over again). Please make the questions as specific as possible. I am not likely to give substantive answers to questions like, "What do you think about this essay?" or "How is my organization," etc. It helps to give me forced distributions, like, "Which needs more of my attention, X or Y?" Or, "I am looking for a solution to this particular dilemma, do you think A, B, or C would be best?" It also helps you to be more specific like that because it allows you to reflect more.
An Important Clarification: Your research essay needs to have a bibliography, or works cited, or endnotes, or footnotes, or in more basic terms a list of the books/articles/sources that it refers to. My statement that you do not need to include an annotated bibliography has led to some confusion. I meant that for your final draft, you don't need to include the annotations, meaning the paragraph of notes after each bibliographic entry. You do need to include the bibliographic citations themselves. Moreover, it is standard practice (and required practice within both MLA and APA styles) to include parenthetical citations within the body of your text that guide your reader to figure out what part of your list of sources you're actually referring to at any given time. In other words, if Jones did a study of laser guns, and you talk about it on page two of your essay, it's not enough to just put this study in your list of sources at the end. You also want to refer to it on page two so that your reader knows that's where that specific information came from.
Demonstration Thereof:
Sorry, the laser gun thing is an inside joke from last semester. We were brainstorming topics and one kid said (possibly serious about it) that he wanted to write about laser guns, so I used that for the model.
This is my paper about laser guns. Laser guns are awesome and totally not made up and everyone should have one and shoot it, like, all the time. Because of the previous mentioned awesomeness. Of course some skeptics say that this would be dangerous, but I think if they had laser guns they would stop drinking that haterade.
The laser gun was invented by Martha Laser, as detailed in her autobiography (Laser 245-47). But it was not commercialized until several years later (Jones 111) and, as Chen notes, "it would take another decade before every man, woman, and child had one" (Chen 57). The awesomeness of the laser gun was immediately evident to everyone who bought one, because you could use it to shoot all kinds of different stuff and, like, totally vaporize it all to s***. There have even been some cases in which laser guns were used to vaporize other laser guns (Von Schmelberg and Neumann 437). Don't bend your mind into a pretzel trying to figure out how awesome that is, just accept it, OK?
On the other hand, the laser gun has always had its critics. Ironically, it was Laser herself who became the most outspoken of these. "I never thought when I invented the laser gun," she writes, "that people would use them to settle petty disputes like the tip on a restaurant bill, or being cut off in traffic, or a grievance against grades given in college writing courses" (Laser 398). Some of the most noteworthy critical voices of the 30s were mysteriously vaporized (Chen 63). Which could happen to anyone, really, when you think about it.
In conclusion, this has been the greatest essay ever. Ahem.
Bibliography:
Chen, Norbert. A Brief History of Laser Guns and Their Use in the Corn Wars. Polyface Press:
Swoope, 2072.
Jones, Janelle-Monae. "It Took Several Years to Commercialize The Laser Gun." Laser Gun Theory 25.3
(2071): 111-24.
Laser, Martha. My Bad, Y'all. New York: Random House, 2046.
Nehemiah Von Schmelberg and Vustagus Neumann. "Don't Think We Didn't Try It. It's Not Easy to Decide
Who Is the Lead Author for These Studies." Advanced Studies in Trucknuts and Related Post-Industrial Semiotics
8.1 (2071): 6-23.
Bookkeeping: As soon as all this draft and peer review stuff gets sorted out, like Wednesday afternoon, I will be reposting the grade spreadsheet so everyone knows where they stand going into the final research paper deadline.
More Bookkeeping: The English department is asking 302 students to take this survey.
Ideas
1. Mark the thesis statement, or whatever seems most like a thesis statement, in green highlight. Then write a logical reversal. (E.g. I say we should leave no child behind.. ---> I say we should leave all the children behind.)
2. Imagine for the moment that you are David Simon, and also that you just got a parking ticket. This has put you in a bad mood and reminded you how tired you are of people misinterpreting and misapplying your ideas, or just using you as their general purpose guru or strawman for arguments that don't even really relate to The Wire. Explain why you simply aren't interested to read the essay.
3. Mark the method statement, or whatever seems most like a method statement, in italicized green typeface. Now, remember when we used the "I don't mean X, but rather Y" template? You want to complete a template like that for the writer here, in the rough form of, "Although method X would be a good way to explore/prove this thesis, method Y is better/more practical." If I'm not being clear, method Y is the one they are actually already using and method X is one they have (implicitly) opted against.
4. Play devil's advocate and disagree with at least one of the sub-arguments introduced after the introduction. Explain why.
Argument
5. Mark the best paragraph transition in light blue. Write these words next to it: "You earnt dat bump like a mahfucka."
6. Mark the paragraph transition that needs the most work, probably the one that is currently the weakest but perhaps just the one that is the most important, in dark blue. Rewrite the sentence, or try to indicate what the appropriate logic might be.
7. What is one area of minor focus in the essay that could expand into an area of major focus?
8. What is one area of major focus in the essay that could contract into an area of minor focus?
Language
9. Mark the best written sentence in the essay in yellow. Write these words next to it: "Natural po-lice!"
10. Mark at least one sentence in orange (or gold) that isn't clear to you or doesn't express its meaning as well as it could.
11. Mark at least one sentence in red that seems to carry a tone inappropriate to the audience, perhaps overly formal or overly casual.
12. Mark at least one sentence in gray that does not grammatically incorporate a quotation as well as it could. If you can't find one suitable for this, find a sentence that doesn't grammatically incorporate a fact/statistic/idea from a research source as well as it could.
Research
13. Mark each sentence in violet that appears to need a resource citation, but does not currently have one.
14. Mark each sentence in purple that relies too heavily on a weaker source without providing adequate disclaimer/context.
15. Provide at least two database search strings that might help find a couple of "icing on the cake" sources. It would help if you could target this to an area you identified in question #7 or question #13.
16. Not specifically a research question, but I'm sticking it here at the end. Formulate one specific question you would ask Aaron about this essay if you were the writer. See Reminder below for guidelines.
Reminder: Once you are able to absorb the advice from your classmates and get a chance to incorporate some of it, you then have the opportunity to ask me up to three questions about your draft. I will answer these in the order received, so regardless of whether you sent me a draft document Sunday night / Monday morning, please share or send a new document by Wednesday night at 9pm with your three questions at the top (even if it's just the same one over again). Please make the questions as specific as possible. I am not likely to give substantive answers to questions like, "What do you think about this essay?" or "How is my organization," etc. It helps to give me forced distributions, like, "Which needs more of my attention, X or Y?" Or, "I am looking for a solution to this particular dilemma, do you think A, B, or C would be best?" It also helps you to be more specific like that because it allows you to reflect more.
An Important Clarification: Your research essay needs to have a bibliography, or works cited, or endnotes, or footnotes, or in more basic terms a list of the books/articles/sources that it refers to. My statement that you do not need to include an annotated bibliography has led to some confusion. I meant that for your final draft, you don't need to include the annotations, meaning the paragraph of notes after each bibliographic entry. You do need to include the bibliographic citations themselves. Moreover, it is standard practice (and required practice within both MLA and APA styles) to include parenthetical citations within the body of your text that guide your reader to figure out what part of your list of sources you're actually referring to at any given time. In other words, if Jones did a study of laser guns, and you talk about it on page two of your essay, it's not enough to just put this study in your list of sources at the end. You also want to refer to it on page two so that your reader knows that's where that specific information came from.
Demonstration Thereof:
Sorry, the laser gun thing is an inside joke from last semester. We were brainstorming topics and one kid said (possibly serious about it) that he wanted to write about laser guns, so I used that for the model.
This is my paper about laser guns. Laser guns are awesome and totally not made up and everyone should have one and shoot it, like, all the time. Because of the previous mentioned awesomeness. Of course some skeptics say that this would be dangerous, but I think if they had laser guns they would stop drinking that haterade.
The laser gun was invented by Martha Laser, as detailed in her autobiography (Laser 245-47). But it was not commercialized until several years later (Jones 111) and, as Chen notes, "it would take another decade before every man, woman, and child had one" (Chen 57). The awesomeness of the laser gun was immediately evident to everyone who bought one, because you could use it to shoot all kinds of different stuff and, like, totally vaporize it all to s***. There have even been some cases in which laser guns were used to vaporize other laser guns (Von Schmelberg and Neumann 437). Don't bend your mind into a pretzel trying to figure out how awesome that is, just accept it, OK?
On the other hand, the laser gun has always had its critics. Ironically, it was Laser herself who became the most outspoken of these. "I never thought when I invented the laser gun," she writes, "that people would use them to settle petty disputes like the tip on a restaurant bill, or being cut off in traffic, or a grievance against grades given in college writing courses" (Laser 398). Some of the most noteworthy critical voices of the 30s were mysteriously vaporized (Chen 63). Which could happen to anyone, really, when you think about it.
In conclusion, this has been the greatest essay ever. Ahem.
Bibliography:
Chen, Norbert. A Brief History of Laser Guns and Their Use in the Corn Wars. Polyface Press:
Swoope, 2072.
Jones, Janelle-Monae. "It Took Several Years to Commercialize The Laser Gun." Laser Gun Theory 25.3
(2071): 111-24.
Laser, Martha. My Bad, Y'all. New York: Random House, 2046.
Nehemiah Von Schmelberg and Vustagus Neumann. "Don't Think We Didn't Try It. It's Not Easy to Decide
Who Is the Lead Author for These Studies." Advanced Studies in Trucknuts and Related Post-Industrial Semiotics
8.1 (2071): 6-23.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Research Lab #6 post-game and reminders for the weekend
Announcement: I don't have plans to be in my office after 2:00 this afternoon, so if you want to see me later in the afternoon please email to make an appointment and I'll stay for you.
Lab Exercise: Evaluate the two sample essays according to letter grades in the following categories... Ideas, Argument, Language, Research.
Sample 1
Sample 2
Lab Exercise: Concept map or paragraph outline of your research essay.
Reminder: Make sure your first draft is ready for peer review during Monday's class!
Clarification: Your first draft needs a bibliography. Whether it's annotated or not is your choice; eventually you will remove these.
Link: Another former Baltimore city cop makes an unusual argument to draw attention to the dysfunctionality of our current prison system... here is the Amazon link in case that article doesn't load... the book is called In Defense of Flogging
Lab Exercise: Evaluate the two sample essays according to letter grades in the following categories... Ideas, Argument, Language, Research.
Sample 1
Sample 2
Lab Exercise: Concept map or paragraph outline of your research essay.
Reminder: Make sure your first draft is ready for peer review during Monday's class!
Clarification: Your first draft needs a bibliography. Whether it's annotated or not is your choice; eventually you will remove these.
Link: Another former Baltimore city cop makes an unusual argument to draw attention to the dysfunctionality of our current prison system... here is the Amazon link in case that article doesn't load... the book is called In Defense of Flogging
Monday, April 25, 2011
Research Lab #5 post-game and reminders for Wednesday
Exercise #1: Personals ad. In keeping with the dating metaphor I used last week, imagine the perfect research source or "soulmate," the one with all of the wonderful qualities that your present sources lack. The one who completes you and brings fulfillment to your research life. Or at least fills in some of the gaps that the others are currently missing. Try to think about what this ideal source would be like, and write a few sentences of description. This ought to make it easier to do one last round of database searching. Post to the comments below.
Exercise #2: Most of you are having what Marlo called "one of them good problems," namely too many good ideas from your research sources. I recommend that you create a simple list with two columns, one of which is your Major sub-topics, and the other your Minor sub-topics. If you are successfully analyzing major topics in a research paper, the appropriate move to mark off a minor topic is something like: "This also leads us to consider XYZ. Unfortunately a full consideration of XYZ falls outside the scope of this study, but in general we can say ABC. Someone surely ought to study XYZ in more detail. Anyhow, getting back to my main topic..."
Reminders: Make sure you have all of your citations and annotations available for Wednesday's class. We will be creating outlines for the upcoming draft.
Link: Have you heard about the Three Cups of Tea guy? It's kind of like, what if Scott Templeton started a charity?
Exercise #2: Most of you are having what Marlo called "one of them good problems," namely too many good ideas from your research sources. I recommend that you create a simple list with two columns, one of which is your Major sub-topics, and the other your Minor sub-topics. If you are successfully analyzing major topics in a research paper, the appropriate move to mark off a minor topic is something like: "This also leads us to consider XYZ. Unfortunately a full consideration of XYZ falls outside the scope of this study, but in general we can say ABC. Someone surely ought to study XYZ in more detail. Anyhow, getting back to my main topic..."
Reminders: Make sure you have all of your citations and annotations available for Wednesday's class. We will be creating outlines for the upcoming draft.
Link: Have you heard about the Three Cups of Tea guy? It's kind of like, what if Scott Templeton started a charity?
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Research Lab #4 post-game and reminders for the weekend
Apology section: 1/3 of you got your essay #2 grades Thursday night, 1/3 will get them by sunrise on Saturday, and the remaining 1/3 by
For those who missed class Wednesday, here are the two exercises we did.
1) Search Term Scattergories... explain your project to a partner, and have her come up with at least 10 search strings (words or phrases) that you haven't thought of yet.
2) Thesis Formation... again, explain your project to a partner, and have her write a they say I say style thesis for you. She'll be less hesitant to commit than you are since it isn't her project.
Important: If anyone is having off-campus library access issues, let me know. Most other research problems are pretty easy to fix at this point by using a better subject area database, a better search string, a subject specialist librarian, or a slight shift to the topic. Oh, and do not rely on those Mason e-links embedded in your database search hits. Take the journal title and put it back into the E-Journal search on the front page of the library site. That always seems to work better.
Iffy thesis model: Most people think topic X is one way, but I say it's another way.
Why iffy? Because this is a research paper. What "most people" think is nothing more than a starting point. We are looking for different theys within whatever research community(ies) you've chosen.
Better thesis model: Most people think topic X is one way, but I say it's another way. A growing body of research literature backs this up, but within that research we find many different models/controversies/differences of viewpoint. Some favor explanation A, some favor explanation B, and some favor explanation C. Each of these is compelling, but I will argue that B seems to be the most useful way of framing the issue.
Other better thesis model: Most people think topic X is one way, but I say it's another way. The research literature about topic A backs this up, as does the research literature about topic B and topic C. These ideas naturally fit together, but their convergence has not been well recognized or well stated, so I want to show how they can combine to form a good model for understanding the topic.
Actual student example of better thesis: The common consensus among educational researchers and scholars today is that methods of tracking and ability grouping negatively impact students, especially those that would be considered to be grouped in the “lower” track. I agree that the the methods used for grouping students may have been skewed in the past, such as for racist reasons, and that even today, ability grouping may be just as harmful to
students and educators as tracking once was. Jo Worthy, former elementary and middle school teacher and present University professor, believes that there is no foundational difference between tracking and ability grouping, and that, as she refers to in one of her scholarly articles, “only the names have changed.” On the other hand, methodological studies from organizations such as the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness and the Journal of Education Research have found some positive correlation between within class ability grouping and elementary reading achievement. Tracking has been strongly related to the negative view of tracking, there is much controversy on whether or not implementing ability grouping in today’s school systems would create more harm than help. After further research, I agree with researchers such as Jeannie Oakes, one of the founder of the great tracking debate, but argue that at some level, within class ability grouping for elementary learners may be particularly helpful when teaching foundational subjects such as reading. Aaron's meany-pants footnote: All studies are methodological because all studies use methods. So that word doesn't really mean anything the way she's using it.
Reminder: All Thursday and Friday proposal conferences are in SciTech II, room 008. Please arrive 5 minutes early and please make sure that both you and I can read your proposal at the same time.
Reminder: By Monday you need to be up to 15 total sources with at least 10 of those annotated. For those who want to reverse an incomplete grade on the proposal, I will let you resubmit a new proposal on Monday, but for full credit it needs to be caught up to speed to the 10/15 point rather than just this week's 5/10 point.
Link: For those working on education related research projects, this is an interesting article about Obama's civil rights watchdog in the U.S. Education Department.
Link: David Simon gets himself tangled up in a real live city planning controversy in New Orleans.
Because Google Docs Keeps Defying Me: Here is the proposal template in PDF, and also the conference schedule.
Dear Anonymous Rate My Professor Commenter or Commenters: Although your appraisal that I "relish the sound of [my] own voice, ooze arrogance, cut people off to talk more about [my]self" and that my class is a "boring" place where students "learn very little" because of my "extremely irritating... ego" is the single most negative thing anyone has said about my teaching in eight years, I have to admit that at my worst moments this is disturbingly true. Especially the cutting people off point, which I struggle with, and which my wife is constantly smacking me for. So I thank you for this bracing look in the mirror. However I do want to take issue with your comment that the course is somehow not appropriate for English majors. The course is not an English course; it is a required writing course for everyone on campus which just happens to live in the English department and be staffed by the English department. So I think you may misunderstand what the course is. Further, for you to complain, of all things, that the scene analysis exercise doesn't help you develop skills related to your English major is surely your most bizarre and unexpected twist. I am not clear what English majors do other than try to link detailed analysis of the technical features of an artistic creation to some kind of broader historical or theoretical framework that might explain them and be explained by them. So that really threw me for a loop. I was kind of expecting you to say, "what does any of this have to do with writing?" or "why the unrealistic workload?" Which are the more cutting criticisms, and the more fair ones, though I am doing my best to address them this month. I also hope you will reconsider your non-chili pepper rating in light of today's festive spring wardrobe, but here again you may be maintaining a tough but fair appraisal. In conclusion, and with all intended irony, what the fuck did I do?
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Research Lab #3 post-game and reminders for Wednesday
As I said in the 9:00 class, the frustrating thing about research is that you want it to be 100% efficient and it just isn't. You run into many dead ends and have to take a step back. This is a normal part of the process, so don't feel like you're doing something wrong if it doesn't all go according to plan. I compared this wasteful aspect of the research process to what happens at Pfizer and Merck and all the other big pharmaceutical companies that employ scientists to do laboratory research... most of what they do never winds up being a successful product, but there's no other way to get there. So maybe out of the first 10 sources you come across in a database search, only 3 have good potential for your bibliography. Go back, change your search terms, use a different database, follow the forward and backward bibliographic chains. Then maybe you get 10 really good ones, but a few days later you're feeling stranger danger on a couple of those because your topic has shifted, and you also feel like there's something new about the topic you want to know, so you go back for more sources. That's just how it works.
Reminder: Wednesday's class will be devoted mainly to a thesis workshop, though anyone can always come forward and share his/her research troubles with the group, Bubbles style.
Link: This is the list of library infoguides with the subject specialist librarians highlighted in blue.
Apology: Essay #2 grades have not been posted, so you can stop hitting refresh on Google Docs. I had to go to NY
Random: Interview with Wendell Pierce (Bunk Moreland).
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Research Lab #2 post-game and reminders for the weekend
Thanks for your attentiveness yesterday. I know it's a dry subject, albeit an important one.
If you missed class, you missed a lot, but this video on popular vs. scholarly sources and this website on primary vs. secondary sources will cover some of it.
Homework: Find 5 good research sources that really fit your topic. This might mean browsing through a lot of other ones first. Don't forget the "forward" and "backward" methods of bibliography surfing I showed you, and also recycling/rearranging keywords found at the bottom of database search hits. You need to have these available for Monday's class, so make a Google Doc, or email them to yourself, or put them on a flash drive, or post them to the course blog, or whatever.
Homework: They Say I Say doesn't cover research, so I am giving you two additional chapters from another book. Read both of them: part 1, part 2.
Other Useful Research Links:
-Main GMU library site
-Databases by discipline/subject
-When you find the articles you want, put the title of the journal here to look for an online copy.
-Google Scholar
Reminder: Don't forget to look at the topic and question brainstorms your classmates generated on Monday & Tuesday. There are a lot of good ideas in there. Just click on the comments to the next post, and they're all posted there.
Reminder: You have all been shared to a Google Doc called "302-grades-nonames." Make sure you can open it, and double check your essay #1 grade. I made at least one transcription error.
Clarification: Because I stressed that the research paper needs to have a true thesis and argument instead of just being a 'book report' compiling information from sources, some of you have expressed concern to me about the need for originality. The truth is that originality, and original research in particular, are very rare things in this world. Synthesizing, summarizing, reframing, applying, extending, translating something from one context to another... those are all "value-added" research activities, and important ones that make up the bulk of scholarship. Bolts of pure genius striking down from the sky are comparatively rare. That's why I gave you the they-say-I-say model... all you need to do is capture the current nature of a disciplinary conversation about a topic, and nudge it forward the slightest little bit. You don't have to invent the McNugget. One model thesis would be: Some people say X about this topic, and some people say Y, and some people say Z. I am inclined to favor... because... Or perhaps: Some people say X about this topic and some people say Y, but I think both of them are asking the wrong question. What about Z, which other people are saying about a related topic?
Keeping a Promise: I said I would write a summary post to the exercise I gave you guys a couple of weeks back about disciplinary differences in writing tasks and rules. This is becoming all the more salient since you are now going to be writing somewhat different research papers pursuing various disciplinary and interdisciplinary topics. So here's what I found interesting.
-Language rules. Different grammatical and syntactical patterns in English vs. other languages.
-Use of technical terms. This is partly an issue of mastery, but also an issue of audience. Many of you have to switch between technical and non-technical audiences, which can be difficult.
-Detail vs. concision. Many of those entering professional fields expressed this dilemma. It can be hard to find a balance, and you don't deal with this as much in school essays.
-Control of emotional tone. Especially in customer-oriented professions. Someone mentioned the utility of "yes, but" as a rhetorical tactic.
-English majors getting a rude awakening that most of the writing they have to do is analytical rather than creative. (Read the label, ha ha.)
-Reviews of current exhibits/productions. A review is actually somewhat different than an analysis, since it usually contains a judgment of value. You'll notice this is different than the writing I've had you do.
-People in the PR end of the communications field talked about the idea of tailoring for multiple publics, and the importance of persuasion. Persuasion is another task we're not really taking on this semester. It's somewhat different than being convincing about an argument.
-Many of you mentioned the importance of context for various writing tasks. Simon/Burns have hopefully offered an importance lesson about that.
-Evolution of language due to texting, email, etc. How to do this well, but also respect the more formal types of writing. How to switch back and forth.
-In the sciences, the importance of attending to research methodology. I try to put some focus on this area.
-Differing standards by field about the need for 'originality,' and what originality actually means.
If you missed class, you missed a lot, but this video on popular vs. scholarly sources and this website on primary vs. secondary sources will cover some of it.
 |
And then Aaron's 302H research project got _really_ wild. |
Homework: Find 5 good research sources that really fit your topic. This might mean browsing through a lot of other ones first. Don't forget the "forward" and "backward" methods of bibliography surfing I showed you, and also recycling/rearranging keywords found at the bottom of database search hits. You need to have these available for Monday's class, so make a Google Doc, or email them to yourself, or put them on a flash drive, or post them to the course blog, or whatever.
Homework: They Say I Say doesn't cover research, so I am giving you two additional chapters from another book. Read both of them: part 1, part 2.
Other Useful Research Links:
-Main GMU library site
-Databases by discipline/subject
-When you find the articles you want, put the title of the journal here to look for an online copy.
-Google Scholar
Reminder: Don't forget to look at the topic and question brainstorms your classmates generated on Monday & Tuesday. There are a lot of good ideas in there. Just click on the comments to the next post, and they're all posted there.
Reminder: You have all been shared to a Google Doc called "302-grades-nonames." Make sure you can open it, and double check your essay #1 grade. I made at least one transcription error.
Clarification: Because I stressed that the research paper needs to have a true thesis and argument instead of just being a 'book report' compiling information from sources, some of you have expressed concern to me about the need for originality. The truth is that originality, and original research in particular, are very rare things in this world. Synthesizing, summarizing, reframing, applying, extending, translating something from one context to another... those are all "value-added" research activities, and important ones that make up the bulk of scholarship. Bolts of pure genius striking down from the sky are comparatively rare. That's why I gave you the they-say-I-say model... all you need to do is capture the current nature of a disciplinary conversation about a topic, and nudge it forward the slightest little bit. You don't have to invent the McNugget. One model thesis would be: Some people say X about this topic, and some people say Y, and some people say Z. I am inclined to favor... because... Or perhaps: Some people say X about this topic and some people say Y, but I think both of them are asking the wrong question. What about Z, which other people are saying about a related topic?
Keeping a Promise: I said I would write a summary post to the exercise I gave you guys a couple of weeks back about disciplinary differences in writing tasks and rules. This is becoming all the more salient since you are now going to be writing somewhat different research papers pursuing various disciplinary and interdisciplinary topics. So here's what I found interesting.
-Language rules. Different grammatical and syntactical patterns in English vs. other languages.
-Use of technical terms. This is partly an issue of mastery, but also an issue of audience. Many of you have to switch between technical and non-technical audiences, which can be difficult.
-Detail vs. concision. Many of those entering professional fields expressed this dilemma. It can be hard to find a balance, and you don't deal with this as much in school essays.
-Control of emotional tone. Especially in customer-oriented professions. Someone mentioned the utility of "yes, but" as a rhetorical tactic.
-English majors getting a rude awakening that most of the writing they have to do is analytical rather than creative. (Read the label, ha ha.)
-Reviews of current exhibits/productions. A review is actually somewhat different than an analysis, since it usually contains a judgment of value. You'll notice this is different than the writing I've had you do.
-People in the PR end of the communications field talked about the idea of tailoring for multiple publics, and the importance of persuasion. Persuasion is another task we're not really taking on this semester. It's somewhat different than being convincing about an argument.
-Many of you mentioned the importance of context for various writing tasks. Simon/Burns have hopefully offered an importance lesson about that.
-Evolution of language due to texting, email, etc. How to do this well, but also respect the more formal types of writing. How to switch back and forth.
-In the sciences, the importance of attending to research methodology. I try to put some focus on this area.
-Differing standards by field about the need for 'originality,' and what originality actually means.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Research Lab #1 post-game and reminders for Wednesday
For those who missed it, here was today's exercise. You'll see some student examples in the comments to this post and the next post.
I will be making some concrete determinations about the research paper, but it's looking like something in the ballpark of 1500-2000 words & 10-15 cited sources. We will begin with a proposal (150-250 words, 7-10 source bibliography) and personal conference. Proposal will likely be due around April 20th. Final draft will be due around May 8th.
Late Night Note: In case I forget tomorrow. I notice that most of the topics people are choosing are related to social problems and very often social science methodologies. This follows naturally from a connection to The Wire and is wonderful, but I want to emphasize that since this is a humanities section of 302, there are many topics related to art, culture, literature, history, philosophy, etc. etc. that could also be thematically related to The Wire. So don't feel that you are compelled to write about something you don't want to.
Pet Peeve: I have been seeing this in many of the recent essays. "In Lynne Viti's article, "Lawyering and Ethics," she argues that..." This is redundant. In "Lawyering and Ethics," Lynne Viti argues that... Or, Lynne Viti's article "Lawyering and Ethics" argues that...
1a. Potential Topic for research paper
1b. Why does this topic interest you?
1c. How does this topic relate somehow to The Wire?
1d. What are 10 questions about this topic that you'll need to know the answers to if you choose to research it?
2a-2d. Repeat for a second topic
3a-3d. Repeat for a third topic.
I will be making some concrete determinations about the research paper, but it's looking like something in the ballpark of 1500-2000 words & 10-15 cited sources. We will begin with a proposal (150-250 words, 7-10 source bibliography) and personal conference. Proposal will likely be due around April 20th. Final draft will be due around May 8th.
Late Night Note: In case I forget tomorrow. I notice that most of the topics people are choosing are related to social problems and very often social science methodologies. This follows naturally from a connection to The Wire and is wonderful, but I want to emphasize that since this is a humanities section of 302, there are many topics related to art, culture, literature, history, philosophy, etc. etc. that could also be thematically related to The Wire. So don't feel that you are compelled to write about something you don't want to.
Pet Peeve: I have been seeing this in many of the recent essays. "In Lynne Viti's article, "Lawyering and Ethics," she argues that..." This is redundant. In "Lawyering and Ethics," Lynne Viti argues that... Or, Lynne Viti's article "Lawyering and Ethics" argues that...
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Class #19 Post-Game and Reminders for the weekend
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| Your elected officials are more like you than you thought. |
Announcement: All remaining class meetings will be in the Enterprise 420 computer lab. (4/11, 4/13, 4/18, 4/20, 4/25, 4/27, 5/2, 5/4)
Reminder: Final draft of second essay due Tuesday night. Interpret "Tuesday night" freely.
#&*#@^&$: I just learned this whole thing about the Abdi Dahir arrest. You guys are supposed to keep me up to speed on what's happening on campus! How did we not talk about this in class? Just joking, but I'm am mad at myself for missing this: Part 1, Part 2. This may be the one exception to our "not talking about things besides the research paper from now on" rule. And a great topic for the paper as well.
Link: This is a huge story in the world of education. It will also sound all too familiar to viewers of The Wire. Apparently Michele Rhee might have raised the standardized test scores in DC schools by...
Link: Interesting article about the debate over standards for college writing courses.
Link: This article may be most interesting to the journalism/comm. majors, but it's about a larger issue which is the idea of teaching personal branding in a university course and to what extent it is harmonious with other educational goals. The article also uses a familiar metaphor: "the game."
Random: I would encourage any sports fans to think about potential research paper topics in that area. I think mine would be about NBA moms.
Clarification: I mentioned in class that "nounification," the transformation of simple verbs and adjectives into abstract nouns, is often a sign of unconfident or overly formal writing. I realized there is an exception, which is if you want to present a couple of major concepts in an essay. It can be useful to label those by nouns. Like if your thesis is about why protagonists in American pop culture fictions seem to wear leather jackets so often, you could say, "this paper investigates what I'll call the leather jacket effect." So like many other rhetorical devices, nounification is something that works if you do it strategically, but not if you overuse it indiscriminately.
Opportunity: "The George Mason Review is currently hiring students to work as Peer Reviewers on their editorial board. Peer Reviewers are vital members to the board, who evaluate and choose submissions to be published in the journal. These positions will give students the opportunity to work in a professional publication setting – an experience that will look excellent on a resume. Those who are interested, and would like additional information, can contact at Managing Editor Candace Baker, cbaker7_at _masonlive.gmu.edu " This was an email sent to me. Note for clarity: at most colleges a publication ending in "review" usually belongs to whatever student group represents conservatives on campus, but that's not what this is.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Class #18 Post-Game and Reminders for Wednesday
Officer Winter is on stakeout right now in Enterprise 314 until about 4:00. For anyone who wants to talk; I promise Chris & Snoop won't shoot you.
Reminder: Wednesday's class will consist of workshops for transitions and metacommentary, so be sure to read They Say I Say chapters 8 and 10. Even if your essay isn't due until Thursday, you will benefit from coming to class with something reasonably complete. We don't have the lab yet, so you'll want to print out your draft or bring it to class in some other readable form.
Essays Due Tuesday 2pm: Schwartz, Toder, Holmes, Powers, Barney, Regier, Semenov, Baldino, Stevens, Laudiero, Symons, Velazquez, Kim, Garney, Abed, Mailey, Musgrave, Elam
Essays Due Wednesday at the start of class: Moyers, Stockmann, Klein, Annatone, Hagos, Wright, Shahidi, Johnson, Cohen, Ambrosio, Werner, Price, Foreman, Brahim, Taweechaisuntis, Fogg
Essays Due Thursday 2pm: Lawrence, Liggett, Perez, Guevara, Yorgen, Pollack, Peji, Brown, Thacker, Spencer, Bowman
Watch This Space: Since we spent more time on the introductions workshop today, I'll post here about the disciplinary writing discussion.
Opportunity: These are topics we will cover in class this month, but for more depth the Writing Center is giving a workshop on "evaluating and integrating sources" in your research. It meets on Monday, April 11 from 2:30-4:30 pm in Student Union Building II, VIP Room II. There is also a workshop on "citing sources" in the same place and at the same time on Tuesday April 12. To reserve a spot for one or both of the workshops, email wcenter@gmu.edu . Definitely a good idea to attend if it suits your schedule.
Reminder: Wednesday's class will consist of workshops for transitions and metacommentary, so be sure to read They Say I Say chapters 8 and 10. Even if your essay isn't due until Thursday, you will benefit from coming to class with something reasonably complete. We don't have the lab yet, so you'll want to print out your draft or bring it to class in some other readable form.
Essays Due Tuesday 2pm: Schwartz, Toder, Holmes, Powers, Barney, Regier, Semenov, Baldino, Stevens, Laudiero, Symons, Velazquez, Kim, Garney, Abed, Mailey, Musgrave, Elam
Essays Due Wednesday at the start of class: Moyers, Stockmann, Klein, Annatone, Hagos, Wright, Shahidi, Johnson, Cohen, Ambrosio, Werner, Price, Foreman, Brahim, Taweechaisuntis, Fogg
Essays Due Thursday 2pm: Lawrence, Liggett, Perez, Guevara, Yorgen, Pollack, Peji, Brown, Thacker, Spencer, Bowman
Watch This Space: Since we spent more time on the introductions workshop today, I'll post here about the disciplinary writing discussion.
Opportunity: These are topics we will cover in class this month, but for more depth the Writing Center is giving a workshop on "evaluating and integrating sources" in your research. It meets on Monday, April 11 from 2:30-4:30 pm in Student Union Building II, VIP Room II. There is also a workshop on "citing sources" in the same place and at the same time on Tuesday April 12. To reserve a spot for one or both of the workshops, email wcenter@gmu.edu . Definitely a good idea to attend if it suits your schedule.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Class #17 Post-Game and Reminders for the weekend
Announcement/Opportunity: I really botched things today by not including time for a thesis workshop in class. Unfortunately I've also canceled my afternoon office hours. So let me offer you the following opportunity... if you post a provisional thesis to the blog comments here by Friday afternoon (or email me, for secretive types)... I will give thorough commentary, criticisms, suggestions, encouragement etc. as necessary. Expect to hear back very late on Friday night. This is optional but might be a smart idea. Be sure to indicate whether it's an Article Analysis thesis or Scene Analysis thesis.
Great Link for Procrastinating: You may remember me suggesting to use Google Streetview to search for set locations used on The Wire. Apparently someone made a virtual tour with Streetview. Thanks to Megan for finding this.
Reminder: Finish The Wire! Or at least don't get mad at me if I talk about the ending(s) on Monday. Oh, and it turns out that 5.10 is a bit longer like 4.13, so be warned.
Reminder: Read the Viti article about lawyers and the Beliveau article about teachers. Our discussion on Monday will focus more on the style than the content because we will be revisiting the question of disciplinary-specific writing rules & practices.
The following schedule is for first drafts. If you're still not sure at this point whether you're supposed to be writing an article analysis or a scene analysis, god help you. As usual submission by Docs or email is fine, but don't expect a confirmation... I'll let you know if I didn't get it.
Essays Due Tuesday 2pm: Schwartz, Toder, Holmes, Powers, Barney, Regier, Semenov, Baldino, Stevens, Laudiero, Symons, Velazquez, Kim, Garney, Abed, Mailey, Musgrave, Elam
Essays Due Wednesday at the start of class: Moyers, Stockmann, Klein, Annatone, Hagos, Wright, Shahidi, Johnson, Cohen, Ambrosio, Werner, Price, Foreman, Brahim, Taweechaisuntis, Fogg
Essays Due Thursday 2pm: Lawrence, Liggett, Perez, Guevara, Yorgen, Pollack, Peji, Brown, Thacker, Spencer, Bowman
Recommendation: Take a look at the sample essays in the next post.
Recommendation: Looks for a document titled "Essay #2 Prompt & Advice" in your Docs inbox. PDF copy here.
Recommendation: I will try to save some class time on Monday for an introduction workshop, so do yourself a favor and write a full introduction paragraph before class, if you do nothing else.
Recommendation: Even those with the Thursday deadline ought to get started early, because we are going to do various in-class workshops on Wednesday that would work better if your draft was at least semi-complete. Since we are focusing on transitions and meta-comments, try to work out what goes in each paragraph/section.
Proposition: I still have that brand new, never taken out of the box printer/scanner, and I'm so lazy that I don't even feel like photographing it and putting it on Craigslist. $20.
Great Link for Procrastinating: You may remember me suggesting to use Google Streetview to search for set locations used on The Wire. Apparently someone made a virtual tour with Streetview. Thanks to Megan for finding this.
Reminder: Finish The Wire! Or at least don't get mad at me if I talk about the ending(s) on Monday. Oh, and it turns out that 5.10 is a bit longer like 4.13, so be warned.
Reminder: Read the Viti article about lawyers and the Beliveau article about teachers. Our discussion on Monday will focus more on the style than the content because we will be revisiting the question of disciplinary-specific writing rules & practices.
The following schedule is for first drafts. If you're still not sure at this point whether you're supposed to be writing an article analysis or a scene analysis, god help you. As usual submission by Docs or email is fine, but don't expect a confirmation... I'll let you know if I didn't get it.
Essays Due Tuesday 2pm: Schwartz, Toder, Holmes, Powers, Barney, Regier, Semenov, Baldino, Stevens, Laudiero, Symons, Velazquez, Kim, Garney, Abed, Mailey, Musgrave, Elam
Essays Due Wednesday at the start of class: Moyers, Stockmann, Klein, Annatone, Hagos, Wright, Shahidi, Johnson, Cohen, Ambrosio, Werner, Price, Foreman, Brahim, Taweechaisuntis, Fogg
Essays Due Thursday 2pm: Lawrence, Liggett, Perez, Guevara, Yorgen, Pollack, Peji, Brown, Thacker, Spencer, Bowman
Recommendation: Take a look at the sample essays in the next post.
Recommendation: Looks for a document titled "Essay #2 Prompt & Advice" in your Docs inbox. PDF copy here.
Recommendation: I will try to save some class time on Monday for an introduction workshop, so do yourself a favor and write a full introduction paragraph before class, if you do nothing else.
Recommendation: Even those with the Thursday deadline ought to get started early, because we are going to do various in-class workshops on Wednesday that would work better if your draft was at least semi-complete. Since we are focusing on transitions and meta-comments, try to work out what goes in each paragraph/section.
Proposition: I still have that brand new, never taken out of the box printer/scanner, and I'm so lazy that I don't even feel like photographing it and putting it on Craigslist. $20.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Class #16 Post-Game and Reminders for Wednesday
Today's Writing Exercise:
-Step One: Write statement about The Wire in “your own” voice.
-Step Two: Translate the statement into a more formal or stuffy voice register. The more you can exaggerate, the better this will work.
-Step Three: Translate the statement into some form of slang or more colloquial language. Again, try to exaggerate.
-Step Four: Identify at least one word from the “formal” statement and one word from the “slang” statement that provides value-added.
-Step Five: Write a revised statement that attempts to integrate elements from all three voices (step one plus the value-added elements from two and three). Use whatever signals or markers you deem appropriate.
-Post your Step Five sentence in the comments below.
Sample: This was one from class but I am pushing the exaggeration even further.
1. Many of Marlo's decisions violate the code of the streets. People who try to point this out to him usually get murdered.
2. The entrepreneurial young ruffian Marlo demonstrates neglect of the etiquette that pertains to his environment. Fellow community members and dealers of narcotics alike can be seen demonstrating outrage with respect to his actions, but ironically this only results in the continuation of his diabolical murder campaign.
3. Marlo don't follow no code. Kill when he pleases and when people try to step to, he just get more bodies.
3. Marlo don't follow no code. Kill when he pleases and when people try to step to, he just get more bodies.
4. community, ironically, outrage, pleases, bodies
5. Many of Marlo's decisions outrage the West Baltimore community. Ironically, this only leads to more "bodies" as we see that it may please him to violate the code of the streets.
Reminder: Watch 5.5-5.6. Haley and Roconia have the final two SAW.
Reminder: Read the Jones article and read the Marshall article if you didn't get to it last week. Heads up to AAW 31-35.
This is Just Amazing: Taking the Dickens connection further, these guys wrote a fake literary analysis of a book called The Wire that was supposedly published in the 1840s. Complete with quotations of real show dialogue and illustrations of Omar walking through Victorian London.
SAF Sample 1: This essay about Omar & Bunk's first encounter is pretty close to what I envisioned when I wrote the assignment. It keeps to a focused thesis and mainly to one scene that fits well with this thesis. The grade was A-.
SAF Sample 2: This essay about Bubbles shows how it's possible to use scene juxtaposition to create more of a character analysis; I'm sure the temptation to do this will be extreme now that we've made it to Season Five, but it needs to be done carefully. Another A-.
SAF Sample 3: This one comparing Omar to a Cirque du Soleil performer shows you how wide the possibilities are as long as you fulfill the basic goals of the assignment. Another A-.
AAF Sample 1: This essay represents a successful rebuttal of Harvey's main point and many of his sub-arguments, but as I've said this is not a specific requirement. It relies mainly on evidence external to The Wire. The grade was A.
AAF Sample 2: This essay focuses on a specific part of the Brooks article, and then goes further in that direction. It relies mainly on evidence internal to The Wire. The grade was A-.
AAF Sample 3: This essay uses the Klein article as a starting point for its own critical question about the concept of "honesty" in fictions, which it then links to reality TV. The grade was B+.
Note these are not necessarily the best essays, nor should you emulate all of their features, but I think they are good models for forming and developing a thesis for these two assignments.
Upcoming Schedule:
-Wednesday 3/30: Discussion of gender on The Wire, introduction & thesis workshop
-Monday 4/4: Reactions to Season Five conclusion, Viti & Beliveau articles, continuation of our discussion about disciplinary writing rules
-Tuesday 4/5: 11 of you will have your first draft essay due in the afternoon.
-Wednesday 4/6: Group workshops focusing on transitions (They Say I Say ch. 8) and metacommentary (They Say I Say ch. 10). 23 of you will have your first draft essay due before the start of class.
-Thursday 4/7: 11 of you will have your first draft essay due in the afternoon (those 11 are the people doing AAW 36-46).
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Class #15 Post-Game and Reminders for the Weekend
Thanks for your contributions in class today. As usual my time management was much better in the 10:30 session, but at least the 9:00 people get the better classroom space, so maybe it evens out.
Reminder: Post anonymous advice for your fellow students about how to do the Article Analysis or Scene Analysis essays directly to the main prompt document (currently titled Essay #1 Prompt & Lab Exercise though someone might take it upon themselves to change the title; just look for the "modified today" section of your Docs inbox). If you are having problems with Docs you can just email me. We will come back to this discussion before the next essay is due.
Reminder: Post the ideas you generated in the "rules or situations of writing that are peculiar to my discipline" exercise in the comments below. We will come back to this discussion next week.
Reminder: Watch 5.1-5.4. McNulty and Bubbles fans will rejoice, and you will also meet a new set of characters who work at the Baltimore Sun newspaper. Heads up to SAW 41-44.
Reminder: Read They Say I Say chapter 8 (about transitions) and chapter 9 (about voice).
Reminder: I had a couple of people come to parlay with me (as Prop Joe says) about their essay grades. I've never actually changed a grade (ever) but sometimes I do a bad job with the explaining comments and I can give you some further pointers that might be helpful if you come talk to me.
On Hold: We will discuss the Marshall article on Wednesday 3/30 because it pairs well with the Jones article.
Link: For those of you interested in the education subplot, this article advances some provocative ideas about race. Meanwhile, this article proposes a surprising explanation for one feature of African-American dialect.
Thoughts about this week's opinion poll:
-Again, thanks for your input. I love teaching you guys, and one of the reasons is because you speak your mind.
-One person mentioned persistent downloading problems, and maybe this represents others as well. This problem has an easy solution that I thought I made clear last month... you can take one of my backup hard drives home with you. Likewise someone asked whether there is some way you can get an email update for blog posts... I think this is a setting you guys can control on Blogger.
-More than half of you specifically indicated that you thought the general class discussion was going well. Some people questioned my time management of the discussions. All I'll say is it's way harder than it looks. A few others wanted me to stop butting in so much or pursuing pet themes... that is very fair, and oddly enough I think McNulty might be a good role model for me there, in light of some of the scenes discussed today.
-Other likes included the pace of the class, the blog, the electronic submission policy, the assigned articles, and the in-class workshops. Though as is often the case, those turned up as dislikes for others.
-About six or seven of you indicated that you were having trouble keeping up with the episodes, though several also commented that you still prefer this to the kind of extended reading assignments that other 302s are doing. I sympathize and have tried my best to lighten your other workload. This is always a problem for me in classes of this nature, because I don't want to overwhelm people but I also want to provide rewards for those who can take the time to watch/read more. Let's just say there's a reason that you're only assigned to one specific scene for the semester.
-Some indicated that they wanted the in-class exercises and perhaps attendance to be more specifically tabulated/commented/graded. This is an instance of me cutting corners I will admit, but I think of these as processes that fall mainly on your shoulders. On a more technical note, I will be issuing a status check soon on participation grades soon as well as worksheets grades and draft grades. And yes, I do wish I could give specific commentary on all worksheets... I feel like Carver with the Randy situation in that respect.
-Naturally many people wished they had more specific guidelines for the essays. I have explained that the reason for this is partly philosophical and by design, partly me being lazy and hypocritical, partly something that occurs because of the natural mismatch between grading and educating, and partly something we can fix by means of models and continued advice sharing for the next round.
-A surprising number of people asked for more "they say I say" workshops. Can do. Other popular workshops requested were thesis, outlines/organization, introductions, and conclusions. Hopefully we can do all of those. A few people asked for exercises specific to research and more use of the computer lab, which as you can see is part of the upcoming schedule. A few asked for something like a group or peer review exercise on the essays, which is definitely part of the plan. Some asked for another stage of draft and commentary before the final draft, which I would encourage you to do for yourself by relying on classmates/roommates or perhaps the Writing Center. But to be honest with you I feel like Landsman writing red names on the board with that... that's one of those "wouldn't it be nice?" things. In a perfect world there would be 11-15 students in your class instead of 22-23.
-A few people wanted more discussion of the assigned articles. A few people wanted less. Someone suggested that we should writing something every class, which is a great idea and one that I can now blame on you, so thanks.
-One person wanted more Honey Nut Cheerios. One listed HNC as a specific dislike, so go figure. Someone wanted sandwiches... is Wee Bey in the class? Someone is actually running a count of my use of various profanities, which is a first in 8 years of teaching, but certainly a good research project.
Reminder: Post anonymous advice for your fellow students about how to do the Article Analysis or Scene Analysis essays directly to the main prompt document (currently titled Essay #1 Prompt & Lab Exercise though someone might take it upon themselves to change the title; just look for the "modified today" section of your Docs inbox). If you are having problems with Docs you can just email me. We will come back to this discussion before the next essay is due.
Reminder: Post the ideas you generated in the "rules or situations of writing that are peculiar to my discipline" exercise in the comments below. We will come back to this discussion next week.
Reminder: Watch 5.1-5.4. McNulty and Bubbles fans will rejoice, and you will also meet a new set of characters who work at the Baltimore Sun newspaper. Heads up to SAW 41-44.
Reminder: Read They Say I Say chapter 8 (about transitions) and chapter 9 (about voice).
Reminder: I had a couple of people come to parlay with me (as Prop Joe says) about their essay grades. I've never actually changed a grade (ever) but sometimes I do a bad job with the explaining comments and I can give you some further pointers that might be helpful if you come talk to me.
On Hold: We will discuss the Marshall article on Wednesday 3/30 because it pairs well with the Jones article.
Link: For those of you interested in the education subplot, this article advances some provocative ideas about race. Meanwhile, this article proposes a surprising explanation for one feature of African-American dialect.
Thoughts about this week's opinion poll:
-Again, thanks for your input. I love teaching you guys, and one of the reasons is because you speak your mind.
-One person mentioned persistent downloading problems, and maybe this represents others as well. This problem has an easy solution that I thought I made clear last month... you can take one of my backup hard drives home with you. Likewise someone asked whether there is some way you can get an email update for blog posts... I think this is a setting you guys can control on Blogger.
-More than half of you specifically indicated that you thought the general class discussion was going well. Some people questioned my time management of the discussions. All I'll say is it's way harder than it looks. A few others wanted me to stop butting in so much or pursuing pet themes... that is very fair, and oddly enough I think McNulty might be a good role model for me there, in light of some of the scenes discussed today.
-Other likes included the pace of the class, the blog, the electronic submission policy, the assigned articles, and the in-class workshops. Though as is often the case, those turned up as dislikes for others.
-About six or seven of you indicated that you were having trouble keeping up with the episodes, though several also commented that you still prefer this to the kind of extended reading assignments that other 302s are doing. I sympathize and have tried my best to lighten your other workload. This is always a problem for me in classes of this nature, because I don't want to overwhelm people but I also want to provide rewards for those who can take the time to watch/read more. Let's just say there's a reason that you're only assigned to one specific scene for the semester.
-Some indicated that they wanted the in-class exercises and perhaps attendance to be more specifically tabulated/commented/graded. This is an instance of me cutting corners I will admit, but I think of these as processes that fall mainly on your shoulders. On a more technical note, I will be issuing a status check soon on participation grades soon as well as worksheets grades and draft grades. And yes, I do wish I could give specific commentary on all worksheets... I feel like Carver with the Randy situation in that respect.
-Naturally many people wished they had more specific guidelines for the essays. I have explained that the reason for this is partly philosophical and by design, partly me being lazy and hypocritical, partly something that occurs because of the natural mismatch between grading and educating, and partly something we can fix by means of models and continued advice sharing for the next round.
-A surprising number of people asked for more "they say I say" workshops. Can do. Other popular workshops requested were thesis, outlines/organization, introductions, and conclusions. Hopefully we can do all of those. A few people asked for exercises specific to research and more use of the computer lab, which as you can see is part of the upcoming schedule. A few asked for something like a group or peer review exercise on the essays, which is definitely part of the plan. Some asked for another stage of draft and commentary before the final draft, which I would encourage you to do for yourself by relying on classmates/roommates or perhaps the Writing Center. But to be honest with you I feel like Landsman writing red names on the board with that... that's one of those "wouldn't it be nice?" things. In a perfect world there would be 11-15 students in your class instead of 22-23.
-A few people wanted more discussion of the assigned articles. A few people wanted less. Someone suggested that we should writing something every class, which is a great idea and one that I can now blame on you, so thanks.
-One person wanted more Honey Nut Cheerios. One listed HNC as a specific dislike, so go figure. Someone wanted sandwiches... is Wee Bey in the class? Someone is actually running a count of my use of various profanities, which is a first in 8 years of teaching, but certainly a good research project.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Class #14 Post-Game and Reminders for Wednesday
For those who missed episode 4.12 today, I put a heavily compressed version on the re-up page that you should have an easy time downloading. (You still need to use VLC to watch it.)
For those who missed the opinion poll, here are the four questions. 1. What's going right in the class? 2. What's going wrong in the class? 3. Specific suggestions - desired writing workshops. 4. General suggestions. The idea was for it to be anonymous, so have one of your roommates email it or something.
For those who missed the Honey Nut Cheerios, TOO BAD.
Invitation: If you have concerns about your individual grade and/or writing development that go past what I discussed in the previous blog post, please feel free to visit me in my office anytime on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday afternoon.
Reminders: Big day on tap for Wednesday. I hope to start with a philosophical discussion of the function (dysfunction?) of grading practices in college writing courses. We will then try to squeeze in SAW 34-40 and AAW 21-30. Everyone needs to finish season four (please note that 4.13 is about 80 minutes long). And everyone needs to read the Alff articleand the Marshall article. last minute change, sorry. The Marshall article fits better with the Jones article for 3/30 and saves us some time for other stuff tomorrow.
For those who missed the opinion poll, here are the four questions. 1. What's going right in the class? 2. What's going wrong in the class? 3. Specific suggestions - desired writing workshops. 4. General suggestions. The idea was for it to be anonymous, so have one of your roommates email it or something.
For those who missed the Honey Nut Cheerios, TOO BAD.
Invitation: If you have concerns about your individual grade and/or writing development that go past what I discussed in the previous blog post, please feel free to visit me in my office anytime on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday afternoon.
Reminders: Big day on tap for Wednesday. I hope to start with a philosophical discussion of the function (dysfunction?) of grading practices in college writing courses. We will then try to squeeze in SAW 34-40 and AAW 21-30. Everyone needs to finish season four (please note that 4.13 is about 80 minutes long). And everyone needs to read the Alff article
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Class #13 Post-Game and Reminders for the Break
Reminder: Please post your individual or group response to today's they say I say exercise in the comments below.
Reminder: Watch 4.8-4.11. (Heads up to scene analysis 34-38.) We will view 4.12 in class on Monday the 21st.
Reminder: Don't forget to take a look at potential research topics under "research proposals." You can add more by emailing me or posting a comment below.
Breaking News: The real Snoop Pearson, who plays the character Snoop Pearson on The Wire, has been arrested for drug trafficking. And David Simon has an interesting response. On a similar note, I was able to learn more about Melvin Williams, who plays the Deacon (the church leader with the slow voice who councils Bunny and Cutty). He was apparently the main inspiration for the Avon Barksdale character; Burns arrested him in the 1980s and Simon covered it for the Sun. Oh, and the guy who played Detective Norris used to be Baltimore police commissioner but got fired/arrested for some sort of malfeisance.
Fun: And not at all edifying about dilemmas in American society, I promise. A different take on what wires are good for.
Probably Not So Fun: The following is an explanation of the notation you will see in your grades when I email them to you. I already emailed the first half of the scene analysis grades; the remainder of those will be done before sunrise. The article analysis grades will probably be sent on Thursday night.
Ideas (1/3)
----------------------------
-logically reversible thesis
-complexity of thought, thesis goes somewhere
-effective article or scene analysis
-answers "so what" convincingly
Argument (1/3)
----------------------------
-effective use of "they say I say" type moves
-provides appropriate context for claims and method
-uses fitting examples, illustrations
-effective organization, transitions
Language (1/3)
----------------------------
-audience appropriate
-consistent rhetorical persona/voice
-clear, no overtly distracting usage errors
-smooth incorporation of quotations/citations
Average Score for Scene Analysis: 2.94 (B)
Average Score for Article Analysis: 3.01 (B)
These grades may seem tough, but remember to factor in the automatic A for submitting a completed worksheet and a completed first draft, and consider the whole thing as a composite. (So that 2.94 average is really something more like 3.29. I can't do much better than giving an average grade of B+.) I also want to make it clear that you shouldn't feel like your effort at revision was wasted if you got a lower grade... I assure you the revision raised your grade.
I must apologize for the brevity of my comments on these final essays, but I will offer two partial excuses. One, several decades of research suggests that writing students will carefully read and consider comments at the _draft_ stage, but will basically only pay attention to the grade if one is marked. Two, as I've alluded to before, I work within the bounds of my disciplinary institution and I have 84 students whom I am leading through writing and research intensive classes with multiple versions of multiple essays. This means I must conserve my time and energy, and I have found that it is better spent on proposals, drafts, and conferences, where frankly I am going far beyond what is specifically asked of me. (Try this math... 45 students in English 302 times 30 minutes for each first draft, 15 minutes for each conference, and 15 minutes for each final draft. On top of all other teaching responsibilities. Two 3-credit course sections is supposedly 20 hours of work per week for the instructor, at least in accounting terms. In sum, this course would be far better for everyone involved if the cap was lowered from 23 to something more like 16-18.)
There are all manner of general class discussions to have about what grades mean, and what they are good/bad for. This is one of my favorite topics and you can always bring it up, but I hope to specifically introduce it in the 3/23 session. If you have concerns or questions about your individual grade, email or come to office hours beginning 3/21. Oh, and sorry to dodge you by returning these grades up against the vacation, that was not my intention.
Let me conclude by saying one thing further, because the need to get these grades out quickly also takes away some of the ability to manage emotional connections that I can create more easily in class meetings or in conferences. I am tremendously proud of everyone for the level of effort you are putting into the class, and I know that I am asking a lot of you. You are doing great work, and you are progressing well toward the writing skills needed to tackle the end of semester research project.
Monday, March 7, 2011
Class #12 Post-Game and Reminders for Wednesday
For those who missed today's class, we spent about half of our time getting up to speed with characters and plots, the other half practicing moves from They Say I Say chapter 6, and a little bit at the end brainstorming topics for the end of semester research paper. I will post those brainstorms to the blog under the "research proposals" tab.
Note: Don't worry if you didn't get a confirmation from me that I received your final draft essay. I'll let you know if there was a problem. I hope to grade all of these by the end of the week.
Reminder: For Wednesday, watch 4.6-4.7. (Heads up to Scene Analysis 33 and 34.) Over spring break you need to watch 4.8-4.11, and we will watch 4.12 in class on Monday the 21st.
Note: Don't worry if you didn't get a confirmation from me that I received your final draft essay. I'll let you know if there was a problem. I hope to grade all of these by the end of the week.
Reminder: For Wednesday, watch 4.6-4.7. (Heads up to Scene Analysis 33 and 34.) Over spring break you need to watch 4.8-4.11, and we will watch 4.12 in class on Monday the 21st.
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Class #11 Post-Game and Reminders for Next Week
Perhaps more sleep will make next week's rantings more coherent. We can only hope.
Reminders:
-Final draft of essay due at 10pm on Sunday!
-Watch episodes 4.1-4.5. For those who mourned the death of Wallace, lo he hath returned to thee multiplied by four.
-Read They Say I Say chapters 6-7. You might find these quite useful for revising your essay.
-No scene analysis or article analysis worksheets due. We all need some recovery from the essay process!
Links:
-Here is the Implicit Association Test I showed in class today.
-This article about Defense Secretary Gates reminded me of The Wire because apparently he has been warning about the way the Pentagon bureaucracy doesn't promote creative thinkers to high positions
Apology: Anyone who sent an email to my GMU box in the past two weeks did not receive a reply. What happened is I changed my password and then apparently this stopped the forwarding to my Gmail address. It also explains why I didn't get some of your essay drafts. So this is fixed now, and sorry to those who wrote about discs or office meetings, to people with sick or deceased older relatives who failed to receive my sympathies, to athletes who didn't get their status forms turned in, etc.
Reminders:
-Final draft of essay due at 10pm on Sunday!
-Watch episodes 4.1-4.5. For those who mourned the death of Wallace, lo he hath returned to thee multiplied by four.
-Read They Say I Say chapters 6-7. You might find these quite useful for revising your essay.
-No scene analysis or article analysis worksheets due. We all need some recovery from the essay process!
Links:
-Here is the Implicit Association Test I showed in class today.
-This article about Defense Secretary Gates reminded me of The Wire because apparently he has been warning about the way the Pentagon bureaucracy doesn't promote creative thinkers to high positions
Apology: Anyone who sent an email to my GMU box in the past two weeks did not receive a reply. What happened is I changed my password and then apparently this stopped the forwarding to my Gmail address. It also explains why I didn't get some of your essay drafts. So this is fixed now, and sorry to those who wrote about discs or office meetings, to people with sick or deceased older relatives who failed to receive my sympathies, to athletes who didn't get their status forms turned in, etc.
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Interesting Patterns Observed In First Drafts
I may reference some of these in my individual comments, so they're numbered. By no means are they equally important; I'm just writing them in the order I see them. Oh, and thanks to all of you who submitted drafts early... I may even sleep tonight!
0. I have no expectation that you will address every comment or suggestion I make on your paper. I want you to consider all of them and make thoughtful choices that reflect your priorities and the bounds of your time and energy. I am also not saying, "Do X because I say so" (punishment power) or "Do X and it will get you a good grade" (disciplinary power). At the draft stage I am trying to be your editor/teacher and suggest things that I think could help you develop your essay and your writing. Not all of my suggestions will actually work. (Again I submit the question, what name do we give this form of power?)
1. If you see SQUARE, TRIANGLE, ANGLE, or LINE somewhere on your paper, this is my way of explaining how far along your draft is without creating some kind of implied contract between us about what grade you're going to get next week. Imagine an essay with basically no "dimensions" of thought as a single point. Imagine the (impossible) perfect essay as a circle with an infinite number of "sides." The other ratings give you values in between. By the way I got this from a book I read when I was a kid, which I highly recommend.
2. It can be difficult to retain control over the separation between your language, the language of critics/intellectuals, and the language of Wire dialogue. There's a chapter on this later in They Say I Say.
3. This is the nittiest nitpick ever, and not something I'd ever factor into a grade at ALL but because I'm the writing teacher it's due diligence for me to tell you. Suppose you have a parenthetical citation (Winter 24). See how the period goes after. Even if, "The quotation itself has punctuation!" (Winter 24). But again, this is very minor, and indeed to quote from a senior year term paper written by a certain young man, "Don't take this the wrong way Dr. Cotton, but if I ever come to the point of actually caring whether the period goes before or after the parenthesis I think I might just kill myself" (Winter 2002). Oh, the arrogance of youth. The corollary of this is that if it's "just a quotation with no parenthetical citation," any punctuation "goes inside."
4. As a "they" move and a way to establish the bounds of reality and fiction, when discussing character movement, expression, etc. more of you might want to credit actors by name. Likewise you guys often talk about "the camera" but do not cite episode directors, who would be the ones who chose those shots. Not that citing, say, Simon (or Simon & Burns) is necessarily wrong, but you do have alternatives.
5. Some of you are setting up the Article Analysis as a review of the article. I can see why you're trying that, but it's still up to you to provide a purpose or context to why you're writing the essay and why your reader is supposed to be reading it.
6. The Wire or alternately The Wire. Not "The Wire," not The Wire. Apologies for being lazy about this myself sometimes, but "the game" tells us to do this in formal writing just for clarity.
7. Never reference a person by "that." People are "who." Things, places, conditions, etc. are "that." The rule distinguishing "which" and "that" is more complicated, and I think much less important. (Likewise "who" vs. "whom" which is rapidly evolving out of our language.)
8. Be careful with using sequential progression in the episode or article you're analyzing as a transitional device for your own essay. The reason is similar to the reasons for not overquoting or surrendering leverage points to quotes. It's usually much better to use your own claim or concept as the transition at the beginning and/or end of a paragraph.
9. I always find this tricky to explain, but another one of those rules of the game in the humanities is that we favor the present tense when discussing fictions about invented people or intellectual ideas we are actively considering even if they were written by dead people. So it's always "Harvey argues that" and "Herc calls the Baltimore Sun" and so on. Now you may say, but what if I am trying to create a temporal sequence? Like before Harvey there was Darvey and before Herc made the call he became frustrated. For the former, it's still "Darvey argues that" unless the idea is considered 100% laughable and defunct. For the latter, use a present tense variant like "Herc has previously become frustrated." More examples. We say, "Shakespeare wrote Hamlet." But we also say, "Hamlet is having trouble getting his shit together." And we also say, "Shakespeare leads us to consider the relationship between free will and destiny."
10. I see a lot of eagerness to define disagreement with Brooks, Klein, etc (and sometimes Simon/Burns). Which is great, except some of you are actually saying things quite similar to them, or disagreeing with them just partially, but then making it out as if some grand opposition is present. Remember, not every they say I say is a 100% disagreement. Pay close attention to the recent chapters on "yes but" and "no but" moves. What I'm saying is that it matters less whether or how you relate to the they, than it matters that you properly convey what their view is and clearly/honestly indicate your relation to it.
11. If I have more than one friend, I have friends. If my friend owns a cow, it is my friend's cow. The thing that confuses me about this pattern is if it comes from the influence of text messaging, shouldn't all the apostrophes be dropping out? That would make sense and represent something like a linguistic evolution. Yet more commonly I see people putting apostrophes where they don't belong, in plural words. (A less common case: If I have more than one friend and they collectively own a cow, it is my friends' cow.) I've yet to find a compelling theory that explains this; some people say that it's because we're so accustomed to words made from acronyms; others say that when in doubt many of us are so confused by grammar rules that we will always opt to be wrong in the direction of being too fancy rather than wrong in the direction of being too simple, making this a variety of action bias. But I'm just not sure.
12. You guys are doing really well with selecting and incorporating quotations. Hooray!
0. I have no expectation that you will address every comment or suggestion I make on your paper. I want you to consider all of them and make thoughtful choices that reflect your priorities and the bounds of your time and energy. I am also not saying, "Do X because I say so" (punishment power) or "Do X and it will get you a good grade" (disciplinary power). At the draft stage I am trying to be your editor/teacher and suggest things that I think could help you develop your essay and your writing. Not all of my suggestions will actually work. (Again I submit the question, what name do we give this form of power?)
1. If you see SQUARE, TRIANGLE, ANGLE, or LINE somewhere on your paper, this is my way of explaining how far along your draft is without creating some kind of implied contract between us about what grade you're going to get next week. Imagine an essay with basically no "dimensions" of thought as a single point. Imagine the (impossible) perfect essay as a circle with an infinite number of "sides." The other ratings give you values in between. By the way I got this from a book I read when I was a kid, which I highly recommend.
2. It can be difficult to retain control over the separation between your language, the language of critics/intellectuals, and the language of Wire dialogue. There's a chapter on this later in They Say I Say.
3. This is the nittiest nitpick ever, and not something I'd ever factor into a grade at ALL but because I'm the writing teacher it's due diligence for me to tell you. Suppose you have a parenthetical citation (Winter 24). See how the period goes after. Even if, "The quotation itself has punctuation!" (Winter 24). But again, this is very minor, and indeed to quote from a senior year term paper written by a certain young man, "Don't take this the wrong way Dr. Cotton, but if I ever come to the point of actually caring whether the period goes before or after the parenthesis I think I might just kill myself" (Winter 2002). Oh, the arrogance of youth. The corollary of this is that if it's "just a quotation with no parenthetical citation," any punctuation "goes inside."
4. As a "they" move and a way to establish the bounds of reality and fiction, when discussing character movement, expression, etc. more of you might want to credit actors by name. Likewise you guys often talk about "the camera" but do not cite episode directors, who would be the ones who chose those shots. Not that citing, say, Simon (or Simon & Burns) is necessarily wrong, but you do have alternatives.
5. Some of you are setting up the Article Analysis as a review of the article. I can see why you're trying that, but it's still up to you to provide a purpose or context to why you're writing the essay and why your reader is supposed to be reading it.
6. The Wire or alternately The Wire. Not "The Wire," not The Wire. Apologies for being lazy about this myself sometimes, but "the game" tells us to do this in formal writing just for clarity.
7. Never reference a person by "that." People are "who." Things, places, conditions, etc. are "that." The rule distinguishing "which" and "that" is more complicated, and I think much less important. (Likewise "who" vs. "whom" which is rapidly evolving out of our language.)
8. Be careful with using sequential progression in the episode or article you're analyzing as a transitional device for your own essay. The reason is similar to the reasons for not overquoting or surrendering leverage points to quotes. It's usually much better to use your own claim or concept as the transition at the beginning and/or end of a paragraph.
9. I always find this tricky to explain, but another one of those rules of the game in the humanities is that we favor the present tense when discussing fictions about invented people or intellectual ideas we are actively considering even if they were written by dead people. So it's always "Harvey argues that" and "Herc calls the Baltimore Sun" and so on. Now you may say, but what if I am trying to create a temporal sequence? Like before Harvey there was Darvey and before Herc made the call he became frustrated. For the former, it's still "Darvey argues that" unless the idea is considered 100% laughable and defunct. For the latter, use a present tense variant like "Herc has previously become frustrated." More examples. We say, "Shakespeare wrote Hamlet." But we also say, "Hamlet is having trouble getting his shit together." And we also say, "Shakespeare leads us to consider the relationship between free will and destiny."
10. I see a lot of eagerness to define disagreement with Brooks, Klein, etc (and sometimes Simon/Burns). Which is great, except some of you are actually saying things quite similar to them, or disagreeing with them just partially, but then making it out as if some grand opposition is present. Remember, not every they say I say is a 100% disagreement. Pay close attention to the recent chapters on "yes but" and "no but" moves. What I'm saying is that it matters less whether or how you relate to the they, than it matters that you properly convey what their view is and clearly/honestly indicate your relation to it.
11. If I have more than one friend, I have friends. If my friend owns a cow, it is my friend's cow. The thing that confuses me about this pattern is if it comes from the influence of text messaging, shouldn't all the apostrophes be dropping out? That would make sense and represent something like a linguistic evolution. Yet more commonly I see people putting apostrophes where they don't belong, in plural words. (A less common case: If I have more than one friend and they collectively own a cow, it is my friends' cow.) I've yet to find a compelling theory that explains this; some people say that it's because we're so accustomed to words made from acronyms; others say that when in doubt many of us are so confused by grammar rules that we will always opt to be wrong in the direction of being too fancy rather than wrong in the direction of being too simple, making this a variety of action bias. But I'm just not sure.
12. You guys are doing really well with selecting and incorporating quotations. Hooray!
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Class #10 Post-Game and Reminders for Next Week
I was really encouraged with the thesis statements you guys came up with and with the early stage outlines. Sorry we didn't get to do another quotations exercise; maybe we can come back to that next week. I look forward to reading your essays.
Reminder: First draft of Scene Analysis essay or Article Analysis essay due Sunday night at 7pm. Preferred submission by Google Docs share; acceptable submission by email attachment. These will be graded only for timely completion, so try to shoot for the 1200-1500 word target. I will make comments prior to the conferences and send them back to you however you sent them to me.
Reminder: Please sign up for a Monday (or Tuesday or Wednesday) conference if you have not done so. Please arrive to the conference 5 minutes early with a printed copy of your draft with my comments (laptops OK too).
Reminder: No regular class meeting on Monday, but we will have one on Wednesday.
Reminder: For the Wednesday class, finish season 3 (!) and read the Jason Read article. Heads up to AAW 16-20.
Random: This made me think of various characters in The Wire... from an article in The Academy of Management Executives journal: "Employees displaying low degrees of both independent thinking and engagement are passive, while those high in engagement but low in independent thinking are conformists. Employees low in engagement but high in independent thinking are alienated, and those displaying moderate levels of both behaviors are pragmatists. The exemplary employees are both highly engaged and highly independent in their thinking."
Reminder: First draft of Scene Analysis essay or Article Analysis essay due Sunday night at 7pm. Preferred submission by Google Docs share; acceptable submission by email attachment. These will be graded only for timely completion, so try to shoot for the 1200-1500 word target. I will make comments prior to the conferences and send them back to you however you sent them to me.
Reminder: Please sign up for a Monday (or Tuesday or Wednesday) conference if you have not done so. Please arrive to the conference 5 minutes early with a printed copy of your draft with my comments (laptops OK too).
Reminder: No regular class meeting on Monday, but we will have one on Wednesday.
Reminder: For the Wednesday class, finish season 3 (!) and read the Jason Read article. Heads up to AAW 16-20.
Random: This made me think of various characters in The Wire... from an article in The Academy of Management Executives journal: "Employees displaying low degrees of both independent thinking and engagement are passive, while those high in engagement but low in independent thinking are conformists. Employees low in engagement but high in independent thinking are alienated, and those displaying moderate levels of both behaviors are pragmatists. The exemplary employees are both highly engaged and highly independent in their thinking."
Monday, February 21, 2011
Class #9 Post-Game and Reminders for Wednesday
Please post your thesis to this thread or to the one below. Today is preferable, but at least by tomorrow. You will also find it useful to have a copy of your thesis available to you during class on Wednesday.Reminder: Watch 3.5-3.6. Heads up to SAW 29-31.5.
Reminder: Bring three quotations to class (from The Wire, one of the assigned articles, or another source); we will use this as part of the outlining exercise.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Class #8 Post-Game and Reminders for Next Week
Announcement: Class will meet in our regular location on Monday (President's Day is not a day off at GMU) and on Wednesday. I may have confused people by referring to next week's classes as "workshops." We will be back in the lab for most of April.
Proposition: Does anyone want a brand new HP printer for $40? (Note: not stolen from a storage container at Patapsco)
Proposition: Does anyone want an old 12-inch television with built-in VCR for free? (Note: VCR meaning tapes. You also get a vintage Pearl Jam sticker if that gives some indication of how old it is. So no DVD but you can hook it to a cable antenna and I believe it has RCA inputs.)
Reminder: Watch episodes 3.1-3.4. Heads up to SAW 25-28.
Reminder: Read They Say I Say chapters 4-5. This will be super relevant to the upcoming essays and indeed to Monday's class exercises.
-If you are having trouble accessing the live prompt on Google Docs, here is the latest version in PDF of the Scene Analysis part and the Article Analysis part.
-If anyone else needs a re-up for package 3, I will be in my office tomorrow (Thursday) from about 1:30-6:30.
Opportunity: One thing we won't have very much time for in class this semester is sentence-level grammar and syntax skills. So I want to draw your attention to a workshop the Writing Center is offering if this is something you'd like to practice more. The location will be Johnson Center, third floor, meeting room B. It starts with a presentation and then you get one-on-one tutoring. The date is Monday the 21st (this coming Monday) and the time is 12:00-2:00. So you may want to bring in an essay from a previous class for instructional purposes since we won't have too many sentences written on our essays at that point.
Opportunity: A former student of mine has organized a cause called "No Fear in Love" to promote healthy relationships free of domestic violence for 16-24 year olds. On Saturday (the 26th), there will be a fundraising event at sunrise on the Prince William campus of GMU... it's a 6-mile race. More information here.
Random: I mentioned Zillow in the 9:00 class last week as a Lester-style surveillance device to understand how real estate valuations relate to distributions of power. This just occurred to me, but Google any address in downtown Baltimore, for instance the intersections named by characters in the show. Click on the streetview feature and you can actually "walk" the street. Now that's tourism.
Random: Try some of these online tests that are part of a major psychological research project at Harvard. The test attempts to quantify the gap between our stated and consciously held beliefs (for instance about race, gender, etc.) and our unstated and unconsciously held beliefs. This relates strongly to The Wire because we are given so many instances of the way that implicit stereotypes and misrecognitions can create a self-fulfilling cycle.
Proposition: Does anyone want a brand new HP printer for $40? (Note: not stolen from a storage container at Patapsco)
Proposition: Does anyone want an old 12-inch television with built-in VCR for free? (Note: VCR meaning tapes. You also get a vintage Pearl Jam sticker if that gives some indication of how old it is. So no DVD but you can hook it to a cable antenna and I believe it has RCA inputs.)
Reminder: Watch episodes 3.1-3.4. Heads up to SAW 25-28.
Reminder: Read They Say I Say chapters 4-5. This will be super relevant to the upcoming essays and indeed to Monday's class exercises.
-If you are having trouble accessing the live prompt on Google Docs, here is the latest version in PDF of the Scene Analysis part and the Article Analysis part.
-If anyone else needs a re-up for package 3, I will be in my office tomorrow (Thursday) from about 1:30-6:30.
Opportunity: One thing we won't have very much time for in class this semester is sentence-level grammar and syntax skills. So I want to draw your attention to a workshop the Writing Center is offering if this is something you'd like to practice more. The location will be Johnson Center, third floor, meeting room B. It starts with a presentation and then you get one-on-one tutoring. The date is Monday the 21st (this coming Monday) and the time is 12:00-2:00. So you may want to bring in an essay from a previous class for instructional purposes since we won't have too many sentences written on our essays at that point.
Opportunity: A former student of mine has organized a cause called "No Fear in Love" to promote healthy relationships free of domestic violence for 16-24 year olds. On Saturday (the 26th), there will be a fundraising event at sunrise on the Prince William campus of GMU... it's a 6-mile race. More information here.
Random: I mentioned Zillow in the 9:00 class last week as a Lester-style surveillance device to understand how real estate valuations relate to distributions of power. This just occurred to me, but Google any address in downtown Baltimore, for instance the intersections named by characters in the show. Click on the streetview feature and you can actually "walk" the street. Now that's tourism.
Random: Try some of these online tests that are part of a major psychological research project at Harvard. The test attempts to quantify the gap between our stated and consciously held beliefs (for instance about race, gender, etc.) and our unstated and unconsciously held beliefs. This relates strongly to The Wire because we are given so many instances of the way that implicit stereotypes and misrecognitions can create a self-fulfilling cycle.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Class #7 Post-Game and Reminders for Wednesday
Announcement: Class will meet in our regular location for Wednesday.
Thanks for everyone's contributions to the essay #1 prompt document. I will write some answers and comments on itlater this afternoon tomorrow and post a PDF here for those experiencing Google Docs problems. But the document will remain open to editing.
Those expecting delivery from Proposition Aaron will receive it on Wednesday.
Reminders:
-Finish season two (episodes 11 and 12). Ziggy's big scene in episode 10 was a surprising early climax, but there are many more consequences left to unfold. Heads up to SAW 23-24 for Wednesday, but as I said in class, SAW 25-31.5 might want to get a head start as well to better prepare for the upcoming workshops.
-Read Klein article. You will probably find this easier than Brooks and Harvey. Heads up to AAW 11-15, but as I said in class, AAW 16-20 might want to get a head start as well to clear some time in their schedule for the upcoming essay.
Thanks for everyone's contributions to the essay #1 prompt document. I will write some answers and comments on it
Those expecting delivery from Proposition Aaron will receive it on Wednesday.
Reminders:
-Finish season two (episodes 11 and 12). Ziggy's big scene in episode 10 was a surprising early climax, but there are many more consequences left to unfold. Heads up to SAW 23-24 for Wednesday, but as I said in class, SAW 25-31.5 might want to get a head start as well to better prepare for the upcoming workshops.
-Read Klein article. You will probably find this easier than Brooks and Harvey. Heads up to AAW 11-15, but as I said in class, AAW 16-20 might want to get a head start as well to clear some time in their schedule for the upcoming essay.
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| μαλάκα ("malaka") here is a pun because with a slightly different pronunciation it means soft pastry instead of "wanker" or "asshole." Not sure if this is a true or false etymological link. So the banner reads, Φάε ένα μαλάκα ("eat a pastry"). Maybe the rest is something political? Links: Check out this interesting article that asks, "Crime rates have plummeted over the last 20 years. Why aren't we less scared?" |
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