Community Involvement Advocacy Midterm

As you know, much of your grade for "Community Involvement" comes from the advocacy and support of your peers. Now is the time for you to spend a few moments advocating on their behalf.

I am sending you a Community Involvement Advocacy Form a week before your community involvement advocacy is due.  This form will be arrive in your email in the form of a link.  Once you click on the link you will arrive at the form which will look like an online survey.  This form includes the names of all the students in the class and a box below where you can advocate for them.

There is a roster in your google folder that includes the names of all the members of the class along with their pictures.  If you need help remembering a name, you should check that roster.

As you advocate for your peers, you may type in anything that you would want to about the members in the class. You do NOT have to write about everyone (please don't), but you MUST write about yourself.

Here's an example:

Sheila Peterman

Sheila always seems to have done the reading before class, because the questions she asks seem to be informed. I have also appreciated the examples she gave on the day we talked about informative speaking. I worked in two small groups with her, and she subtly kept the group "on task" the whole time.

Andrew Rudd (me)

I have been going over my notes with my roomate Sean and I listened to Tammie's speech the night before she gave it. Even though I don't say very much in front of the whole class, when we work in groups, I try to be a leader by making suggestions and connecting people's ideas to the ideas from the book.

Don't forget to think about in-class conversation groups.  (Maybe you've even jotted down reminders in your class notes?  Like I asked you to do? Please consult those reminders if so.)

See the course calendar to recall the due date for your community involvement.  If you do not complete a community involvement advocacy sheet, your own community involvement grade (assigned by me) will automatically be reduced by 20%.

Media Text Analysis Essay

You will select a mass media text and write an analysis in 800 – 1000 words. You may analyze any kind of mass media text that you would like, but I suggest that you select a text small enough for thorough understanding, but substantial enough to generate insight.  You must select a media text that is EITHER new (within the last calendar year) OR old (at least 40 years old).

Your paper should include a description of the text, an interpretation of its meaning and an evaluation of the significance and meaning of this text & interpretation in our culture. You must use semiotic analysis to analyze your text, but you should not feel obliged to talk about the terms of semiosis. I will be able to tell if you have used the process because of the insights that your essay will demonstrate.

The process of writing an interpretive analytical essay like this one usually starts with description (what are the key signs?), moves to analysis (what are the patterns?  the codes?  how do they fit together?), expresses an interpretation (what does it *mean*?) and finishes with an evaluation (is it good?  bad?  for who?  why?  how?).

Your paper structure should NOT follow that order -- that's the order of investigation.  Your paper's arrangement will be unique to your topic, your voice and your insights.  (Though I generally recommend that a strong paper LEADS with its strongest ideas and biggest insights.)  There are a few sample papers available for you to read in the folder I shared with you in google docs.  These papers are not perfect but the provide a helpful example of various approaches to this assignment that have worked in the past.

You may find the grading rubric I will use to assess your paper in the google docs folder that I have shared with you.

Please click on this paragraph to read more about your proposal.

The draft is not graded, but I will read it, give you some narrative feedback and fill out a rubric to help you think about my expectations.  Draft-writing GREATLY enhances your ability to engage in good learning practice.  Hopefully that's what you're here for, so if I were you, I would prioritize this learning opportunity.  Please submit your proposal as a google document that you share with the class email (look at the syllabus for the address) not with the teacher's email address.

You will submit your FINAL draft as a NEW google doc and share it with the class email address.  I will not re-grade your original google doc.  I really want to have two separate documents that I can look at.

Media Story Proposal

For your media story proposal, I would like you to turn in a two paragraph description of what you envision for your media story. Please "tell the story" that you imagine in the first paragraph. Tell the story artfully in a way that is compelling and engaging. Try to evoke the same sensations and emotions in the reader that you desire to evoke in the viewer once the story is complete. When I read this paragraph, I should know clearly WHO your main character is, WHAT MEDIA TEXT you're describing, the WORLD in which your story takes place, what kind of CRISIS drives your story forward, and what kind of INSIGHT (or commentary) you're offering about FORMATION through this kind of MEDIA TEXT.

 In the second paragraph, I'd like you to discuss the formal qualities of your story. What you'd like it to look and feel like visually, audibly, emotionally and aesthetically. In this paragraph, I expect you to reference other influences (media stories, television shows, films, commercials, videogames and/or art pieces). In this paragraph you should also describe in detail the process that you will use to complete this media story. Finally in your proposal, I would like you to list TWO media stories (from previous semesters) or digital-media stories (located online), including their URLs that you watched in preparation for this assignment.

Go Watch Some Media Stories!

Click these words to get there!

Mass Media & Shifts in American Culture

The second paper in this class asks you to make a connection between Mass Media and shifts in American Culture.   This paper should include a clear thesis statement about the relationship between a contemporary Mass Media phenomenon  and American Culture.  You should try to make connections between themes and characteristics of American Culture throughout the semester in class so that this paper is a natural outgrowth and summation of your learning throughout the semester.   More information about this assignment is available by clicking here.  You should submit the paper as a google doc, sharing it with the class gmail account.

How will my performance be assessed in this class?

I encourage you to set your own goals for this class. I do not believe that any experience where you rely on an outside evaluation of your work, involvement, and performance will affect you as significantly as an experience where you attempt to match your own evaluations with those you receive from others. What do you want to learn in this class? Why are you here? What might you walk away with? How can you grow as a person through this experience? What criteria will you use to judge whether or not you have?

That said, I am obliged to evaluate your work, involvement, and performance in this class. I don’t shrink from this duty, because I assume that the feedback I give you will be useful as you journey through this learning process. On the other hand, I don’t assume that you are the sum of your grade in this class. I know that your potential far exceeds any grade that’s available in this or any class. Hopefully you can use this system of grades to begin to push your own limits. In this class your learning will be formally assessed using these components:


Media Text Analysis
Mass Media & Shifts in American Culture
Media Story
Exams
Community Involvement

Introduction to Media Stories

You will create a digital story telling a story about how a particular media text (or group of texts) affected someone personally.

The story should focus on the ways that a favorite or important media text or set of texts (formative media) has shaped or interacted with someone’s life.

You may tell a story about media in your life, but I encourage you to branch out and learn about media in someone else’s life. Each story will be five minutes or less. Your story should include sound & images and will eventually be posted on the internet.

Our in-class discussion about stories should help you, but you may want to check out these materials I allude to in the training sessions I offer in the mac lab in the basement of the library so you can feel at least somewhat familiarized with the process.

The rubric I will use to evaluate your story is available in document sharing in e companion.

I've posted a number of media stories from other semesters at this new blog. I recommend watching them for ideas of things that work, and things that don't work as well.

I also recommend watching the stories posted at the digital storytelling center and on the stories for change site. The stories posted at Media Storm demonstrate even more technical innovations, but may enlarge your vision for how you can proceed through this assignment.

I'm eager to see what you create!

STEPS FOR CREATING A DIGITAL MEDIA STORY

1. Develop your story. Make an outline. Try developing your outline both with pictures and then separately with words.

2. Develop a storyboard. Tell your story using pictures. Lay the narration out beneath the pictures. You can find storyboard templates here.

3. Collect your pictures. You may want to find pictures on the internet. I assume you'll find some pictures from your past (or your story-subject's past). You may want to take some picture. There are other effective options, too remember. Click here for a post where I talk more about pictures and images and how they function in your story.

4. Digitize your pictures (scan them into the computer. Save them to a flash drive, external hard drive, CD or DVD) Make sure you scan them in at the largest size possible. You may want to crop photos or add filters or effects in Photoshop.

5. Drag and drop your photos into your project box (the top box on your screen).

6. Record your voice-over. You may record your voiceover in the Mac Lab or by checking out a recording device from Media Services and recording in a quieter room.

7. Add your narration to your project. You should be able to either drag-and-drop your audio file directly into your project box (the top one) or open it through itunes (look for the itunes icon in the right hand corner.)

8. Arrange your photographs in the timeline in order. Then adjust their time in relation to the narration. You may also adjust your narration to include pauses. Remember that silence and pacing are very effective emotional tools for a storyteller. To adjust the image time or the audio clip time, you click the little mechanical wheel icon in the corner of each image or of each sound clip. You can adjust by choosing in these options.

9. Add music. You can drag and drop song files or import them through itunes (look right to see the itunes icon.) You can adjust the volume by using the wheel icon and adjusting the volume. Remember you don't music throughout the whole story and sometimes more is less.

Assignment Rubrics

So you can succeed better at each of the assignments in the class, I am providing the rubrics I will use to assess your work.

Media Text Analysis Rubric


Digital Media Story Rubric


Political Economy Rubric

What is "community involvement?"

Many teachers assign a grade for student participation in class. While I agree that student participation is very important for a successful classroom experience, I am even more interested in developing a community of learning that includes student (and teacher) participation both within the classroom and outside of the classroom. A community of learning encompasses both formal communication patterns and informal communication patterns. It includes our explicit discussions about mass media in our lives and world, but could include conversations with one another as we consume media. It also includes relationships between students just as much as the relationship between the teacher and each individual student.

This grade will be calculated based on multiple assessments, all of which will be measured considering the ways that you contribute to the community of learning in this class. Therefore, some of the areas that will be evaluated in this category include:

1.) your constructive contributions in class (amount, depth of insight, and other-orientation are all important here),
2.) your verbal and non-verbal interaction with others in the class,
3.) your attendance,
4.) your interactions with your peers both inside and outside of class time,
5.) any way you facilitate the learning of other students (clarifying examples in class, phone calls in the evening, sharing notes together, after class discussions, and study groups, commenting on blogs) or
6.) any other contributions that you can make to improving the learning climate within the class.

You should focus on developing a culture of learning together; while the development of relationships with one another is important – it is essential that you orient these relationships toward developing one another’s ability to think about and use mass media well. I assume that in order to succeed in this portion of the class, you will need to have read well and been an active participant in class lecture and discussion.

This grade will be evaluated several ways. I will invite the entire class to advocate on behalf of other members of the class. I will journal after class, noting contributions made by individuals. On some days, I will take notes. Halfway through the semester, I will suggest the grade that I think most appropriate for your community involvement thus far (based on my assessments and the assessments of your peers). If you feel that this grade doesn't accurately reflect the way you contributed to the community of learning, I URGE you to talk to me. We can together reflect on our differing perspectives, and set goals for a better understanding in the second half of the semester.

Clearly, this system doesn’t allow you to either be invisible or domineering in this class. Hopefully we can co-construct a positive learning environment together.

At the end of the class, I will assign the final grade, but will consider the following factors: your personal assessment, your peers advocacy, and observations from my class journal throughout the semester.

Finding Music to Use With Your Digital Story

You should check out Moby's (huge) collection of music that he WANTS you to use...

Watch the vid below to find out more about it...



Googling will help you find many more resources of royalty free music.

Here is a link where you can check whether or not it's legitimate to use some other copyrighted music with your film.

My brother makes royalty free music -- and if you'd like to use something from his library -- stock20.com -- I could probably get you a good deal!

Template for Storyboarding your Digital Story

You can download the official storyboard template from the Center for Digital Storytelling by clicking here.

Digital Storytelling

One of the genres of media that has developed in tandem with the new media developments of the last decade is called: Digital Storytelling. Below you can find a number of links to digital stories. Beyond those links, I provide a few links to tutorials on how to create your own digital stories. Because I think that media production can be a really important part of building media literacy -- I would like to invite you to make your own digital story and post it as one of your blogs. With free video hosting available at Youtube, Googlevideo and elsewhere -- there aren't many barriers to you making your own digital stories and publishing them on the web.

Some Worthy Digital Stories

Momnotmom

A Bunch of Examples


Some Helpful Tips for Creating Digital Stories

What is Digital Storytelling?

A PDF from the Digital Story Center

Some Production Techniques

Because the extra steps of production will cost you so much more time -- any digital story that you create for the web can count for up to three blog entries (6 points!).

If you're feeling REALLY industrious, I'll let you make two digital stories (that's 12 points total available! Almost half of your blog entries), BUT (of course there are several more requiremements) check out this blog post, first.