English 101

Due dates: first draft due 9/25/06, second draft due 9/27/06

All work must be composed and revised in your wiki page for the second paper (i.e. Jim Groom’s second paper” link).

You may choose one of the following options:

1. For this assignment you will need to take a trip to the National Gallery of Art. Start off by simply wandering around the museum for a little while — get yourself lost for a bit and just walk around soaking in the sights. Once you’ve got a good general feeling for what the Gallery is all about, begin paying attention to the space around you, not just the art, but EVERYTHING in the museum — its architecture (inside and out), the layout of the galleries, the color of the walls, the language on the explanatory plaques, what’s on the ceiling, the mood of the place, the visitors, the guards, the docents (tour guides), the floors, the lighting, etc. — everything that surrounds the art. Treat the art as incidental. You’re there to look at the museum, not necessarily the art. As you walk around, pay particular attention to the other visitors. Do some of them seem as though they belong more than others? Think about why you responded the way you did? Listen in on conversations people are having about the art. If you can, make a note of what they’re saying. If you’re extra brave, start a conversation with another visitor about a particular piece or artist. Don’t tell them you’re doing an assignment — you’re under cover. When you’re finished, remember what you talked about and how — jot it down. Find a guided tour, and listen in on it. Make a note of the sort of language the tour guide uses. Are the guides mystifying the artwork they’re talking about? How? Once you’ve done all this, you are ready to write your essay. In your essay consider the following question: What argument about art is the museum making? That is, what does the building (and what goes on in it ) say about the art on display? How? — The following might be useful: Let’s assume the National Gallery of Art is, as Berger would argue, a mystification machine. How does it work? Assuming it contributes to the mystification of the art inside its walls, what about it mystifies? Support your argument with your observations and what Berger and Percy say in their essays.

Continue reading ‘Second Paper Assignment’

Do we post our finished essay under our first essay link, or do we create another “Allison C’s finished essay” type of link?

I expect you to be doing all of your writing and revising for each paper within one specific wiki, i.e., first essay page, second essay page, etc.. I will be showing a couple of examples of how the wiki remembers previous version and can visually represent the logic of editing a paper in some very exciting ways. So the short answer to your question is leave the final version in the wiki, and be sure not to copy over the entire draft with a version from MS Word or some other word processing program. Rather, please do all of your editing and revising within the wiki. We will discuss the formatting differences at length this week. Thanks for offering me the opportunity to clarify this, Allison.
Additionally, Jon Udell’s brilliant screencast on the history of the Heavey Metal Umlaut entry in Wikipedia does an excellent job of explaining the power of the wiki. Keep in mind, however, that there is some brief profanity during this demonstration. Link.

In preparation for your trip to the National Gallery of Art, I would ask you to “network” with one another about possibly car pooling up to DC, feel free to use the comments here to get the discussion and planning started (thank you, Varin!). Otherwise, Amtrak and the VRE do go to Washington DC from Fredericksburg. You will need to have visited the museum by the end of next weekend (9/24), so be sure to start thinking this through now. If anyone has to go to the museum immeditely, read as this weekend, be sure to talk to me about the papaer assignment, I will send you a copy with the understanding that you will be reading John Berger’s “Ways of Seeing” before you take the trip. Also, if you can not get your hands on a digital camera for the trip, please let me know in the comments or via e-mail. Click on the image below for more details about travelling to the National Gallery.

I would like to thank Kristen G. and Krysta for adding the notes they took during the last two meetings to the class wiki.  Now it is everyone else’s turn to give a little something back to the community!  I would like each of you to add you own thoughts, recollections and responses to these notes. This process does not require “total recall” on your part, rather, I would like your contribution to reflect an idea that may not have been represented (Rachel) allowing the discussion and distillation of ideas to be recorded even after the 75 minutes we share twice a week.

Each of you will be required to contribute to Krysta or Kristen’s notes from the last two classes -so get going, have fun, and be creative! Feel free to edit the notes and reformat them. However, DO NOT SIMPLY ADD YOUR IDEAS BELOW THE EXISTING NOTES, rather you are to shape and integrate your ideas into the logic of the notes by editing together as a collaborative community!

Please keep in mind that the second reading questions assigned for Walker Percy‘s “The Loss of the Creature” (which can be found in your text) are to be posted in your blog by Sunday evening so that I have ample time to read and comment on your work.