Final Class Project in Process

Hello Y'all,

Link back to the WCC English 101 page

Below is an assignment that a group of Community College instructors from around the state, including myself, created last year at a conference. I've been wanting to use this in an English Composition class, although I've been unsure of how to go about it. I will paste the assignment as we wrote it up, and will also include, in the purple italic font, my ideas, questions, etc. about how to apply this assignment towards your final writing project of the quarter--which includes a visual component, an in-class essay, a third (and final) out-of-class essay, and some sort of presentation that connects with your final project. Feedback and questions invited!

Interdisciplinary Assignment Integrating Visuals and Writing

Main Outcome: Employ students’ visual intelligence as an entrypoint/springboard to writing, and employ all their intelligences to create visuals that represent course concepts.

Students will know/ be able to:

- Make a conceptual connection between a visual image (or metaphor) and a course concept.

"Course concept": Defining this has been my main difficulty in thinking about using this assignment. WCC has developed a list of "Core Learning Abilities" that reflect what you, as college students, should master through all of your courses. They are: Knowing; Communicating; Thinking; Relating; and Integrating. Using these as concepts to work with on this assignment is one idea I have. Another idea, the one I am leaning toward, is to use concepts that you could then explore in relation to yourselves, specifically to how each of you define, create, project/communicate your individual sense of self. Examples of such concepts: autonomy, individuality, receptivity, identity--we can brainstorm more of these in class.

- Visualize a concept as a step towards exploring the concept in writing.

- Make an authentic / self-reflective connection to the subjective matter.

Possible steps or stages to assignment series:

Activity #1 (in class):

Provide image(s) and model ways of analyzing or reacting to images.

• Ask them to think about and discuss choices made or perspectives taken by the creators of the image (by comparing different visual treatments of identical subjects – e.g., 3 different visual representations of a cell, of a swinging bridge).
• The examples given above related to specific courses--a cell to biology, for instance. In writing about personal identity, perhaps the images that I bring in could be self-portraits. The subjects wouldn't be identical, though.... Another idea I have is to bring in ad images that suggest one of the concepts I mentioned above; for instance, I could bring in three ads that seem to suggest autonomy through their presentation of individuals.

• Provide image(s) and ask students to write about it (via freewrite, followed by discussion).
• Different ways to write about images:
• description: reflecting the image in words by describing the subject, setting, placement, colors, text
  
• analysis: zeroing in on specific aspects of the image and suggesting the meaning behind things such as gaze, placement, color choices, text
• response: writing about how you react to the image, creating a story to go with it, making connections with other similar or dissimilar things from your experience
  

Content/Correctness: Emphasis on content, not on correctness. Generative, to unleash ideas and creativity, develop descriptive writing skills. This writing would be done in class, to get ideas going and to practice the different kinds of writing approaches used to talk about images.

Activity # 2:

A. Choose or make a visual (or visual metaphor) to illustrate a course concept. In this case, you would come up with your own visual image--either by finding one that you relate to yourself through one of the concepts mentioned above (we can brainstorm others in class), or by creating an image that reflects one of the concepts. You can use collage from magazine images, or you can draw or paint your own. What matters here is that your image has some meaning to you, not that it is artistically "good."

AND

B. Write a descriptive analysis of your visual/ visual metaphor. This could be the in-class essay portion of the project.

• What layers of meaning do you find in / did you try to put into your visual, and how do these layers intersect?
• Use a variety of sentence structures, not just simple declarative sentences. Encourage students to emphasize grammatically/rhetorically the same features that they consider significant in the image; or ”paint with words” so structure of text reflects the image (like using meandering sentence structures to describe a picture of a river, or organizing the text in a way that mirrors organization of cell).

C. Then, in class: workshop the descriptive analyses of visuals with other students (to gather input for revising your descriptive analysis piece. You may also choose to revise your visual based on this workshop, if you want to, but revising the visual is not required.) Workshopping these in-class drafts could be a step towards a final essay. Revising the visual image could be something you do in order to generate further ideas for your final essay.

Activity # 3: (final project in the series, out of class)

Write a reflection essay.

Include:

1) The visuals you’ve created or selected (you may include and reflect on drafts of the visual if you want).

2) Submit your revised visual analysis of the image you chose/created.

3) Describe the process you used to create the visual.

4) Please also reflect on any changes (during this course) to your perceptions of the ways that words and visuals connect.

Content/Correctness at this stage: Content-rich, but correctness emphasized more.

Sorry, Folks

My WCC Faculty Webpage link

Hello People,

Well, you know by now that I cancelled my Thursday, Feb 15th classes. Sorry I wasn't able to let you know ahead of time.

But now you are relieved of the big crunch to do peer review so soon! Woo-hoo! I had already told the 101-T class that they could peer review next Wed, so it's only fair that now the 101-K class can do the same (I don't think very many people were really going to be ready today anyway).

So, make some use of the extra time, and bring in a good, developed draft for peer review on Wed. I will work on the calendar for the remainder of the quarter--including readings from Signs of Life, and consider extending the final draft due date for this essay to the following Monday, Feb 26 (depending partly on how fast I can get through this pile of late essays that were thrust upon me, and also on how the final scheduling looks).

Meantime, if you have any questions about Essay 2, or suggestions for Essay 3 readings (see your Signs of Life table of contents) based on your interests, give me a shout: rushingdl@gmail.com

Enjoy the long weekend!
Ms. Rushing

Reflections on this essay

I'm hearing a lot of frustration and, perhaps, even dread over the Essay 2 assignment. (Part of this may be due to not receiving grades on anything until so late in the quarter--or, in the case of students with an on-time Essay 1, having received a grade you're unhappy with.)

I think, also, there's frustration because, even after a couple of weeks of viewing perspectives about the situation in Iraq, people still don't know what they think. It seems that some of you feel overwhelmed, and since you are not writing a persuasive essay, or a research paper--some paper that begins with a familiar approach--then you don't know what to do.

So, might I ask: What is my big fat main point in assigning this topic? And perhaps, why am I assigning you an essay that doesn't fit a "mode" (compare/contrast, persuasive, argument, etc.)?
Answer to question #1: My bfmp in assigning this topic is to stimulate some critical thinking. What does that mean, really? I feel that people in our culture today are used to receiving, yet not processing, information. Perhaps this applies especially to younger people, who may spend an inordinate amount of time watching television and surfing the internet. While some news and views about something bigger than yourselves may reach your eyes, and hence your brain, you are not often required to process it.

In order to become educated, we have to process some of the information that we consume. The beauty of English 101 is that we (faculty who teach it) are not asking students to memorize and regurgitate information. You may have to do that in other classes, at times, because you really, really need to memorize, for instance, muscle groups, if you are going to be a physical therapist. But here, the aim is to get you to critically examine material, and then to communicate some new idea, based on your own perspective.

I may be wrong, but I felt that a lot of interest was triggered in our discussions and in our viewing of the resources leading up to this essay. Now I sense a crash of interest, as some relate to it as, "Now I have to write an essay." You aren't just consuming the information any more; you're required to think about it, figure out how to develop your own thinking from it, and that is difficult. But at least don't let it be boring. Interest yourself in what unique perspective you can bring to this. If you are bored, and don't care, guess what? You will write your essay, hand it in, and I will get it and be bored and unable to care as well. (Although I will care about helping you with your essay, and about explaining what your essay lacks, in this case, I won't be able to care about the content if you don't.) It really can work like that. The other side of that is that if you do develop some interest, some care, some attention to critical thinking and expressing your ideas, I will respond, as a reader, to that interest, that spark.

Answer to question #2: We (again, English faculty at WCC) don't really do that much any more. You do have the choice to use persuasion, or argument, or comparison and contrast within your essay (as a style), but my point in not assigning this essay is to get you to analyze others' current views on the situation in Iraq, and then reflect on and analyze your own view, as well as ask the question, "What informs my, and others', views?"

News from the English 101 think tank

I'm sitting here watching "Sir, No Sir" (website: http://www.sirnosir.com/), a film about soldiers' dissidence during the U.S. inolvement in the Vietnam War. This is a very intense and educational film, folks. I know that what you're going to be writing about is perspectives on Iraq, but I would not rule out, for anyone interested, using this film as a source for making connections between the some current day soldiers' perspectives of the Iraq war with the soldiers who dissented during the Vietnam War. I cannot make the point enough, that this is a very in-depth report (of course, with a particular perspective!) about anti-war activism within the service. [This just in: A showing of this film will be aired at WCC in Heiner 208 next Thursday, Feb 22nd.]

On another front, Thursday evening, at a private home in Bellingham, there will be a screening of the current documentary, The Ground Truth (also available on DVD, I believe). I haven't seen it yet, but it is about the current situation in Iraq, and will be followed by letter writing to state representatives. This, of course, would give you an opportunity to not only watch the film with others, but to interview them about their views for your essay. So, if you're interested, let me know and I'll tell you how to sign up.

Here it is: Essay 2

Here is the Essay 2 assignment, pretty much completed. The only thing missing I can think of is a handout I want to include on analytical summary (by Jeffrey Klausman); for now, here's a link to it:
The Analytic Summary:More Than a Trip to the Grocery Store

Hey Y'all, for the official, printable version of this essay assignment, go back to my web, 'nkay?--Thanks, Ms. Rushing

English 101 / Winter 2007 / Ms. Rushing

Essay 2: U.S. in Iraq: Perspectives

Steps leading up to your essay (required):

Write analytical summaries of at least two sources that you will cite in your essay, which give a perspective of American involvement in Iraq. The summaries can be based on films (Iraq in Fragments, Gunner Palace*, Voices of War*, Iraq for Sale*, The Ground Truth* are some I know about), on websites, on current news and "views" articles, or on any combination of sources. Possibly, choose one source that reflects or informs your current perspective on the situation.

* Available to rent on DVD.

** Note: If you are planning to use a blog, the panel 101-T visited (Iraq Vets against the War) or personal interviews as sources for your essay you may, but you should choose other types of sources for your summaries.

Prolific writing One of my writing books names what we’ve been calling “free writing” prolific writing. It is also referred to as focused free writing. Prolific means “producing in large quantities or with great frequency; highly productive: a prolific writer” (from Dictionary.com); in focused free writing your writing is driven by a particular focus—for example, a question, quotation, image or idea. Produce several pages of focused writing connected with either your sources or your own perspective on American involvement in Iraq. Remember in some of your writing to consider what informs your perspective.

Your Working Thesis:
Once you have chosen your sources to analyze and done some extensive writing about your own view, you should be able to write a working thesis that can guide your essay. This working thesis (and hence, your essay) might contrast two ways of thinking, OR it might explain in a nutshell one prominent view, OR it might highlight your own view and how it has been shaped or influenced. There are other possibilities, I’m sure; the main thing is that in your working thesis, you present some of your own original thinking that connects somehow with your analyses.

Peer Review:

Bring three copies of at least the first 3 pages of your draft to class on:

Final draft (4 full pages) due on:

The Essay

Topic—U.S. in Iraq: Perspectives

“What is the difference between opinion and perspective?” A student asked this question when we began looking at this topic. Here are definitions for each culled from dictionary.com :

opinion: “A belief or conclusion held with confidence but not substantiated by positive knowledge or proof: ‘The world is not run by thought, nor by imagination, but by opinion’ (Elizabeth Drew).”

perspective: The state of one's ideas, the facts known to one, etc., in having a meaningful interrelationship: “You have to live here a few years to see local conditions in perspective.”

I also like the definition given for perspective in terms of drawing, because I think it gets at this topic with which we’re grappling; it reminds us that perspective depends on where you stand, in this case, whether you stand here or in Iraq:
“the appearance of things relative to one another as determined by their distance from the viewer.”

Approach—Your essay will include both analysis of others’ perspectives on the situation in Iraq and reflection on, as well as analysis of, your own perspective

• If you are as objective and analytical as possible in looking at both your own and others’ perspectives, your essay won’t become a “rant,” but will inform your readers and perhaps persuade them.

• Consider looking at the perspective you held both before and after being exposed to others' views.
• Examine as well what informs (and formed) the perspectives you present.

Organization—Whichever organizational strategy you use, remember when using your sources not to just "say what they say," but also to "say what they mean" and say why it’s important within the context of your essay.

• One choice in organizing this essay would be to give an overall introduction, present your two analytical summaries, and end with the reflective part of your essay. If you choose to do this, remember that you will still need to provide a context for these sources, and transitional sentences in between the different parts of your essay.
• You can instead choose to blend the summary and analysis of your sources with your reflection throughout your essay—quoting, paraphrasing and summarizing from your sources.

Essays: from #1 to #2

Hmmmm, I don't know if anyone has read what I have previously posted, since no one has posted a comment. I guess if I want comments I will have to assign them!

I have been trying to wrap my brain around the concept for Essay 2 for some time now, and you have all heard me thinking about it out loud; you can also read my thoughts if you read the longer post I wrote about it.

Now I have to pin something down. As I read through Essay 1 final drafts, I am becoming acutely aware that I want you to focus on...FOCUS. Developing a working thesis--a statement that maps out the direction in which your essay might go--is an important tool, I think, for those of you whose essays were very general this first time around (e.g., "Advertising is everywhere") as well as for those who mainly repeated what one of the Signs of Life authors had to say (e.g., "Men's women are available, attractive and impressed by the man in the ad.") A working thesis needs to have something of your original thinking in it in order to guide your essay process.

I happen to believe that when I get a lot of essays with the same types of problems that, besides reflecting where people are with their essay writing skills and confidence, that there is probably a fatal flaw either in the assignment or in how I led you up to the assignment. So obviously I want to avoid making the same mistake in presenting Essay 2. Of course, having original thinking about a topic is directly related to how interested you are in it, so perhaps the shift in topic will be enough for some of you. As for creating focus, I will try to build it into the essay assignment.

Roughly what I'm thinking (Remember that this is an assignment in progress!):

1. Include in your essay analytical summaries of at least two sources which give a perspective of American involvement in Iraq. The summaries can be based on films (Iraq in Fragments, Gunner Palace, Voices of War, Iraq for Sale), on websites, on current news and "views" articles, or on any combination of sources. Possibly, choose one source that reflects or informs your current perspective on the situation.
2. Include also in your essay an examination of your own perspective on Iraq (perhaps both before and after being exposed to others' views) as well as reflection on your perspective and on what informs (and formed) that perspective.

Your Working Thesis:
Once you have chosen your sources to analyze, you should be able to write a working thesis that can guide your essay. This working thesis (and hence, your essay) might contrast two ways of thinking; it might explain in a nutshell one prominent view; it might highlight your own view and how it has been shaped or influenced.

Organization:
1. One choice in organizing this essay would be to give an overall introduction, present your two analytical summaries, and end with the reflective part of your essay. If you choose to do this, remember that you will still need to provide transitional sentences in between the different parts of your essay.
2. For those of you more comfortable with your essay writing, you can blend analysis of your sources with your reflection throughout your essay--basically, using them as your sources, remembering to not just "say what they say," but also to "say what they mean."

We'll talk more about this in class, and of course I will come up with a document that spells out the requirements, but I think that this is the direction I'm leading you for Essay 2.

Finding out more

Trek Video in Fairhaven has (and probably Film is Truth, downtown--these are our two Independent Video stores) two more films with a theme about Iraq. We don't have time to watch everything, but if you want to on your own, there are Voices of War, which Rob, the owner, thinks has Iraqi perspectives within it, and Iraq for Sale, which was mentioned by one of the vets we listened to in 101-T.

iraqinfragments.com
There is a "press packet" on this site, which is a PDF file, which would be an excellent resource for any of you using any of the film's perspectives in your Essay 2.

gunnerpalace.com
Many of the blog links on the site are either dead or possibly "friends only;" but some are active.

I have found warincontext.org which looks like a promising source, as well as an interesting article, (google to find), "You break it, you pay for it," by Naomi Klein.

Hello to Students who happen to want to take a moment to read my brainstorming for your Essay 2.

I've been looking around the web, using the search terms: Iraq & perspective. This has proved interesting; most sites I get still lean left, e.g. progressive. I'm interested in gathering a variety of perspectives, so that you can work with a view that you are interested in, perhaps one that is different from your own.

Remember that I'm defining perspective as that place from which you view things--U.S. citizen (or not), age group, male or female, from a family with views supporting or opposing the current political agenda in Iraq, etc., rather than opinion.

In other words, it's easy to have an opinion, but it's much harder to listen to, investigate, and try to interpret or analyze someone else's perspective. Actually, I suppose it's impossible--we can ultimately only see from our own very unique point of view, in a sense, but we can try to think about another's perpsective without putting up a defensive barrier formed out of our pre-determined opinion.

Questions: What does it mean to have a perspective, and to know what forces shape and color that perspective? How can we listen to, examine, investigate another, especially differing, perspective without our own opinion or view creating an immediate defense?
I would like students to use this opportunity--the "opportunity" of this essay--to find and use reliable sources (including the ones that we have experienced together--the Vets against the War talk; Gunner Palace, Iraq in Fragments-- investigate them and be able to write something of an analysis as well as perhaps a response. Just as we can look at what informs our own views of what's going on in Iraq, we can ask what informs others' views.

A colleague asked me: "Do you think you are actually making a dent in students' perceptions of what "perspective" is?

Parting thoughts: When we find a source, such as the one I found on forbes.com saying "The Best War Blogs," we have to ask questions. "Who says they're the best?" Forbes... "Who/what is Forbes? What perspective do they represent? What criteria did they use to decide on 'the best'?"

My notes from Iraqi vets against the war

• Here are my notes (so far, not quite done) typed up from the Iraqi Vets against the War that 101-T class members provided an audience for last Thursday.
• At the beginning I have listed sources that were mentioned within the 3 ex-soldiers' talks. Anything in [brackets] shows my additions, changes or interpretations; the rest is straight from my notes

Sources mentioned by the speakers:

Bulletproofme.com
Iraq for Sale documentary
Juancole.com middle east news blog
Antiwar.com
Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States (book)
Catch 22 classic book
1984 classic book

First speaker: Harvey Tharp

Joined Air Force @ 19 yrs old
Arabic linguist, in Saudi Arabia 5 times; flew over and monitored Southern Iraq
Earned a BA while enlisted through Ohio State

Later joined the Navy as a judge advocate [like a lawyer]

JAG [?] 2002

Studied Arabic;] had to take DLPT [test]; to his shock it was the same version of the Air Force test, exactly, so he aced the test. "Damn, I'm going to Iraq." However, wasn't called, even after Bush's "dance on the deck."

U.S. Plan A: No plan to occupy, we're going to turn it over to [didn't catch]
Plan B: Fell through after 3 weeks
Plan C: Team had no presence outside of Bagdhad—contractors had to make the plan! A high-level diplomat [and other roles] were needed in each region

"Foreign area experts" needed, so he was sent. 5 staff officers grew up in Lebanon, 2 linguists [including him]

"The were surprised to see us," bcause they didn't have all the stuff needed [body armour to stop AK47 only, not the bombs that were common]

A Navy dentist became Tikrit political officer
He became the policy officer [in a different city?], and was handed 144,000 to rebuild the city [after U.S. attack]

Coalition Policy A____:
They staffed CPA with young Republicans, aka "Children Playing Adults," "Can't Produce Anything." In one year, support from Iraqis [for Americans] disappeared.

Bulletproofme.com

Hotmail or Yahoo email accounts were used for official communications w/ headquarters

Iraq for Sale documentary

Rules for leaving base: 2 vehicles, 2 dedicated shooters (not the driver), communication btween vehicle and base and an intinerary known by destination: had to break rules to go anywhere and get anything done, so went in his white SUV w/ no map, no radio: a real target.

Halifburton/KPR
Employees could be hired as support staff, so they had that in their back pocket
Hired as HB subcontractors

He left Iraq in 2004 and then Abu Gharaib photos hit the media. He couldn't deal with knowing people who treated him as a friend were seeing those pictures, which they would take to heart.

Juancole.com middle east news blog

Antiwar.com

British officials wrote an article saying that the biggest problem was [U.S. soldiers ?] treating Iraqis as less than human

43% of Iraqis supported U.S. involvement in the beginning; [within a few years, CPA support was 2-5%]

An excess of judge advocates in the Navy required him to transfer to a new job or leave the Navy. They transferred hi mto National Security Agency, which would mean he would need to basically be a combatant, in a new role.

In November 2004, the Fallejuh mission destroyed the city.

Our reasons for going [to Iraq] turned out to be lies.

March 2005 honorably discharged. Came back with PTSD, mild, but with flashbacks. Stress can trigger, if you have a genetic predisposition too mental disorders, such as bipolar, and this is what happened to him—extreme bipolar response.

2nd speaker: Damon Murphy
On Navy submarine 4 yrs.

Change in attitude towards Muslim people is what caused him to be here [w/ Veterans against the War] today

Use of words like Hajid[?] Raghead…show this shift.

The face of terrorism became stereotyped, whereas before [we knew it to be] universal.

When he left the service, he began hanging out with Iraqi vets who had been "burned" by their service

3rd Speaker: Jeff Englehart
Joined Army pre-9-11, thinking he was joining a peace-time army.
He had dropped out of college and didn't see himself going back. He is from a conservative family, in which joining the service was always accepted as Plan B. He joined and said he wanted to go to Germany, make money, and the recruiter said, "No problem, you just need to choose whether you want to be a "calvary scout" or a "tanker." He thought driving a tank didn't sound fun, so chose to be a calvary scout.

He gets asked why he is anti-war when he joined [voluntarily]—for him, the army was humbling and educational. The army owns you, controls you.

His "re-educatin" [my words] began with Catch 22 and 1984, which his brother sent him, and Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States made a big impact on him. He got interested in Worker's movements, read Noam Chomsky, Emma Goldman [?]. Then when he saw Bush talking about Sadaam and Iraq [he realized the missing information that] "this has been going on for hundreds of years."

Army authority is held together by fear…

He and his buddies had AWOL bags packed, but came to the point of "You know what? We're going…"

When his unit went to Iraq, they took the trucks they'd driven in Germany.

There were 500 guys w/ 5 shower heads. His point: they weren't ready for this. (Kuwait, training)

Special Forces Officer had a video game mentality about when/whom to shoot.

2 oil fields secured first by Marine forces, named after Shell, Exxon

"We were occupiers," performing house raids like storm troopers; it was degrading. People were arrested, then lost to Abu Gharaib. Things happen like this every day.

[Bakuiva?] 2004

If we could [have] ever "w[o]n a war…." "w[o]n hearts and minds" [that chance is over]

Transfer of sovereignty was a show; there were no changes; "we," military, made all the decisions.

Westerners don't understand the culture.

Fallujah "could go down in history as one of the worst war crimes ever;" they "obliterated" Fallujah.