Class, Fri, 2/28

Going Meta (1): Twitter

Standage, Writing on the Wall

Fastwrite: Take us to a moment in a post by one of your classmates that particularly interests or provokes you. Then, take us to a moment in Standage’s text that helps us think about that post.

Going Meta (2): Interesting uses of audio

Affordances

“Qualities that permit specific kinds of uses” (Gladwell 2002). [pdf]

x3: Responding to Davidson (video)

YTD Downloader and iMovie

Creative Commons/CC Search

Rhett & Link: “Squirrel Rights Song” (2010)

 

Digital Essay

Allison Carr, “Cooking School,” Harlot, 2012.

To do

1. Tues, 3/04, 4:00 pm: Read Davidson, pp. 1–161. Post x3 to this site.
2. Thurs, 3/06, 4:00 pm: Read x3s. Post comments.
3. Thurs, 3/06, 4:00 pm: Tweet to #685dw.
4. Tues, 3/11, 4:00 pm: Post x4 to this site.

 

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Class, Fri, 2/21

Working with A Better Pencil

Getting Started

• Please locate two passages in Baron’s text—one that you find especially insightful or eloquent, and another where he seems to you to be straining to make a point or articulate an idea. Be ready to take us to these passages at opportune moments in our conversation.
• Reread the comments on your x1 post. Identify a moment in one that raises an issue that you’d like us to discuss.

x2: Responding to Standage

 

 

Using audio

• Audacity and Tony Vincent, “Using Audacity“
• John Solomon, “Pulling Back the Curtain” (2004)

Going meta

#685dw

Blog Posts

• Identify a brief prose passage from one of the x1 posts that you admire.
• Identify a use of another medium in one of the posts that you feel adds strongly  to its argument. See if you can name this use.

Digital Essay

Tsakiri-Scanatovits, Marie-Margaux . 2010. My Mother’s Coat.

To do

1. Tues, 2/25, 4:00 pm: Read Standage. Post x2 to this site.
2. Thurs, 2/27, 4:00 pm: Read x2s. Post comments.
3. Thurs, 2/27, 4:00 pm: Tweet to #685dw.
4. Tues,, 3/04, 4:00 pm: Read Davidson. Post x3 to this site.

x2: Responding to Standage (audio)

I’m really impressed by your responses to Baron’s A Better Pencil.

Your task for next week is to offer a similarly lively and thoughtful response to Tom Standage’s  Writing on the Wall—with one small technical requirement added, which is to make some use of audio to supplement your work as a writer. This does not need to involve extraordinary technological measures. On the contrary, I’m more interested in quality of thought than technical execution. As evidence:

You can quote songs or recordings that have been made by other people (with acknowledgment). Or you can make your own recordings. I only stipulate the following:

• The bulk of your response must be in writing.
• Your audiofiles must be planned, not spontaneous or impromptu.
• You must intend your readers to listen to each audiofile you use in its entirety. (Don’t upload entire songs or videos.)
• No audiofile should thus run more than one minute.

The aim of this exercise is to think about some of the ways audio can add to the impact of a written text. I will thus be more interested in the thoughtfulness and originality of your work than in its technical virtuosity. I feel sure you’ll be able to top my own predictable efforts here. Indeed, I double dog dare you to.

Use x2 as your category and, again, think of some identifying tags for your post.

Deadlines: x2 due on Tues, 2/25, 4:00 pm. Comments due by Thurs, 2/27, 4:00 pm.