Let’s get (re-)thinking about the first major paper!

Recall that your major paper is engaging the research question you’ve been formulating since Response Paper 1.2. During your first conference, which is approximately twenty minutes in duration, you and I will chat about that question, how you are exploring it (through your paper and new sound-script), and why your research question and line of inquiry matter in the first place.
To prepare for the conference, please prepare a brief blog entry that:

Briefly explains your new sound-script (e.g., its purpose, audience, and narrative style).

States your research question (from Response Paper 1.4). (Of course, you may have revised your question since 1.4).

Expresses the main claim of your first major paper and why you believe the claim is reasonable and risky.

Explains the stakes of your argument and why your claim and new sound-script are both important.

Articulates how your new sound-script serves to augment, critique, or complicate your chosen film or TV show.

Provides one artifact (e.g., a journal article, academic text, or selection from the course material) that you will be using in support of your new sound-script.

Raises any specific questions you have about your claim, your analysis, or your research. Of course, your questions can be about any nervousness or frustration you are having. Remember: both nervousness and frustration are a part of the writing process.

Be prepared to discuss your thought piece at the conference. In fact, I suggest that you print it and bring it with you. I will! (Please note that not having your thought piece for your conference seriously cramps your participation grade.)

Your thought piece can be written in a fragmented, bulleted manner, though your complex claim should be well-articulated and grammatically correct.

Please post your thought piece by Thursday, February 7th at 9:30 a.m. and categorize it under “#4 – Conference Thought Piece.”

Also, please read and comment on at least two thought pieces posted by your peers. What do you like about their ideas? What is missing? What needs explaining?

Thanks! Looking forward to reading your arguments and hearing your new sound-scripts,
Jentery

Alcoff attempts to differentiate between what is acceptable and what is not when speaking for others.  She claims that speaking about a group is different from speaking for a group when she says,“Thus I would maintain that if the practice of speaking for others is problematic, so too must be the practice of speaking about others.This is partly the case because of what has been called the “crisis of representation.” For in both the practice of speaking for as well as the practice of speaking about others, I am engaging in the act of representing the other’s needs, goals, situation, and in fact, who they are, based on my own situated interpretation. In post-structuralist terms, I am participating in the construction of their subject-positions rather than simply discovering their true selves.”   However, this leads me to wonder where do you draw the line between speaking for others and speaking about others?  Doesn’t a representative of a group contradict this statement?  Alcoff claims that speaking for others is knowing and discovering the subject matter at hand while speaking about others is the speaker’s way of interpreting the group based on the speaker’s situation.   Many groups have representatives speak on their behalf.  In these situations, the representative is speaking for others yet the title of a representative seems to employ the position of speaking about others. 

“As my practices are made possible by events spatially far away from my body so too my own practices make possible or impossible practices of others. The declaration that I “speak only for myself” has the sole effect of allowing me to avoid responsibility and accountability for my effects on others; it cannot literally erase those effects.”  

This quote made me realize that when speaking for or about another group, I will have some influence on the way others perceive that group.  As with doing service work at the Boys and Girls Club, what we say about the Boys and Girls club will surely have an effect and influence others’ perceptions of the Club.  Therefore, we should consider what we say about the Boys and Girls Club carefully and take responsibility for those outcomes.  As a student, we will have to write about and eventually make a PSA representing the Boys and Girls Club which brings to light Alcoff’s claim that speaking for others often time raises problematic issues.  Alcoff mentions these issues when she says “The recognition that there is a problem in speaking for others has followed from the widespread acceptance of two claims. First, there has been a growing awareness that where one speaks from affects both the meaning and truth of what one says, and thus that one cannot assume an ability to transcend her location… The second claim holds that not only is location epistemically salient, but certain privileged locations are discursively dangerous. In particular, the practice of privileged persons speaking for or on behalf of less privileged persons has actually resulted (in many cases) in increasing or re-enforcing the oppression of the group spoken for”.  For our future assignments, it should be in our best interest to represent the Boys and Girls Club with the best ability we can.   According to Alcoff’s claims, we should go about our work by getting to know the people we work with at the Boys and Girls and understand their feelings and thoughts.  By doing so, as a service learner we will have a better understanding of their position.   

For the balance of your sequence one writing, you’ll be analyzing a film with some degree of voice-over narration. Before you begin, perhaps some history and some terms would help you approach the very notion of voice-over, hence the Kozloff readings (here and here) for Thursday’s class (on January 17th).

Please carefully read the Kozloff texts and annotate them in your own blog entry. After your notes, please address the following in that same entry:

• How might someone object to the use of voice-over narration in film and why?
• Why do you think Kozloff feels the need to defend voice-over narration and how does she go about doing so?
• How familiar are you with voice-over narration and how does Kozloff’s writing intersect with your familiarity? (Here, feel free to provide some example films, if you wish. You might also return to Nordstrom’s e-portfolio for points as well.)
• Finally, given your own experiences with voice-over narration in tandem with Kozloff’s arguments, what film are you considering for analysis in your sequence one writing? (You can list several films, if need be, although I urge you to start refining soon. See the list I provided if your ideas are running dry.)

If you would like to come to class even more prepared, then include some questions that you have about the film(s) you are considering for sequence one. These questions can be broad (e.g., “How is voice-over narration functioning in the film I selected?”) or quite specific (e.g., “How long must a voice-over scene be for a productive analysis?”).

Let me know what questions you have, and please categorize this thing under “Blog 3 – Voice-Over?” and post it before Thursday’s class.

Also, please read and comment on at least two posts by your peers. What did you learn from them? Have you seen the films they are considering? If so, what suggestions or experiences do you have?

Heaps of thanks!

What’s service-learning, and now what’s sonic culture? For Tuesday’s class (on January 15th), you’ll be reading a talk by Erik Davis, as well as Megan Nordstrom’s English 121 E-Portfolio.

As you read, compose a blog entry, which can include your notes on, questions about, responses to, and frustrations with the texts. As I’ve mentioned, your blogging needn’t be formal.

When you are finished reading, please include in your post (perhaps after your notes, etc.):

• At least one quote from each text that you consider—for whatever reason—important.
• Your response to HOW each quote is written (e.g., the tone, word choice, or the type of evidence used) and the implications of the quote, and
• Your understanding of how each quote relates to the importance of studying sound and sound technologies. (Note that how the texts differ quite significantly. They serve different purposes and audiences.)

If you would like to come to class even more prepared, then you can expand upon how your two quotes intersect. Together, in conversation, what do they suggest about sonic culture studies? (Throughout the quarter, we’ll refer to such conversations as “intertextualizations.” How English is that?)

Let me know what questions you have, and please categorize this thing under “Blog 2 – Sonic Culture?” and post it before Tuesday’s class.

Also, please read and comment on at least two posts by your peers. What do you like about their readings of the texts? How have they helped you better understand approaches to sonic culture?

Thanks again!

Now that you’ve completed Response Paper 1.1, how about letting someone else give it a gander?

The purpose of this peer review is to get to know one of your 121 peers a bit better and to do so through sound.

To begin, you will receive one of your peer’s 1.1 playlists or audiographies. Then, you will read it closely, noting what’s included and how it’s included.

Next, in your own blog entry, please respond to the following questions:

• What appears to be her rationale for the order of the sounds?
  
• What other sounds might “fit” in her playlist?
• Based upon your peer’s playlist, what do you assume about her?

Again, no need to write formally here, people. Treat your blog entry as a space to take notes as you read your peer’s playlist.

Before you post your entry, please categorize it under “I Hear You.” Thanks!

When you are finished, as a class we’ll chat about your playlists and the blog responses to them.

As you blog, let me know what questions you have. Thanks!

– Jentery

As you are already aware, English 121B is a service-learning course. In this class, you are required to spend twenty to forty hours during the quarter at a local Boys and Girls Club. The idea here is that your service-learning will augment your academic learning. For example, rather than abstractly speaking about how the technologies and media that we use ostensibly impact communities, you will instead have the concrete opportunity to use technology to articulate your service-learning experiences and speak for, about, and with local Boys and Girls Clubs. Such concrete opportunities should not only enhance your academic learning, but also increase your awareness of how your academic work here at the UW intersects with public practices.

But wait. What’s service-learning anyway?

For this in-class blog (to be written on Thursday, January 10th), please write briefly about some sort of community or volunteer service that you have performed (e.g., helping a friend, participating in a local organization, or tutoring a student). Or, if you prefer, you can reverse the dynamic here. That is, you can write about a time when someone volunteered to help you, presumably when you were in need of some help. (Of note, this experience needn’t be “positive,” per se. Be honest here.)

As you write, please mention the following three things:

• The specific context of the community or volunteer service (e.g., the who, what, when, where, and how)
• How you now recall that service as an experience (e.g., negative, positive, productive, or unproductive)
• And how that service experience might help you approach “service-learning” in this class.

No need to write formally here, people. The function of the blog in this class is to collaboratively log, discuss, and feed back into class activities, service-learning, and sonic culture. Get your ideas out for conversation and polish them in the response and major papers.

Before you publish your blog post, please categorize it under “#1 – Service-Learning?”.

And, of course, since this is your first blog post, ask me technical questions. After all, this isn’t a computer science course, so I’m certainly not assuming that you have “blogging proficiency.”

Thanks!