Tips for A Great Final Project

1. Your introduction should be a page long.  It is basically the thesis of your entire project.  A summary of what the reader is about to view.
2. Your works cited page should include every source you used for every genre in your project not just the research/academic genre. For instance, if you wrote an annotated bibliography you will include all the sources you used in your bibliography as well as the sources you used to create your top 10 list or your graph or your letter to authority. Make sure it's properly formatted and remember the difference between a works cited list and an annotated bibliography is that a works cited list doesn't have annotations (brief description of source).
3. It should be easy to identify what each genre is.
4. Please use my feedback and follow whatever suggestions I gave you about your pieces. I'm telling you how to get an A.
5. Turn it in on time. December 15th Between noon and 4 in 914 Sprau.
6. PLEASE BRING PEER REVIEW SHEETS WITH YOU WHEN YOU TURN YOUR PAPER IN.

Course Recap for Wednesday, November 30

Research Quiz
In class you wrote out your thesis statements for Project 4 and then you wrote a citation for a source about your topic and a summary of that source using in-text citations.  You did this to show me that you have an understanding of what a thesis statement is, what a good source looks like, and how to use MLA format to document your research.  If you're looking for places to find good sources, look at the following links:

• Western Michigan Library Power Search  www.wmich.edu/library
• Google Scholar scholar.google.com
• Sirs sks.sirs.com (I just tried to use this site from my computer at home and it asked me for a password.  It's possible it only works on school computers or the school internet.)

Remember that you have to have at least 4 sources for this project.  4 is the minimum.  Use as many sources as it takes to document your entire project.  I didn't mention it in class but you can also use primary sources in this project.  That means that you can use research that you've gathered yourself through interviews or surveys of people you know or observations you made using different forms of research.  For instance, a student writing a paper about how necessary it is for people who work out to give their muscles a break took a survey of students at the rec asking them whether or not they exercised the same muscle group more than 3 days in a row.  He then used this data in his paper.  You'll have to have some sort of documentation of this research but it is an option.  At least 3 of your 4 sources though have to be secondary sources (sources from books, magazines, web pages, etc.)


Plan of Writing 
You need to write in a Word document the 3 genres you plan to write in, the information you hope to include in each genre, and which day you plan to have your rough draft of each genre.  There will be peer review of 2 genres on Monday and 1 genre on Wednesday.  Plan on having any genres that can't be sent electronically (poster boards, scrapbooks, drawings, etc) on Monday.  I will be holding you to your plan, so if you say you're going to have your research paper Monday, I expect to see the rough draft of that paper on Monday.  MAKE SURE THAT YOU INCLUDE THE PART ABOUT THE INFORMATION YOU HOPE TO DISPLAY IN THE GENRE.   People often skip that part and that's the most important part of the assignment.  I want to make sure that you've learned something about genre analysis and that you understand what types of genres are best suited for the various pieces of information you may want to communicate in this project.

Be creative, but still remember this is a research project and each genre that you use for this project should help either prove your point or answer the question posed in your thesis. 

Homework

• Plan of Writing Due Friday December 2nd by Midnight (via Google Docs)
• Rough Drafts of Your First Two Genres Due in class, Monday, December 5th

Course Recap for Monday, November 14

No one showed up for conferences yesterday so I'm assuming you all know what you're doing. However, here are a few tips for you as you finish up your project.
1. Make sure you fulfill all your requirements for your genre. Check the email I sent you about your genre requirements.
2. Your presentations should do two things: they should summarize what you learned from analyzing the examples in your genre and then it should explain how you went about making your own examples of the genre. You want to explain the important choices you made and why you made them.
3. Make your presentations interesting. It'll make class a lot better for you and your classmates. Your presentation gives you the opportunity to communicate without having to use a lot of written words. Use it.
4. Your examples should resemble your genre as closely as possible. If your genre has a lot of pictures, your example should have lots of pictures. It doesn't have to be perfect but it should come close.

If you have any last minute questions, do not hesitate to email me. See you tomorrow.

Course Recap for Wednesday, November 9

Reading/Viewing Journals
I looked over everyone's reading journals and gave you ideas of things you should be looking for as you continue to examine the different examples in your genre.  Remember you want to write an entry for every example of your genre that you look at.  The first thing you want to determine about the example you are looking at is who is the audience.  Then ask yourself how do I know this?  What aspects of the example lead me to believe this is the audience?  Then ask yourself what is the purpose of this piece and again ask yourself why I believe this?  Then ask yourself questions about how the piece is made. What is essential to this piece?  What does it sound like?  What does it look like?  Are there any similarities between this piece and any other pieces that I have looked at?  Do this for every example that you look at and you should have some pretty good journals that should help you as you create your own example of the genre for class.

OPEN CONFERENCE
We are moving the due date for your project to Wednesday, November 16th.  Everything is due that day.  Your reading journals, your example,and your presentation.  We are not holding class Monday November 14.  Instead I will be holding open conferences.  If you are struggling at all with this project, if there are things you don't understand or you aren't sure you're getting right, I will be in the classroom during our regular time (2-3:50).  You can stop in anytime between those hours to get my feedback and to ask any questions or express any concerns you may have.

Please take advantage of this one-on-one time if you need it.  Because I gave you all one-on-one time in class Wednesday and I'm pretty much giving you the day off Monday, I'm expecting your projects to be done well on the due date.  I will not take the excuses, "I didn't understand this", or "I didn't know what you wanted" if you do something incorrectly.  I've given you plenty of opportunities to come to me and clear up any confusion you may have.  So again if there is anything you are struggling with please make sure you show up on Monday.  You only have to be there as long as it takes for me to answer your question.  You can even come an hour late if you want.  I know it's tempting to be lazy and take advantage of having class off but if you know you need the help, make sure you come in on Monday. 

Homework

• Finish up Project 3
• COME TO CONFERENCES MONDAY IF YOU NEED HELP

Course Recap for Monday, November 7

I haven't had time to write a proper blog post but here's the homework just in case you forgot.

Homework

Bring in 2 to 3 reading journals for class tomorrow.


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Extra Credit Opportunity (Change of Day)

What:  The stage-play For Colored Girls...by Ntozake Shange
When: Sunday and Monday Nov 6th and 7th (Not the 5th, Sorry about that) at 5 pm.
Where: York Theatre in The Gilmore Theatre Complex (It's right between Brown and Miller down the stairs right next to Brown)

Course Recap for Wednesday, November 2

Genre Analysis: The Teen Vampire Drama

We discussed the different cinematic and narrative elements of Twilight and The Vampire Diaries. We looked at the things like character, setting, and mood and we examined how these things helped to appeal to the audience and helped to serve the purpose of the genre. For instance, the purpose of the teen vampire drama is to entertain its audience by selling them a thrilling fantasy about love. The love interest of both of these videos is very attractive because who has fantasies about falling in love with someone unattractive? We talked about how Bella from Twilight is depicted as the average girl because it makes it easy for the audience to place themselves in her shoes and imagine that something as thrilling as falling madly in love with a gorgeous vampire is happening to them.

When making notes in your reading journal the first thing you want to establish is who is the audience of the piece I'm reading or viewing and what is the piece's purpose. After establishing this you should examine all the piece's components and pay particular attention to those things that help them appeal to their audience and help them achieve their purpose.

Genre Analysis: Comics

We discussed some of the common elements of in V for Vendetta, Sin City, and Ghost World. Unfortunately, it was pretty clear that the majority of the class had not done the reading. Despite this we were able to point out some important elements of comics such as the ways in which they indicate narration, character speech, and information from electronic sources. In V for Vendetta we looked at the relationship between what we were reading in the text and what we were seeing in the images. What we were seeing in the images directly contradicted what we were reading in the radio broadcast to show that we were entering a world where the government appears to be using propaganda to support it's unfair treatment of its people and to ignore the plight of the nation. We also looked at the way the sizes of frames can affect how we view the action and help emphasize bits of the story the author feels is important. We also looked at how color played a part in each piece. The most important thing you all should remember from the discussion is the fact that even though all 3 pieces were in the same genre, they had 3 different audiences and therefore had to use different elements to appeal to that audience. Some of you may be doing more general genres than the teen vampire drama which means that you may have varying audiences, purposes, and rhetorical techniques. You want to make sure you note this in your journals and talk about it in your how to presentations. We will talk more about your presentations on Monday.

Homework
You will be transforming your fairytales either into a one page teen vampire drama or a one page 4 to 5 frame comic.
I will also be sending you comments on your choices of genre for this project. If your genre is approved, you should get to work reading and viewing examples of your genre.

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