PWR2 project tech needs | Spring 20042-25-04 | page 1
Arturo Heredia – The Rhetoric of Multiculturalism
Course Description: From the recent challenges to affirmative action in Michigan, to the uses of ethnic images in advertising, it is clear we will continue to grapple with what it means to be a multicultural society. Although there has always been disagreement over what "multiculturalism" means and what its aims should be, it is a term that influences how we try to address cultural diversity in American society. One of the main concerns is over how our society can be made more inclusive while remaining true to its ideals. If diversity has the potential to challenge well-entrenched cultural traditions and public institutions, how should we redefine these to be more responsive to the needs of minorities? For example, how can freedom of speech be protected while some universities try to enforce speech codes designed to prevent culturally offensive speech? Or how can the goals of affirmative action be reached without crossing the line into reverse discrimination? To understand how these debates are staged in the public domain--including debates over political correctness and curricular reform--we will look at a variety of rhetorical strategies used in print, images, and the internet. Building on the writing skills covered in PWR 1, such as rhetorical analysis, contextual analysis and research-based argument, students will have several opportunities to practice oral argumentation skills. For example, students will give an oral presentation or a speech based on their first two essays; and for a group project they will stage a symposium based on one of the debates covered. This will be an opportunity to use a variety of media such as the photo essay, Power Point slides, or Web pages.
Tech Needs: Here's the info you requested: I mayneed access to Wallenberg for students to give their final presentations, powerpoint or webapages, during the last week of classes. I will not needto be in there otherwise, just for the presentations.
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Paul Bator – The Photoessay: Presentation & Persuasion
Course Description: In this section, we will focus attention upon an established yet evolving genre, the photo-essay, as a way to sharpen our writing, research, and presentation abilities. To be understood more fully, the work of "documentary" pioneers, such as Dorothea Lange exposing the proud exhaustion of migrant pea pickers in a California camp in 1936 and Walker Evans's "American Photographs" (1938), needs to be seen in the context of what has come to be known as the political "propaganda" agenda of the Farm Security Administration, which supplied photographers with detailed "shooting scripts." Stories with pictures, of course, have been a staple of newsmagazines for the past fifty years, highlighted, for example, by Joe Rosenthal's 1945 image of the planting of the American Flag at "Iwo Jima" and the agonizing photographs of South Vietnamese children fleeing napalm strikes taken by Nick Ut and Vik Muniz. As Susan Sontag, author of one of our texts, Regarding the Pain of Others, notes: "Photographs of the victims of war are themselves a species of rhetoric." Building upon tools of rhetorical analysis introduced in PWR 1, you will first locate, examine, and analyze a spectrum of photo-essays. One of your challenges will be to record how the writer's voice not only complements but poses a dynamic relationship between the prose and the photos. As David Levi Strauss insists in Between the Eyes, "To be compelling, there must be tension in the work; if everything has been decided beforehand, there will be no tension and no compulsion to the work." For the second assignment, you will create your own photo-essay "argument" by accessing on-campus photo-archives (e.g., Hoover Archives; Special Collections) as well as available photos through internet site sources (photo-journalist Li Zhensheng, for example, has managed to preserve over 20,000 stills capturing the tumultuous political events of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, 1966-76). During the process of composing the second assignment, we will extend fundamental criteria of effective arguments that apply to visual as well as scribal worlds: establishing clear claims, logical criteria, pictorial evidence, and good reasons that are directed toward a target audience. For the third assignment, we will detail several project options for assembling a substantial, claim-based photo-essay. The culminating assignment will be a guided rehearsal and "live" oral presentation of your final photo-essay project. No prior "photography" class experience will be required; your interest and willingness to explore the emerging phenomenon and potential of digital photography as a medium of visual communication in conjunction with written and oral arguments is all that's expected.
Tech Needs:
Students will be producing their own photo-essays for the final assignment.
Likely needs: access to digital camera(s) that may be checked out for 24 hour periods;
access to quality color copies and photo-reproduction paper for the final project;
access to photo-scanners and transfer stations software and hardware.
Group access to digital screen display technology for live photo-essay presentations. I like to think they may begin shooting as early as Week III, really get
going by weeks V & VI.
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Jonah Willihganz – Writing for Radio: The Art of the Audio Essay
Course Description: On Halloween, 1938, Orson Welles treated millions of radio listeners to his dramatic rendition of HG Wells' story "The War of the Worlds." Audiences listened to what seemed to be a routine variety show interrupted by and then taken over by special bulletins, each more alarming than the last, describing an apparent invasion of the earth by Martians. Within an hour phone lines were jammed and thousands of people were watching the skies or packing up their cars. Within an hour any doubt about the power of radio was forever put to rest. In this course we'll explore that power. We will focus on the audio essay (as opposed to drama), and you will learn to analyze and produce different forms of this essay--from the 3-minute commentary to the 15-minute documentary. We will begin by studying how accomplished audio essays use the medium to create moving, persuasive, and enlightening performances. You will write a rhetorical analysis of a single audio essay (by an artist such as David Sedaris, Sarah Vowell, or the Kitchen Sisters), and from these analyses the class will develop a set of criteria for what makes audio essays effective. Next, we will examine the commentary form of the audio essay, focusing on how to transform the complex ideas and structure of written texts into short, persuasive audio pieces. Together we will convert several written editorials into audio scripts, and then you will write a script for a 3-minute commentary essay (on a subject of your choice), workshop it in class, and record it for broadcast. Finally, we will examine the longer, documentary audio essay, focusing on how to structure provocative narratives using elements such as interviews, dialogue, and sound. On your own or in collaboration with a classmate, you will write a pitch, conduct research on an issue of your choice, collect interviews and sound, write a script, and produce a broadcast-quality audio documentary. At the end of the quarter these documentaries will be aired on Stanford's radio station, KZSU. The emphasis of the course will be on research and writing strategies, but you will also learn basic audio recording and production. No prior experience in radio is required. Visits by producers from area public radio stations KQED and KALW.
Tech Needs: There are three major assignments in the course, all of which require tech support of some kind.
1. Rhetorical Analysis of an audio essay. We will need to be able to listen to audio clips in class and students will need to use laptops to collaborate on analyses. Students will need access to additional clips on line but I will post these myself to the course web site. The rhetorical analysis helps students identify elements of successful radio pieces and helps the class generate a criteria for evaluating their own work.
2. The commentary form of the audio essay (3 minutes of audio). After writing and workshoping scripts students will need to record broadcast-quality commentaries and then play them for the class. Students will need digital recorders or access to the CTL studio, the means to save the audio to a disc, and the means to upload the audio to their Leland ftp folder. This assignment helps them become familiar with and exercise basic strategies of the audio form. Students will need access to the CTL studio in week 3.
3. The narrative documentary form of the audio essay (15 minutes of audio). After developing a pitch and conducting research, students will produce an audio documentary using voice overs, interviews, captured sound, etc. Students will need digital recorders capable of recording several hours of broadcast-quality audio and sound, external microphones (an absolute must), and software such as Pro Tools (available at the Meyer media lab) for mixing and editing voice, soundbeds, etc. To produce this audio essay each student will obviously need access to the recorders and microphones for several hours a week for at least 4 weeks (probably weeks 4-8 of the quarter). If we figure 30 students, and, say, one day a week for each during this period, I'd say for this course we'd need at least 6-8 recorders with mics during these four weeks. If we had 6 and students could check them out only on weekdays that would allow for the absolute minimum amount of access ( 6 students per day could have access to the gear. . . 5 days in a week. . . 30 opportunities for check-out per week). This assignment helps students learn how to produce a research-driven documentary that uses rhetorical strategies appropriate to the audio form.
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Let me just emphasize that since the latter two assignments are geared for broadcast (they both conform to format guidelines for many non-commercial radio programs) so it is important that students have sufficient access to the appropriate equipment. Many high schools now run classes such as this and students get their work on the air, so we should be able to do the same I think. I am most concerned that we have proper microphones since more than any other factor this will determine whether the audio is appropriate for broadcast.
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Alyssa J. O’Brien - Multimedia Magazines: Communication for Change
Course Description: Magazines, e-zines, visually altered books, multimedia presentations, art installations, interactive hypertext, political websites: such contemporary cultural productions both provide arguments about our changing society and impel audiences to grapple with difficult issues ranging from sexuality in music videos to misrepresentations of the war effort abroad. This class will explore the impact of such cultural productions and enable you to produce your own communication for change. First, we’ll analyze a range of “cultural productions” and examine how the “word” in its current multimedia manifestations still offers a powerful means to sway public opinion. You’ll have an opportunity to conduct field research by observing multiple presentations across campus and, after a rhetorical analysis of these communicative acts, create your own oral presentation in the form of a radio or video spot that provides a sharp stance on a researched issue in your community including, for example, alcohol on college campus, racism in your hometown, or political policies in California. Next, we’ll examine printed texts such as magazines and websites for their strategies of visual-verbal composition, their economic decisions regarding advertising and content layout, and their influence on the public as cultural vehicles of change. You’ll then have a chance to collaborate on making your own hardcopy or digital magazine prototype as a form of writing. As a group, you’ll define your target audience in a prospectus memo, draft and “pitch” a marketing proposal through an oral presentation, conduct the appropriate field research on your subject, and, ultimately, craft a multimedia mock-up of your cultural production. We’ll hear from several guest speakers during the course, including experts in the fields of historical research, newsletter design, advertising, fundraising, and museum exhibition, who will speak to the class about their work, and we’ll look at both professional and student models of cultural production. This class will give you real-world, hands-on experience in analyzing, creating, and delivering communication that is both culturally significant and relevant to your own future professional interests.
Tech Needs:
Assignment #1 (in Two Parts) 25% grade:
Rhetorical AnalysisOral Presentation I
Goals:
1. A. Part I: You’ll analyze how the “word” in its diverse multimedia manifestations still offers a powerful means to sway public opinion; you’ll build on and strengthen rhetorical analysis skills from PWR 1; you’ll develop field research skills by observing multiple presentations across campus; and, finally, you’ll practice strategies of written argument through a critical evaluation of three such presentations;
1. B. Part II:Put learning into practice through composing an oral/multimedia presentation in the form of a radio or video spot that provides a sharp stance on a researched issue in the community(including, for example, alcohol on college campus, racism in your hometown, or political policies in California); you will develop skills in public speaking, transforming written to oral arguments, using multimedia as argumentative text, and practicing strategies of delivery.
OCT/Technology Needs:
Tech: What kind of video or radio-spot-recording equipment is available for students to use in case they want to produce their presentations in advance of class and then show the clips in class? Can I get these presentations filmed or digitally recorded so I can go back over them with students during conferences? Note: this is the first of three presentations in the class; the next two are collaborative presentations. Together with the OCTs, I will give each student feedback on his/her presentation skills in order to develop this ability, and the students need to work on improvement for the second and third presentation. Alternatively, perhaps we could ask the OCT’s to use CTL equipment to film the presentations so that they can review them with the students during their conferences.
OCTs: Provide feedback to students on presentations
Assignment #2 (in Three Parts) 50% grade:
Proposal and Oral Presentation;Field Research and Writing Content of Arguments; Multimedia Design and Delivery
Overview Description: Collaborative project on making your own hardcopy or digital magazine prototype as a form of writing about an issue of importance to your group.
Goals:
2. A. Part I: Pitching the Prospectus Memo (Written Component + Oral Presentation II)Goals: as a group, you’ll learn to define your target audience in a prospectus memo, work through drafts of your proposal, and, finally,“pitch” a marketing proposal through a collaborative oral presentation with appropriate media texts
2. B. Part II: Research and Writing Content: You’ll build on your research skills from PWR 1 and your field research skills from the first assignment of this course to conduct the appropriate library and field research on your subject. This will entail strengthening your skills in library searching, note-taking, time management, and writing up arguments that synthesize a range of sources. You’ll also collect appropriate visual texts to use as content in making your project’s key arguments. Moreover, you’ll develop strengths in working as a team, dividing tasks, meeting common objectives, and sharing research knowledge for the good of the project. This part of the project will also involve outlining, drafting, peer reviewing, and finalizing the written content for your final text.
2. C. Part III: Design and Delivery of Multimedia Magazine:The ultimate goal of your group project is to craft a multimedia mock-up of your magazine. You’ll need to assess diverse models in the field (our two text books, online and bookstore models, and the sample materials shared by our guest speakers throughout the course from fields such as advertising, self-publishing, historical research, public relations, museum exhibition, and sports marketing). The goal of this part of the project is to develop your real-world, hands-on expertise in analyzing, creating, and delivering communication that is both culturally significant and relevant to your own future professional interests. You’ll learn to shape content into rhetorically effective format, medium, and design in order to best meet the needs of your audience and persuade your viewers. You’ll also learn how to “draft” in multimedia formats (webpages, mock-up drawings, layouts, etc.) and how to improve through peer review feedback.
OCT/Technology Needs:
2. A. Tech: Ideally, I would like to get the presentations (2.A.) filmed or digitally recorded so I can go back over them with students during conferences. Note: this presentation is the most important one of the three to record. Together with the OCTs, I will give each student feedback on his/her presentation skills and the students will have a chance to demonstrate improvement in the third presentation. Alternatively, again, perhaps I could ask the OCT’s to use CTL equipment to film the presentations so that they can review them with the students during their conferences.