Your fieldnotes should, from this point on, be very focused on your project’s research. Note that the requirements for you fieldnotes ask for a minimum of 500-word entries. Q: What kinds of things should end up in your fieldnotes? A: Things that you can use in your project!

• Descriptions of scenes, observations
• Transcripts (partial, even) and analysis of interviews
• Quotes that you might use
• Analysis of findings
• Questions that you have about how to proceed
• Description of images or sounds you’ve gathered

I’ve been fairly lenient when grading these fieldnotes so far, but I will begin to look more closely at the quality of your work from this point on.

An important word about naming conventions on the wiki: In order to avoid overwriting someone’s page with the same name (”Fieldnotes 5″), please name the whole link with your name and the fieldnotes number (e.g., “John’s Fieldnotes 5″).

*****************

For your next set of “finds,” please focus on The Combination and Nichols’ chapters.  I’d like you to focus on how The Combination’s author tells her narrative (what does she do/how does she do it).  What do her rhetorical goals seem to be, and how does she accomplish those?

Pay close attention to Nichols’ discussion of documentary methods. Though he is talking about film documentary, the theory he discusses can apply to any media/form of documentary.

We are going to try and create this sound.

We will be using two sound clips:

MLK’s “I have a dream”

MLK’s “Injustice anywhere”

and a little background music.

(more…)

First thing first: Isn’t this a writing class?? Why the heck are we learning about audio editing?!?  

Remember that writing is a form of technology already. If writing helps us to communicate thoughts, feelings, questions, desires, and ideas, there has to be some form in which those intangible things take shape. At some point, the written alphabet developed as one tool for that very purpose. Pencils and pens were like revolutions of personal technology: suddenly anyone could “write” their thoughts down and communicate them to someone else. Convenient technology! Later would come typewriters and word processors.

If we call “writing” or “composition” any technological means of communicating ideas, then other media (audio, video, web) are simply other forms of giving tangible shape to the intangible. So, we’re not going to artifically limit writing to  print (via word processor) formats. That distinction is not only fake, but it’s not very productive in the digital age.

But writing with audio or video isn’t easier than writing with print/type. All the same considerations are still in play:

• organization
• editing
• rhetorical goals
• coherence
• style
• etc.

So, with that introduction, let’s get started!

(more…)

Information is presented through specific designs.

What are some different ways of presenting information/arguments/narratives about a subject?

• Think about the different parts/pieces of the subject.
• What kinds of different patterns can those pieces be put into?
• How do the different patterns help to convey that larger information?
  • Examples:
    • This American Life
    • Folks Songs for Five Points
    • Pittsburgh Signs Project

(more…)

When listening to and reading the online materials for next week, I’d like you to especially examine the way these authors are putting things together in a pattern. How are the three (very) different stories in This American Life put together around a single theme, for example? How is the Folksongs project putting various sounds together to make a pattern?

You will want to start thinking about the question of patterns for your own project. How can you put together different pieces of research and writing in order to find patterns in the “junk” you’ve collected?

* * * * * * * * * *

There will be NO CLASS on Thursday the 13th (our next class).

Spend time developing your topic ideas. You should commit to a topic by the 18th.

Hometown Badhdad

What’s the story being told in this documentary?

“Troops”

“Saif <3 Noor”

“Mentally F’ed Up”

“Market Boom“

(more…)

• Stranging your topic: Showing what we don’t know about ordinary or “obvious” topics

• Dialectical images: Expanding your scope and relevance.

• Montage in style and substance 

James Agee was writing during the 1930s, a terrible time for many Americans who depended on the earth for a living. Farmers were ruined, and families in the south turned to sharecropping in order to survive. It was a hard life—-harder than most of us could imagine. In fact, many northerners and wealthier Americans could not imagine it.

(more…)