Previous Home-Page Items

Welcome: Tuesday, January 20

announcements

First Day of Class

This page will serve as the home base for our class this semester.

I will update this page for each class meeting. Items that appeared on this page from previous meetings can be found via the "<previous home-page items>" link at the bottom of this page.

The menu on the left will give you access to other materials related to the course.

bullet Roll

bullet Syllabus. On the first day, we'll be looking carefully at the syllabus.

bullet Tour this site

For Thursday

bullet Read over the syllabus to see if you have any questions.

bullet Obtain a USB drive (a.k.a., jump drive, thumb drive, key-chain drive), and create a structure of folders which looks like this.

You don't need to buy a new drive if you already have one with at least 100 MG of space on it. You can also use a Zip disk, though these are less durable.

bullet See "Also For Thursday" below.

Logging Out

When you leave today, don't forget to log out of your computer workstation. Double-click the "Logout" icon on the desktop.

 

project

First Project: The Email Narrative

See the assignment page of the first project. The due date can be found on the schedule.

A couple of questions to get us started:

  • What are some characteristics of email writing?
  • What choices in writing emails reveal peoples' personalities, backgrounds, attitudes, etc.?

Also for Thursday:

Come in ready to talk about 3 movies, TV shows, books, stories, or narrative song lyrics, etc. in which the action is primarily verbal rather than physical.

 

Tuesday, January 27

announcements

bullet Roll

bullet To Get Ready for Today:

  • Open Dreamweaver and import your site information ("www.ste" file)
  • Get out your cluster
  • Open up the file with your revision of the first paragraph of Richardson's Clarissa.
  • Have your Murray book handy.

bullet For Today You Were To

1. Compose and bring in a cluster of characters, places, events, etc. detailing ideas for your Email Narrative idea.

2. Re-read the first letter from Samuel Richardson's 1748 epistolary novel Clarissa. Be prepared to discuss these questions by making marginal notes:

    How does this letter serve to create tension and anticipation, even though no physical action takes place during its writing/reading?

    What techniques and devices can we adapt from this eighteenth-century novel to our twenty-first-century task of writing an email narrative?

    ...to the challenge of writing the opening email(s) of such a project to capture the audience's interest?

3. Try rewriting the first paragraph of the letter in the style of a contemporary email writer--a young woman of your own creation. Bring in your rewrite on your USB drive.

4. Obtain the books for the course and read Janet Murray's Chapter 1, pages 13-64.

bullet Course Assessment

Please complete this brief set of questions, which will be used to measure what we teach in this class. You will answer the same questions at the end of the semester. Your answers here will not affect your grade in any way.

bullet For Thursday

  • Today, I will give you a copy of the handout Logging into Webx Discussion Board (.doc). Try to follow the directions on your own before Thursday, and then copy your rewrite of Richardson's first paragraph into a message sent to the discussion "clarissa 2009." If you have problems, bring your questions to class.
  • Try writing a sample email for your Email Narrative Project: perhaps the first the audience will read, perhaps not.
  • Read Murray's Chapter 2, "Harbingers of the Holodeck," starting on page 27.

 

email narrative

Clarissa, Letter 1: Adapting Techniques and Devices

Here again are the questions you were to consider when you read this opening passage to Richardson's Clarissa:

  • How does this letter serve to create tension and anticipation, even though no physical action takes place during its writing/reading?
  • What techniques and devices can we adapt from this eighteenth-century novel to our twenty-first-century task of writing an email narrative?
  • ...to the challenge of writing the opening email(s) of such a project to capture the audience's interest?

From Clustering to Framing to Sequencing

For Thursday, you'll try writing a sample email. The goal is try to "hear" your character's voice, to imagine the physical and psychological context in order to, like Richardson, write "to the moment."

One way to conceive the over-all shape of the project is Freytag's pyramid,which envisions the "arc" of a plot in terms of time and tension.

 

hamlet on the holodeck

Janet Murray, Chapter 1 (page 13)

Fears?
In Chapter 1, Murray compares the anxiety inspired by today's digital/virtual media to fears generated in the past by then-new media such as movies and television. What are some lines and passages from Murray that suggest what those fears are? Why do New Media seem threatening to some?

Continuities?
On page 24-25, Murray asks, "Will the literature of cyberspace be continuous with the literary traditions of the Beowulf poet, Shakespeare, and Charlotte Bronte...? What are some features of these traditions, according to Murray? What ideals do these traditions represent, what negative values do they oppose?

 

exercise

Jello Page Design

Visit the page for Jello Page Design and follow the directions there. You will also receive an in-class handout.

When we are finished, you'll post this exercise's folder (www/5230/exercises/jello) to the Web, visit the page with your browser, and copy the URL into the Webx discussion "jello URLs" (available the second week of classes).

<a curio cabinet>

Thursday, January 29

announcements

bullet For Today You Were To

  • Try to follow the directions on the handout Logging into Webx Discussion Board (.doc) before today, and then copy your rewrite of Richardson's first paragraph into a message sent to the discussion "clarissa 2009." If you have problems, bring your questions to class.
  • Try writing a sample email for your Email Narrative Project: perhaps the first the audience will read, perhaps not.
  • Read Murray's Chapter 2, "Harbingers of the Holodeck," starting on page 27.

bullet Roll

bullet For Tuesday

  • Keep working on your Email Narrative Project (due in 2 weeks).
  • Read Janet Murray's Chapter 3 " From Additive to Expressive Form," starting on page 65

 

email narrative

Using the Email Form....

Remember that one of the features of email is the ability to embed links, which can refer the reader to texts (or lexias) outside of the email form itself. Look again at the project "Two Minutes" from Jill Walker's Email Narratives page (about half-way down the page).

Rewrites of Richardson (Literary First Person)

Read over the different versions of the first paragraph of the first letter of Clarissa. As you read, think about how each one potentially suggests

  • a different Anna,
  • different intentions on Anna's part,
  • a different relationship with Clarissa,
  • a different culture that Anaa and Clarissa share
  • a different reader
  • a different story to come.

Reply to two of these rewrites. In each of those replies, do a "close reading" of it, describing what you inferred from that revision and what about the way it was written made you infer it.

 

hamlet on the holodeck

Janet Murray, Chapter 1 Notes

Fears of new media and and the prospect of continuities between New Media storytelling and literature.

  • sensation vs. imagination
  • fragmenting vs. integrating
  • constructive of meaning vs. destructive of meaning
  • addictive vs. empowering

Janet Murray, Chapter 2 (page 27)

  • multiform stories
  • story pleasure (diachronic, synchronic)
  • active audience
  • fan fiction (textual poaching)
  • lexia

See Implementation as an example of a New Media project. This is an example of "distributed narrative."

 

exercise

Jello Page Design (Dreamweaver Continued)

Visit the page for Jello Page Design and follow the directions there. You will also receive an in-class handout.

When we are finished, you'll post this exercise's folder (www/5230/exercises/jello) to the Web, visit the page with your browser, and copy the URL into the Webx discussion "jello URLs" (available the second week of classes).

Banner Techniques (Photoshop)

To begin this exercise, you'll need to visit the page Banner Techniques on my Techniques Site to download two images.

I will give you

copies of the handouts Beginning Banner Techniques (.doc) and Intermediate Banner Techniques (.doc).

Alternatively, if you'd like to use images you've already selected for your Personal Course Home Page Project, you will need two images to work with:

  1. an image that provides an overall scene or background
  2. a different image with an object that you want to include in the scene or against that background

I will let you know when you will be responsible for posting these banners to the Web and sending the URL to the Webx discussion "banner URLs."

 

Tuesday, February 3

announcements

bullet For Today You Were To

  • Keep working on your Email Narrative Project.
  • Read Janet Murray's Chapter 3 " From Additive to Expressive Form," starting on page 65

bullet Roll

bullet For Thursday

  • Review Murray's Chapter 3 for discussion
  • Bring in notes, pictures, links, and any other materisl related to your Email Narrative Project (due a week from tomorrow)

 

email narrative

Visual Presentation

Let's look at the visual presentation of a sample Email Narrative: Scott Rettberg's Kind of Blue.

Choose to save the "inbox" and open it in Dreamweaver to see how its designed.

Open your "Jello Page Design" exercise and try adapting it for a similar "inbox" format.

Plot, Desire, and Duration

1. Online, find a detailed plot summary for a narrative (a movie, for example) that you know well. See for instance this one for Hitchcock's Psycho.

2. In Word, open a file, save it as "plot desire duration" to your "nonwww" folder. Create a two-column table with 10 rows.

3. Label the top of the columns "Event/Situation" and "Desire"

4. Under Event/Situation, type (or copy) in the plot's first event/situation that creates some kind of desire in the audience.

5. Under "Desire," put into words what that desire is: what do "we" want to see happen? What are we looking forward to seeing or knowing?

6. Keep going, tracking the shifting desires, questions, and possible "frames."

7. Save the document, delete the content from the table, and save it again as "PDD email." Now try to do the same thing for your own Email Narrative project. Note that an "event" might be something happening verbally, socially, or personally in the emails, rather than a physical event being described. Try to describe what might be the (increasingly) mingled and complicated desires your audience can feel....

 

hamlet on the holodeck

Thursday

We will discuss Janet Murray's Chapter 3 on Thursday. Please review this reading, assigned for today, for then.

 

exercise

Banner Techniques (Photoshop)

To begin this exercise, you'll need to visit the page Banner Techniques on my Techniques Site to download two images.

I will give you copies of the handouts Beginning Banner Techniques (.doc) and Intermediate Banner Techniques (.doc).

Alternatively, if you'd like to use images you've already selected for your own project, you will need two images to work with:

  1. an image that provides an overall scene or background
  2. a different image with an object that you want to include in the scene or against that background

I will let you know when you will be responsible for posting these banners to the Web and sending the URL to the Webx discussion "banner URLs."

 

Thursday, February 5

announcements

bullet For Today You Were To

  • Review Murray's Chapter 3 for discussion
  • Bring in notes, pictures, links, and any other materisl related to your Email Narrative Project (due a week from tomorrow)

bullet Roll

bullet For Tuesday

  • We will have a "Studio Day" on Tuesday to give you time in class to work on your Email Narrative Project, whch will be on Thursday, 12/12 at the beginning of class. Though you will be working individually, this is still a class meeting, and you will be expected to attend and stay the full time. I will go over in detail how you wil be turning in this project.
  • Please bring your Murray book so we can conclude our discussion of Chapter 3, especialy the Four Principles of DIgital Environments (PEPS).

 

email narrative

Plot, Desire, and Duration

Open up the Word file "plot desire duration.doc" from your "nonwww" folder and continue tracking the shifting and evolving desires audience feel in the plot you've chosen.

The question we want to answer is this:
What provides the continuity or unity to a narrative experience if audiences' desires and sense of framing is so frequently changing?

Consider some of the problems of email Narratives suggested by Scott Rettberg's Kind of Blue.

We will discuss some of your examples.

Here again are the directions:

  1. Online, find a detailed plot summary for a narrative (a movie, for example) that you know well. See for instance this one for Hitchcock's Psycho.
  2. In Word, open a file, save it as "plot desire duration" to your "nonwww" folder. Create a two-column table with 10 rows.
  3. Label the top of the columns "Event/Situation" and "Desire"
  4. Under Event/Situation, type (or copy) in the plot's first event/situation that creates some kind of desire in the audience.
  5. Under "Desire," put into words what that desire is: what do "we" want to see happen? What are we looking forward to seeing or knowing?
  6. Keep going, tracking the shifting desires, questions, and possible "frames."
  7. Save the document, delete the content from the table, and save it again as "PDD email." Now try to do the same thing for your own Email Narrative project. Note that an "event" might be something happening verbally, socially, or personally in the emails, rather than a physical event being described. Try to describe what might be the (increasingly) mingled and complicated desires your audience can feel....

 

hamlet on the holodeck

Chapter 3: Key Terms

  • additive forms (e.g. "photoplays")
  • Four Properties of Digital Environments (PEPS)
  • Procedural (Elza)
  • Participatory
  • Spatial
  • Encyclopedic
  • scripting the interactor
  • Vannevar Bush vs. Ted Nelson

— In what ways are Email Narratives characteristic of digital environments? In what are they not? How could they be made more so?

Resources

 

exercise

Banner Techniques (Photoshop)

To begin this exercise, you'll need to visit the page Banner Techniques on my Techniques Site to download two images.

I will give you copies of the handouts Beginning Banner Techniques (.doc) and Intermediate Banner Techniques (.doc).

Alternatively, if you'd like to use images you've already selected for your own project, you will need two images to work with:

  1. an image that provides an overall scene or background
  2. a different image with an object that you want to include in the scene or against that background

I will let you know when you will be responsible for posting these banners to the Web and sending the URL to the Webx discussion "banner URLs."

 

Tuesday, February 10

announcements

bullet For Today You Were To

  • We will have a "Studio Day" on Tuesday to give you time in class to work on your Email Narrative Project, whch will be on Thursday, 12/12 at the beginning of class. Though you will be working individually, this is still a class meeting, and you will be expected to attend and stay the full time. I will go over in detail how you wil be turning in this project.
  • Please bring your Murray book so we can conclude our discussion of Chapter 3, especialy the Four Principles of DIgital Environments (PEPS).

bullet Roll

bullet For Thursday

  • We will not meet as a class on Thursday.
  • By 2:00 p.m. turn in the printout of your Email Narrative project my mailbox in the Writing Studies department, Humanities 420

bullet For Tuesday, February 17

  • Read Chapter 4 of Murray, "Immersion," starting on page 97. Bring your Murray book to class.

 

hamlet on the holodeck

Chapter 3: Key Terms

  • additive forms (e.g. "photoplays")
  • Four Properties of Digital Environments (PEPS)
  • Procedural (Elza)
  • Participatory
  • Spatial
  • Encyclopedic
  • scripting the interactor
  • Vannevar Bush vs. Ted Nelson

— In what ways are Email Narratives characteristic of digital environments? In what are they not? How could they be made more so?

Resources

 

email narrative

Studio Day

You will have the remainder of today's classtime to work on your Email Narrative Project

Though you are working individually, plan on staying until the end of the period.

 

Tuesday, February 17

announcements

bullet Roll

bullet To Get Ready for Today:

  • Open Dreamweaver and import your site information (the "www.ste" file we exported previously).
bullet For Today You Were To
  • Read Chapter 4 of Murray, "Immersion," starting on page 97. Bring your Murray book to class.

bullet Questions?

bullet For Thursday

  • We will again not meet as a class. Instead, I will ask you to send me the paragraph you produce in Step 4 of the Brainstorming 1 handout using the form below. I will respond before Tuesday 2/24, when Brainstorming 2 should be completed.

By Thursday, February 19 at 2:00, please paste the paragraph into the following text box and click "Send."

Your Name:

Your Email Address

Your Paragraph:

bullet For Tuesday, February 24

 

visual verbal

Introducing the Next Assignment

See the assignment page and the handout "Brainstorming 1: The Visual as Verbal Project. " The paragraphh you'll write as part of this is due by class time on Thursday.

I will also give you the handout "Brainstorming 2," which should be completed by the beginning of class next Tuesday.

 

hamlet on the holodeck

Janet Murray, Chapter 4

  • "aesthetics of the medium" vs. four "essential properties" (PEPS)?
  • immersion
  • liminal objects, liminal trance
  • fourth wall (theater)
  • immersion vs. arousa
  • spectacle

 

exercise

Creating Multi-Layered Image in Photoshop

In this exercise, you'll learn to create a multi-layered document in Photoshop. This image will be inserted on a Web page in Dreamweaver, and made into an "image map" with what DW calls "hotspots."

Visit the page from the techniques site to download images for this exercise to your "nonwww" folder.

See the in-class handout.

 

Tuesday, February 24

announcements

bullet Roll

bullet To Get Ready for Today:

  • Open Dreamweaver and import your site information (the "www.ste" file you exported previously).
  • In Photoshop, open the file "multi.psd" that we were working with on Tuesday.
bullet For Today You Were To

bullet Questions?

bullet For Thursday

Complete the following questionaire about the V/V Project by Thursday

Name

Email Address

What is the name, medium, genre of the original
(for example: Lost, television series, ensemble drama/adventure).

What effects or aspects of the original is your translation focusing on? (for example: the literary and philsophical references--Locke, Rousseau, the many novels we see people reading--and their relevance to the meaning of the series.

What kind of structures or "tropes" is your translation going to employ?
(for example: A collage/map of icons representing these references, which are linked to open up "child windows" that loop through visual/verbal explanations [using layers] of these references [with quotes] and how they echos themes of the series.)

What effect or point do you want your translation to have/make? What does your translation do that the original doesn't?
(for example: make viewers more conscious of how the literary and philosophical references contribute to the meaning and effect of the series).

 

visual verbal

Options for the V/V Project

What are the options for struc

turing your Visual/Verbal Project?

See the page New-Media Grammar and Syntax for some ideas.

Can you think of other examples of these four "tropes"? Other tropes entirely? Find at least one on the Web to add to this list and send the URL in a message to the Webx discussion "new-media grammar."

In a couple of sentences in that message, name the trope and describe how it does either or both of the following:

  • combines words, diagrams, and images
  • structures meaning across multiple lexia

 

exercise

Creating Multi-Layered Image in Photoshop

In this exercise, you'll learn to create a multi-layered document in Photoshop. This image will be inserted on a Web page in Dreamweaver, and made into an "image map" with what DW calls "hotspots."

Visit the page for this exercise from the Techniques site to download images.

I will give you a copy of the in-class handout. The exercise will continue with...

Making Your Multi-Layered Image an Interactive Page in Dreamweaver

Post the final product to the Web (in the folder www/5250/exercises/multi), visit the page with your Web browser, and paste the URL into the Webx discussion "multi image URLs."

 

Thursday, February 26

announcements

bullet For Today You Were To

Complete the following questionaire about the V/V Project

Name

Email Address

What is the name, medium, genre of the original
(for example: Lost, television series, ensemble drama/adventure).

What effects or aspects of the original is your translation focusing on? (for example: the literary and philsophical references--Locke, Rousseau, the many novels we see people reading--and their relevance to the meaning of the series.

What kind of structures or "tropes" is your translation going to employ?
(for example: A collage/map of icons representing these references, which are linked to open up "child windows" that loop through visual/verbal explanations [using layers] of these references [with quotes] and how they echos themes of the series.)

What effect or point do you want your translation to have/make? What does your translation do that the original doesn't?
(for example: make viewers more conscious of how the literary and philosophical references contribute to the meaning and effect of the series).

bullet Roll

bullet For Tuesday

  • Come in with one lexia of your Visual/Verbal Project completed in Photoshop (not necessarily the main or start page).

 

visual verbal

Rethinking

Let's consider these sample ideas for the V/V Project.

Remember the essence of this project is to translate a work of Old Media into New Media:

  1. to visualize verbal language
  2. to mingle words and images
  3. to restructure the work using New Media tropes...
  4. ...all to achieve a particular effect or make a specific point.

Some Samples

Let's consider how we might sharpen and push the following ideas to make them more completely accomplish all four of these goals:

  1. It may help to imagine a particular song, show, movie, or book to suggest some specifics.
  2. Look at the New-Media tropes page we talked about (and added to) last time for ideas to help solve some of these potential problems:
  • Original: a song.
  • Translation: a slide show illustrating the lyrics like a music video.
  • Potential Problems

    Goal 1: Beyond simply typing the lyrics on each screen, how is the visual look of the words going to be important to the effect?
    Goal 2: Will the words appear just as captions at the bottom of each screen? Can they be integrated and coordinated into the images?
    Goal 3: a music video without the music or the video?
    Goal 4: if this translation can never be as musical as the original, how can it be better or at least different in its effect?

  • Original: a movie
  • Translation: a homepage showing all the characters and where you can click to a "loop" for each character.
  • Potential Problems:

Goal 1: Assuming that these loops include both words and images, how are the words visualized? What visual styles (font, size, placement, color, texture) are needed? What are the intended effects (Goal 4).
Goal 2:
Goal 3:
Goal 4:
What does a survey of each of the characters (each in isolation) tell us about the movie?

  • Original: a television show
  • Translation: a homepage showing the setting of a key scene and where you can click on various objects and people to read a commentary on that object or person's place in the series.
  • Potential Problems:

Goal 1:
Goal 2:
At least as described, it appears the images and words aren't really working together on the same screen. The main screen is visual, the commentaries are verbal.
Goal 3:
Goal 4:

 

exercise

Making Your Multi-Layered Image an Interactive Page in Dreamweaver (continued)

Post the final product to the Web (in the folder www/5250/exercises/multi), visit the page with your Web browser, and paste the URL into the Webx discussion "multi image URLs."

Selecting With Masks

For this exercise, you'll need to visit the Techniques Site page "Selecting with Masks" and download two images.

I will give you a copy of the in-class handout.

Visit the image with your Web browser, copy the URL, and paste it into a message to the Webx discussion, "selecting with masks URLs.

Child Windows

If we have time, we will begin this exercise. See the example on the Techniques site.

You will post the URL to this exercise in message to the Webx discussion, "child windows."

 

Tuesday, March 3

announcements

bullet For Today You Were To

  • Come in with one lexia of your Visual/Verbal Project completed in Photoshop (not necessarily the main or start page).

bullet Roll

bullet Email Narrative

Help me remember to return your Email Narratives at the end of class today.

bullet For Thursday

  • We will be having a Studio Day in class on Thursday to give you an opportunity to consult with others and ask questions while you work on your Visual/Verbal Project. The project will be due on Monday, March 9 by noon (posted to the Web and the URL sent to a message to the Webx discussion, "visual verbal URLs."

 

exercise

Selecting With Masks

For this exercise, you'll need to visit the Techniques Site page "Selecting with Masks" and download two images.

I will give you a copy of the in-class handout.

Visit the image with your Web browser, copy the URL, and paste it into a message to the Webx discussion, "selecting with masks URLs.

Child Windows

If we have time, we will begin this exercise. See the example on the Techniques site.

You will post the URL to this exercise in message to the Webx discussion, "child windows."

Color Swatch

This exercise provides you with a tool for defining a limited color palette for visual projects like the Visual/Verbal Project.

Notice the power of using such a limited color palette in Seven.

I will give you a copy of the in-class handout.

For some images to use as color models, try using an image from your current Visual/Verbal Project materials, or dowload an image (right-click, choose "Save Image As..." from art-museum sites such as the MIA or the Met.

I will use the image "Village Girl-Cow Lily" by Robert Henri.

 

visual verbal

Rethinking

Let's consider these sample ideas for the V/V Project.

Remember the essence of this project is to translate a work of Old Media into New Media:

  1. to visualize verbal language
  2. to mingle words and images
  3. to restructure the work using New Media tropes...
  4. ...all to achieve a particular effect or make a specific point.

Some Samples

Let's consider how we might sharpen and push the following ideas to make them more completely accomplish all four of these goals:

  1. It may help to imagine a particular song, show, movie, or book to suggest some specifics.
  2. Look at the New-Media tropes page we talked about (and added to) last time for ideas to help solve some of these potential problems:
  • Original: a song.
  • Translation: a slide show illustrating the lyrics like a music video.
  • Potential Problems

    Goal 1: Beyond simply typing the lyrics on each screen, how is the visual look of the words going to be important to the effect?
    Goal 2: Will the words appear just as captions at the bottom of each screen? Can they be integrated and coordinated into the images?
    Goal 3: a music video without the music or the video?
    Goal 4: if this translation can never be as musical as the original, how can it be better or at least different in its effect?

  • Original: a movie
  • Translation: a homepage showing all the characters and where you can click to a "loop" for each character.
  • Potential Problems:

Goal 1: Assuming that these loops include both words and images, how are the words visualized? What visual styles (font, size, placement, color, texture) are needed? What are the intended effects (Goal 4).
Goal 2:
Goal 3:
Goal 4:
What does a survey of each of the characters (each in isolation) tell us about the movie?

  • Original: a television show
  • Translation: a homepage showing the setting of a key scene and where you can click on various objects and people to read a commentary on that object or person's place in the series.
  • Potential Problems:

Goal 1:
Goal 2:
At least as described, it appears the images and words aren't really working together on the same screen. The main screen is visual, the commentaries are verbal.
Goal 3:
Goal 4:

 

Thursday, March 5

announcements

bullet For Today You Were To

  • We will be having a Studio Day in class on Thursday to give you an opportunity to consult with others and ask questions while you work on your Visual/Verbal Project.

bullet Roll

bullet Help me Remember...
to return your Email Narratives at the end of class today.

bullet Visual/Verbal Project Due by Monday, March 9 at noon

To turn in the project:

  1. post the entire project to the Web (at "www/5250/visualverbal"),
  2. visit the site with your Web browser,
  3. copy the URL of the home page,
  4. paste the URL in message to the Webx discussion "visualverbal URLs."

bullet For Tuesday, March 10

Read the assignment page for the next project, Parody, and come in with three ideas of possible genres or texts to parody.

 

visual verbal

Studio Day

Though we will be working individually today, this is still a class meeting and you should remain in class being productive until 3:15.

 

 

Tuesday, March 10

announcements

bullet For Today You Were To

  • Read the assignment page for the next project, Parody, and come in with three ideas of possible genres or texts to parody.

bullet Roll

bullet For Thursday

1. Commentary

Write a commentary for your Visual/Verbal Project.

In the commentary,

  • talk about the specific ways your project fulfills the assignment's goals and criteria.
  • Identify some of the visual/verbal tropes that you employed, and the meanings and effects you tried to achieve with them. Since this is an experimental assignment, also...
  • reflect on what this project made you realize about mingling visual/verbal elements, about translating old-media forms to new, and about what you would do differently in a revision.

Print your commentary and be ready to turn it in at the beginning of class.

2. Workshop

We will begin an in-class workshop of the Visual/Verbal Projects, taking them one at a time to discuss. I will expect each of you to have constructive and insightful things to say.

Preparing for Workshop: Before class, please do the following:

  1. Review the workshopping page for ideas about what you might discuss in your comments.
  2. Visit the projects in the order below.
  3. Type written comments and suggestions for each project in a word-processing document saved on your disk.
  4. Also, Printout the comments to bring to class for your use during the workshop.

By the midnight on workshop day,

Copy and paste all the written comments you've made for everyone today into the form "Workshop Comments for Today" and click "Send." Be sure to label each set of comments with the project number and name of the project's author.

Use the e-mail function in Webx to send each author your comments on his or her project.

  1. Marred Yet Whole
  2. Transatlaticism
  3. Jurassic Park
  4. Across the Universe
  5. The Last Man
  6. Mirror
  7. Sliding Doors
  8. Forever Young
  9. Peyton Sawyer

 

parody


Working Through the Next Assignment.

Let's work through the critical terms in terms of a particular example:

The Example:

The Terms (from the assignment page)

  • genre: a type of writing or communication, distinguished by its characteristic features, styles, audience, and use (collectively known as conventions). Examples: house renovation blogs, Amazon music page.
  • conventions: the features and styles that compose a genre.
  • parody: an imitation of a serious work for satirical or comic purposes
  • target: in a satire or parody, the particular social or cultural phenomenon being revealed or criticized, especially pretenses, subtexts, or concealed agendas.
  • façade: the literary effect of writing/designing in the "voice" of a character to make that character reveal more to the reader than he/she realizes. On a Web site, the facade is often created through "consistent inconsistencies."
  • pretense, subtext, concealed agenda: in a satire or parody, the gap between the character as publicly presented and the who or what character actually is.
  • (sub)culture: sets of social practices that constitute shared ways of seeing, acting, and being.
  • satirical intention: the ridicule of a social phenomenon, practice, or type, ideally to criticize and reform some representative vice or weakness for the general benefit of human society.
  • literary intention: the aesthetic presentation of character(s) and situation(s) to tell or suggest a story.
  • story: a set of cause-and-effect conditions presented to move a reader/viewer emotionally and intellectually.
  • "not men but manners": The eighteenth-century satirical novelist Henry Fielding said, "I describe not men, but manners; not an individual, but a species."

Now, go to the Webx discussion "parody analysis" and follow the same process using another example (from the samples on the assignment page, or of your own choosing). Speak to as many of the critical terms above as you can.

We will discuss your choices when you are done.

 

exercise Downloading and Editing an Existing Page

Tracing Images in Dreamweaver

 

Thursday, March 12

announcements

bullet For Today You Were To

1. Commentary

Write a commentary for your Visual/Verbal Project.

In the commentary,

  • talk about the specific ways your project fulfills the assignment's goals and criteria.
  • Identify some of the visual/verbal tropes that you employed, and the meanings and effects you tried to achieve with them. Since this is an experimental assignment, also...
  • reflect on what this project made you realize about mingling visual/verbal elements, about translating old-media forms to new, and about what you would do differently in a revision.

Print your commentary and be ready to turn it in at the beginning of class.

2. Workshop

Be ready to begin an in-class workshop of the Visual/Verbal Projects. We will take the first four projects in the list below one at a time. I will expect each of you to have constructive and insightful things to say.

bullet Roll

bullet For Tuesday, March 24 (After Spring Break)

Prepare for our workshop of the remaining Visual/Verbal Projects:

  1. Review the workshopping page for ideas about what you might discuss in your comments.
  2. Visit the projects in the order below.
  3. Type written comments and suggestions for each project in a word-processing document saved on your disk.
  4. Also, Printout the comments to bring to class for your use during the workshop.

By the midnight after the workshop,

  1. Copy and paste all the written comments you've made for everyone today into the form "Workshop Comments for Today" and click "Send." Be sure to label each set of comments with the project number and name of the project's author.
  2. Use the e-mail function in Webx to send each author your comments on his or her project.

 

visual verbal


Workshop

  1. Marred Yet Whole
  2. Transatlaticism
  3. Jurassic Park
  4. Across the Universe

Resources

Duluth Night (scrolling)


 

exercise

Tracing Images in Dreamweaver

 

Thursday, March 24

announcements

bullet For Today You Were To

Prepare for our workshop of the remaining Visual/Verbal Projects:

  1. Review the workshopping page for ideas about what you might discuss in your comments.
  2. Visit the projects in the order below.
  3. Type written comments and suggestions for each project in a word-processing document saved on your disk.
  4. Also, Printout the comments to bring to class for your use during the workshop.

By the midnight after the workshop,

  1. Copy and paste all the written comments you've made for everyone today into the form "Workshop Comments for Today" and click "Send." Be sure to label each set of comments with the project number and name of the project's author.
  2. Use the e-mail function in Webx to send each author your comments on his or her project.

bullet Roll

bullet Questions?

bullet No Class Meeting Thursday

bullet For Tuesday, March 31
Come in with a written plan (in some digital form on your USB) for the Parody Project. A plan would include decisions and details about the following:

  • the genre of Web site or New Media form you're parodying
  • specific examples of what your parodying
  • a clear idea of the behaviors, attitudes, perceptions, beliefs, pretenses you're satirizing (your target: "not men but manners")
  • the "facade" you'll create with your narrator/implied author: that is, how this fictional figure behind the text is different from you.

 

visual verbal


Workshop

  1. Marred Yet Whole
  2. Transatlaticism
  3. Jurassic Park
  4. Across the Universe
  5. The Last Man
  6. Mirror
  7. Forever Young
  8. Peyton Sawyer


exercise

Tracing Images in Dreamweaver

 

Thursday, March 31

announcements

bullet For Today You Were To
Come in with a written plan (in some digital form on your USB) for the Parody Project. A plan would include decisions and details about the following:

  • the genre of Web site or New Media form you're parodying
  • specific examples of what your parodying
  • a clear idea of the behaviors, attitudes, perceptions, beliefs, pretenses you're satirizing (your target: "not men but manners")
  • the "facade" you'll create with your narrator/implied author: that is, how this fictional figure behind the text is different from you.

bullet Roll

bullet Questions?

bullet Help Me Remember...
to return your Visual/Verbal Projects to you at the end of class today

bullet For Thursday
Bring your Dreamweaver book and all materials you have gathered for your Parody/Facade Project.

 

parody


Send Me Your Plan

Name

Email Address

Text of your plan

Defining Some Terms:
Parody vs. Satire vs. Hacking

Selected Reponses to Previous Parody/Facade Projects
Since I don't always have legal rights to show you previous projects, however, I will give you a handout of some of the responses these projects have received.

Let's try to identify some of the issues previous writers/designers have had with this assignment, and the ways they've dealt with them (or not).

What principles can you apply to your own project as you get it started?


exercise

1. Downloading Pages to Edit
see for example <Mike Industries>

2.Tracing Images in Dreamweaver

 

Thursday, April 2

announcements

bullet For Today You Were To
Bring your Dreamweaver book and all materials you have gathered for your Parody/Facade Project.

bullet Roll

bullet Questions?

bullet For Tuesday
1. Come in with an example of an online parody or satire. Be ready to share the URL and to discuss the parody/satire using the terms we've been using in class:

  • parody
  • satire
  • hacking
  • facade
  • target
  • sympathetic satire
  • pretext, subtext, concealed agendas
  • "not men but manners"
  • objective correlative

2. Bring in your Dreamweaver book and all materials related to your Parody/Facade Project.

parody


Objective Correlative
How do you suggest what is inside your narrator's mind and heart without explaining it?

The venerable term "objective correlative" from literary criticism can help us flesh out our parodies to make them genuinely tell stories.

Using the Webx discussion "objective correlatives," we will share some examples of objective correlatives from movies, television, or plays.

Then we'll turn to our Parody/Facade projects. Where might we need an objective correlative to reveal the inner workings of our characters/narrators.

exercise

Dreamweaver Skills
Since each of you is working on a different kind of project, I want us to get accustomed to using the Dreamweaver books for solving problems of design.

Find a skill/tool in the DW book that may be useful in preparing your Parody/Facade Projects and try it out. Post the result to the Web in a folder "www/4250/exercises/skills1".

Then go to the Webx discussion "dreamweaver skills 1" and post a message with the name of the skill/technique, the page number, a little commentary and/or advice about using the skill, and a link to your sample.

 

Tuesday, April 7

announcements

bullet For Today You Were To
1. Come in with an example of an online parody or satire. Be ready to share the URL and to discuss the parody/satire using the terms we've been using in class:

  • parody
  • satire vs. hacking
  • facade
  • target
  • sympathetic satire
  • pretext, subtext, concealed agendas
  • "not men but manners"
  • objective correlative

2. Bring in your Dreamweaver book and all materials related to your Parody/Facade Project.

bullet Roll

bullet Questions?

bullet For Thursday
Bring in all materials related to your Parody/Facade Project for the Studio Day.

bullet Coming Up

  • Your Parody/Facade Projects will be due Monday, 4/13 by noon.
  • On Tuesday, 4/14 you will turn in your commentary on the Parody/Facade Project
  • Also on Tuesday, 4/14 we will begin a workshop of the Parody/Facade Projects, which will continue on Thursday 4/16. More about this next time.
  • On Tuesday, 4/21 we will begin our reading assignments for the Essay Project (assignment TBA) and the Final Exam.

 

parody


Your Parody/Satire Examples
Please post a message to the Webx discussion "parody/satire examples" with the URL of the sample you found and an explanation of how the example can be used to illustrate one of the critical terms above.


Thursday, April 9

announcements

bullet For Today You Were To
Bring in all materials related to your Parody/Facade Project for the Studio Day.

bullet Roll

bullet Questions?

bullet Parody/Facade Project Due by Monday, April 13 at noon

To turn in the project:

  1. post the entire project to the Web (at "www/5250/parody"),
  2. visit the site with your Web browser,
  3. copy the URL of the home page,
  4. paste the URL in message to the Webx discussion "parody/facade project URLs."
  5. Also in that message, write a paragraph explaining the context of your parody/satire: the sub-culture or "manners" being satirized, the original text or genre being parodied (links to examples would be helpful), etc.. Do not explain the "text" of your project: that is, the facade, humor, or anything else that we are to grasp from the project itself.

bullet For Tuesday

1. Commentary
Write and print out your commentary on the Parody/Facade Project to turn in at the beginning of class.

2. Workshop
We will begin an in-class workshop of the Visual/Verbal Projects, taking them one at a time to discuss. I will expect each of you to have constructive and insightful things to say.

Preparing for Workshop: Before class, please do the following:

  1. Review the workshopping page for ideas about what you might discuss in your comments.
  2. Visit the projects in the order below.
  3. Type written comments and suggestions for each project in a word-processing document saved on your disk.
  4. Also, printout the comments to bring to class for your use during the workshop.

By the midnight on workshop day,

Copy and paste all the written comments you've made for everyone today into the form "Workshop Comments for Today" and click "Send." Be sure to label each set of comments with the project number and name of the project's author.

Use the e-mail function in Webx to send each author your comments on his or her project.

3. Workshop List for Tuesday

  1. The Average Joe Romantic Movie Critic
  2. Free iPod Act Now
  3. Chang Brothers
  4. Microsoft "I'm a PC"
  5. Dragon's Lair

Workshop List for Thursday

  1. FV Designer
  2. Buzz "Shotgun" Sawyer Fan Page

For the contexts on these projects, see the Webx discussion "parody/facade project URLs."

bullet Coming Up

  • On Thursday, 4/16 we'll complete the workshopping of the Parody/Facade Projects.
  • On Tuesday, 4/21 we will begin our reading assignments for the Essay Project (assignment TBA) and the Final Exam.

 

parody


Studio Day
Though you are working individually today, please plan on staying and working productively until 3:15.



Tuesday, April 14

announcements

bullet For Today You Were To
1. Commentary
Write and print out your commentary on the Parody/Facade Project to turn in at the beginning of class.

2. Workshop
We will begin an in-class workshop of the Visual/Verbal Projects, taking them one at a time to discuss. I will expect each of you to have constructive and insightful things to say.

Preparing for Workshop: Before class, please do the following:

  1. Review the workshopping page for ideas about what you might discuss in your comments.
  2. Visit the projects in the order below.
  3. Type written comments and suggestions for each project in a word-processing document saved on your disk.
  4. Also, printout the comments to bring to class for your use during the workshop.

By the midnight on workshop day,

Copy and paste all the written comments you've made for everyone today into the form "Workshop Comments for Today" and click "Send." Be sure to label each set of comments with the project number and name of the project's author.

Use the e-mail function in Webx to send each author your comments on his or her project.

3. Workshop List for Tuesday

  1. The Average Joe Romantic Movie Critic
  2. Free iPod Act Now
  3. Chang Brothers
  4. Microsoft "I'm a PC"
  5. Dragon's Lair

Workshop List for Thursday

  1. FV Designer
  2. Buzz "Shotgun" Sawyer Fan Page
  3. Britney's Presidential Blog

For the contexts on these projects, see the Webx discussion "parody/facade project URLs."

bullet Roll

bullet Questions?

bullet For Thursday
Prepare for the workshop of the last several projects (see schedule above).

bullet Coming Up

  • On Tuesday, 4/21 we will begin our reading assignments for the Essay Project (assignment TBA) and the Final Exam.

 

parody


Workshop




Thursday, April 14

announcements

bullet For Today You Were To
Preparing for Workshop: Before class, please do the following:

  1. Review the workshopping page for ideas about what you might discuss in your comments.
  2. Visit the projects in the order below.
  3. Type written comments and suggestions for each project in a word-processing document saved on your disk.
  4. Also, printout the comments to bring to class for your use during the workshop.

For the contexts on these projects, see the Webx discussion "parody/facade project URLs."

bullet Roll

bullet Questions?

bullet For Thursday
Please read Janet Murray's Chapters 7 (page 185) and 10 (273).

As you read, keep in mind that this is the first of the readings that will culminate in the essay and the final exam. We will discuss the essay assignment on Tuesday. Today, we'll look at the guidelines for the final exam.

 

parody


Workshop

  1. FV Designer
  2. Buzz "Shotgun" Sawyer Fan Page
  3. Britney's Presidential Blog

For the contexts on these projects, see the Webx discussion "parody/facade project URLs."

By the midnight on workshop day,

Copy and paste all the written comments you've made for everyone today into the form "Workshop Comments for Today" and click "Send." Be sure to label each set of comments with the project number and name of the project's author.

Use the e-mail function in Webx to send each author your comments on his or her project.


Tuesday, April 21

announcements

bullet For Today You Were To
Please read Janet Murray's Chapters 7 (page 185) and 10 (273).

As you read, keep in mind that this is the first of the readings that will culminate in the essay and the final exam. We will discuss the essay assignment on Tuesday. Today, we'll look at the guidelines for the final exam.

bullet Roll

bullet Questions?

bullet For Thursday
Please read Read Alan Liu's Introduction and Epilogue from his book The Laws of Cool: Knowledge Work and the Culture of Information.

I will ask that you print out these and the other readings from the library's electronic reserve and to bring these printouts to class.


essay


Introducing
The Essay Assignment: Media Old and New.

Janet Murray's "Agency" and Conclusion

Key Terms:

  • agency vs.
  • interactivity .vs
  • authorship
  • stories vs. games
  • games as symbolic dramas

Resources


Thursday, April 23

announcements

bullet For Today You Were To
Please read Read Alan Liu's Introduction and Epilogue from his book The Laws of Cool: Knowledge Work and the Culture of Information.

I will ask that you print out these and the other readings from the library's electronic reserve and to bring these printouts to class.

As you read, keep in mind that this is the first of the readings that will culminate in the essay and the final exam. We will discuss the essay assignment on Tuesday. Today, we'll look at the guidelines for the final exam.

bullet Roll

bullet Questions?

bullet For Tuesday
Print out and read these two chapters from Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin's Remediation: Understanding New Media: Introduction and Chapter 1.

I will ask that you print out these and the other readings from the library's electronic reserve and to bring these printouts to class.

bullet Coming Up
The remaining reading (which we'll discuss over two days) from electronic reserve will be Chapter 5 from Lev Manovich's The Language of New Media.


essay


Questions...
...on the Essay Assignment: Media Old and New?

Janet Murray
Key Terms

  • agency vs.
  • interactivity .vs
  • authorship
  • stories vs. games
  • games as symbolic dramas

Resources

Alan Liu (Introduction and Epilogue)
alan liuOpening Question
Murray's book argues that New Media were in their infancy and that they would eventually grow up to be capable of "confront[ing] the unanswerable questions of human existence" just as literature has (280).

  • How is Liu 's book different in its approach to the future of "the literary" in a world dominated by New Media?
  • Is he more pessimistic?
  • Why?
  • How does he imagine "the future literary" working?
  • What are the obstacles to such as possibility?

Choose a line or passage from our readings and, in a message to the Webx discussion alan liu, type in the quotation and page number and write your own commentary on what he means and how the passage enables you to answer one or more of the questions above.

Tuesday, April 28

announcements

bullet For Today You Were To
Print out and read these two chapters from Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin's Remediation: Understanding New Media: Introduction and Chapter 1.

Bring the Liu reading back to class as well.

bullet Roll

bullet Questions?

bullet For Thursday
Read Lev Manovich's The Language of New Media. pages 213-243.

bullet Coming Up
For next Tuesday, read the remainder of Lev Manovich's Chapter 5.


essay


Alan Liu (Introduction and Epilogue)
alan liuThe PMC and Cultural Capital
See the page from my Ideas Site for PMC

The Place of Literature
See the page from my Ideas Site

Key Terms

  • "managerial/ professional/ technological intelligentsia" 4 [Professional-Managerial Class (PMC)]
  • cultural capital
  • culture (as in "the culture of information")
  • information
  • literature vs. the literary
  • knowledges 7
  • knowledge work vs. humanistic knowledge (writing)
  • ethos of unknowing 9, 385

Back to our dicussion, alan liu

Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin

Key Terms

  • immediacy
  • hypermediacy
  • remediation

Resources

Introducing an Essay

 

Thursday, April 30

announcements

bullet For Today You Were To
Read Lev Manovich's The Language of New Media. pages 213-243.

bullet Roll

bullet Questions?

bullet Writing
See Introducing an Essay from the Techniques Site.

bulletATRAQs (All Too Rarely Asked Questions)
See it okay to write about old and/or new media texts that are non-fiction?

bullet For Tuesday
For next Tuesday, read the remainder of Lev Manovich's Chapter 5.


essay


Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin

Remediation

Remediation's relationship to Immediacy/hypermediacy distinction

See the handout "Iconic and Elaborated Literary Styles"

Key Terms

  • immediacy
  • hypermediacy
  • remediation

Resources

Lev Manovich's The Language of New Media, Chapter 5, pages 213 - 243

What does Manovich mean by "database" logic? (218)

What does Manovich mean by "narrative"?

Why are database and narrative "enemies"? (225.7)

In what ways does Manovich refine and qualify that idea of database and narrative being enemies?

Key Terms

  • narrative and database
  • syntagmatic vs. paradigmatic (see diachronic/synchonic)
  • new media narrative

 

Tuesday, May 5

announcements

bullet For Today You Were To
For next Tuesday, read the remainder of Lev Manovich's Chapter 5.

bullet Roll

bullet Questions?

bullet For Thursday
1. Bring in your Murray book and all the print outs of readings from this semester. We will talk about the exam on Thursday using this index of key terms and ideas from the semester.

2. Bring your essay to turn in

 

essay


Resources

Lev Manovich's The Language of New Media, Chapter 5, pages 213 - 243

1. A Narrative of the Chapter

2. Questions

  • What does Manovich mean by "database" logic? (218)
  • What does Manovich mean by "narrative"?
  • Why are database and narrative "enemies"? (225.7)
  • What does "navigable space" have to do with the database/narrative distinction?
  • What are some of the characteristics and consequences of navigable space?

3. Key Terms

  • narrative and database
  • syntagmatic vs. paradigmatic (see diachronic/synchonic)
  • new media
  • navigable space
  • systematic vs. aggregate space
  • non-places