MLA Activity

We're going to make some MLA entries in class today and see how you do. Make a Google doc (work together if you like), and create a Works Cited for these:

1. Off The Beatles' website, a better source for the photo that names the photographer.
2. An article I found through our library's databases.
3. This piece from BBC News.

Quickly set up your Works Cited for these. Then we'll compare and see what questions you have. This, by the way, is how mine turned out!

Today's To-Do List

Here's the plan today:

1. Look at the new blog posts, which will have you reading the OFFICIAL ePORTFOLIO INSTRUCTIONS. You'll find a CHECKLIST, too, which I recommend printing up. It's the ultimate guide to all final project requirements. 
2. The blog posts refer to you BlackBoard, where you'll find a step-by-step walkthrough and ePORTFOLIO TUTORIAL. Use it to make your ePortfolio site. 
3. Work on old project drafts. You had comments from me on the NARRATIVE, and you have a GUIDED REVISION document regarding the PROFILE. 
4. Come talk to me about your project, up in front of the room :)

Editing Helpers for the Photo Essay as Well as the ePortfolio

As we get moving with polishing our writing, here are some editing helpers for you to work with on your own . . .

But in class we'll work with the following slides to think about editing issues.

Also, here are some tips on what to capitalize in the titles of your photo essay as well as of individual photos.

More Caption-Writing Help, and Some Work on Slide Order

In this morning's survey, it's clear that many of you want some additional pointers on the writing of the captions. I think looking at a prior student's draft of the project can help. This is Summer's photo essay on Chinatown, from an historian's perspective. There's a lot to like about this piece, but I'm hoping you'll notice, based on what we've been working with, how some key aspects of the work need some attention.

As a reader, try to notice whether Summer helps give you any context for what the piece is trying to do. Take the title and first slide, for instance. If you just came across this photo essay online, what kinds of guesses would you make about what its purpose was? And how much would you really want to get into it and read more? Second, see if you can make some sense of the order of the slides—is there a way to take this content and make a logical progression for readers? Finally, do you think some of the material is coming from a source? Do we have a responsibility to tell readers where the information is coming from?

In class, we're going to try to work with these issues, and the following links are to examples we'll discuss together and analyze:

• Summer's Photo Essay, reordered.
• Summer's Opening slides, rewritten.

I think you'll notice a few things, namely that the original photo essay has a random order to the material. Consider as well that the captions are about history—but ultimately none of them help readers understand a history of Chicago's Chinatown! Too, I think you can see with the rewritten slides the value of setting a context for readers somehow. As you work on your own projects, please just try to imagine real readers coming across this thing. What are we going to learn?

Also, as we said in class, please remember that this photo essay is clearly plagiarizing some material from a source. The rewritten first slide shows you (as did the Whole Foods examples) how you can handle any source material you deem necessary to include :)

Photo Essay Template

Here's what to do in the lab today, depending on where you're at with the project:

IF YOU HAVE PHOTOS, then

• Here's a link to the template we'll use for the Photo Essay project. Click the link, then go to FILE—MAKE A COPY. Then the document becomes yours—you can use that template to start putting the photos in place. Don't forget to rename that file after you copy it to your drive.
• As you work, try to think about the READER and how they might experience this piece. Thinking about the reader's impression will probably help you make choices about the ORDER of photographs. Think about the reader as you write captions, too. 
• You might open a blank Google Doc and do some fastwriting about your place: what do you want to say about it, given the perspective you chose for the project? That writing will likely help you with the captions. 
• If you need to do any research, do it. Note places you get information from, though—we'll talk about source attribution on Wednesday.

IF YOU DON'T HAVE PHOTOS YET, then

• Use this photo and caption planning document to brainstorm and imagine your options for photos and captions before you go to the place you picked.
• Do the freewriting I mention above—that exercise will help you, too, even before you actually photograph your place. Getting into the mindset of your perspective is key.
• Just as I mention above for the people who have photos, you might have to do some research, too, depending on the perspective you're adopting as creator of the photo essay. Get that done so you can use your time well this week!

Lab Helpers Today (3/8)

I have a horribly sore throat today, gang, and I will try and speak as little as possible today. You're going to have some time to work, and here's our plan:

1. I do want you to share your draft with your "row": so whoever is sitting in your lab row, please set up shares for the profile draft. As we did last time, go into those other drafts and leave some comments, but try to focus on what you think might be "missing" in the draft. If there aren't a lot of quotes, leave a simple question about that (Will you add more?). If there are no stories, you can comment on that (A story would really be great . . .). If there's no organization, or the structure isn't engaging for you as a reader, you can probably find a way to say something about that (I got most engaged in X section . . .). Please don't just leave a lame pat on the back. Or say, "good draft!" Offering up ONE or TWO serious comments would be better than leaving platitudes strewn about; plus, even though you think you're being polite with that kind of thing, you're actually being a bit of the opposite. 
2. I do have a handout with tips on how to punctuate quotes and edit them. You can Google to find answers to other questions you have, when you have them. It would take you 30 seconds, likely, to get an answer about how to use quote marks. Figure it out.
3. Continuing on with editing, here's the slideshow we worked with today on TRANSITIONS!
4. The final draft of the profile, because it involves you citing research (your interview!), requires a Works Cited page. Here's how to do that entry, since you won't find an example for it on Fister (that MLA guide that's our required text for the course):
   
   Smith, Jane. Personal interview. 12 Oct. 2014.
   
   Remember, at the end of that essay, you should make a Page Break (find that on the Insert menu), since a Works Cited page needs to be on its own page at the end of your paper. At the top of that page, type "Work Cited" (since there's only one "work"!), then give us your entry after that. 

Slideshow from the Lab, 2/11

We'll shift to revision and editing today, and the activities we'll do in the lab are captured in this slideshow. We're working with larger to smaller concerns as a little introduction to revision, so we'll examine things like structure as a whole, but also sentence level issues as well--especially those that pertain to style and not just mechanics.

Lab Materials from Class 2/2

Group, I'm just sharing with you here the slideshow on writing about an object, as well as the draft of my "raft" story. Hope they help! A few comments about both:

• the slideshow is really pushing you to think about what to do once you're in the process of generating all those details about your object and it's story. In other words, how might you use that "prewriting" to make an actual draft for a reader? There are several approaches there, along with my own examples. My object in that case is a book about how to write in shorthand.
• the "raft" example features two attempts to write a draft. The first one I would consider my initial draft, and even though it's organized, I think it's not as interesting as the beginning of the second one. The tip here is to consider the TIMELINE of your narrative, and to realize that telling everything in chronological order, from the beginning, might not be that interesting to a reader. The second version starts in media res, which means it starts in the middle of the action. I think it's a lot more engaging because of that, and maybe you do, too.

Class in the Lab 1/28

Just posting some of the things we will use in the lab today (Thursday).

• The POLL we'll use during class (the link won't work until I use the site live).
• A link to Google Drive (drive.google.com), which we will set up in class. 
• A link to Coggle, but we'll learn how to connect this to Google Drive. 

In class we will work with the assignment and the readings. The readings are two examples of the kind of piece we're attempting to write. We will set up Google Drive and a file, and learn to use Coggle as a mind-mapping and brainstorming tool.