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In Narrative Across Media, you will acquire tools for analyzing narrative in multiple media and in multiple modalities. You will also look at critiques of each specific form of media and make your own argument about how story is shaped by medium, modality, and its narrative form. Finally, you will investigate whether translating narrative from one medium to another really o change the message of the story itself.
Beginning with classical rhetorical ideas, you will analyze narrative in news media, in the short story, and in hybrid forms such as the graphic novel before moving into pop music compositions, looking at how narrative is communicated through the lyrics, video, and album art of a pop song. You will have the option of either writing a traditional research paper in print about narrative across media or composing your own work of media translation, and then will learn about the performances and constraints of the power point frame before finishing with a group film analysis project.
This course focuses on themes and issues specifically relevant to the function and roles of narrative, the medium and the modalities it is conveyed through in society. Through the exploration Of this course theme, students will develop critical reading, thinking, and writing skills. College Writing 1 1011 develops students’ reading, writing, and critical thinking skills by emphasizing multimode reading and writing as critical and recursive processes.
Writing is approached as a recursive process that includes preprinting strategies, drafting, revising, and editing. The course helps students recognize and read important themes articulated in multiple modalities within individual texts and between divergent texts, emphasizing that interpretation itself is a process both recursive and contestable, using the multiplicity of valid interpretations and a knowledge of the allowances of multiple modalities to throw into relief the student’s own processes of interpretation and the assumptions these are based on.
This course uses works of sustained complexity which, when read together or against each other, bring into focus their different interpretive frameworks and their tenements, sometimes agreeing, sometimes complicating the issues being investigated. Students will focus on a particular body of discourse in several short formal compositions, learning to incorporate research into their own contribution to the ongoing discourse, culminating in an extended piece of writing which ties together many of the key themes and issues investigated in the course.
Class- This is a working writing lab-a space within which you will learn to hone your writing and critical thinking skills. There will be brief lectures or demonstrations on matters of common interest almost every day, but work mime will primarily be spent in activities that involve writing/ composing, responding to writing/ composing and revising.
We will also devote work time daily to meetings one-on-one with the instructor, in groups of fellow students, or as a class in order to learn how to critically read, in addition to learning how to construct arguments in multiple modalities, and to give excellent feedback to your fellow writers on their work. In-Class Discussions ? Almost every class will involve an in-depth discussion of the assigned readings of the day and their relevance to the journal’s central theme of Narrative Across Media.
Students who read the material, annotate it, and come to class with the daily reader-response completed as well as with questions about the ideas presented in the text not only enrich the class, they learn more and receive higher grades. Become an active learner! Assigned Readings – For each class, you will have a reading/reference selection assigned from the principal texts. These assignments will be designed to help you prepare the current assignment and to identify the location Of specific references to which you can turn when you need help in any writing task.
Apply the advice and information in them to your reworks; students who do so almost always receive higher grades. The texts will provide you with many of the practical techniques and much of the background knowledge you will need to know to write well at Kent State and in your later career. Develop the habit now of turning to them for answers to questions of research and writing, and plan to keep them as permanent references on your Writer’s Bookshelf. Overwrites – Freighting is an in-class activity that provides a chance for you to exercise your writing skills.
The rules are there are none! The only thing you can do wrong is stop writing. The purpose is to get you into a writing mindset, to encourage fluency in getting words to paper. Overwrites will last about five minutes and may be ‘prompted’ at my discretion. Enjoy freighting! You will find your most creative, insightful topic ideas during these freighting sessions. Journal Entries/ Creative Writing – Because we meet only two times per week, you will be required to bring one I-page journal entry to class per week on loose-leaf paper.
These entries can be on the readings for class, montages Of poetry and fiction, word-sketches of people you observe in the world around you, musings on how your life is at the moment, and so on. The purpose of Kelly independent writing is to have fun with writing and express yourself! If you prefer to work all semester on a longer print, visual, aural, or other project equivalent to the 14 pages of journaling, ask me if it would fulfill this requirement.
Reader-Response Papers – For most of the assigned readings, you are required to not only do the reading, but to respond to assigned questions or topics pertaining to the text. These will involve comparing and contrasting how different authors deal with similar themes in their work, applying specific rhetorical analytical tools to the texts to gain a deeper insight into their origins, and using quotations from the texts to effectively prove points you make about that work and its discussion of the themes related to the course.
New York Times Article Analysis and Presentation – You will be required to sign up to analyze and lead a discussion on a New York Times story relating to the course theme once during the semester. This involves sending me the link to your chosen article or news element the class period BEFORE you are scheduled to present, and then on the day of the presentation, turning in your discussion questions and your in-depth one-page analysis of the article. Guidelines for this presentation are available on VISTA. Extra Credit – You will be able to earn Extra Credit for the course in several ways.
Introduce a News Article for Discussion?For extra credit, volunteer your close reading of an article from any section of the NET, looking at the central idea of the piece, what the main argument about that idea is, and how the word choice and structure of the piece contribute to communicating that argument (see handout guidelines for preparing your news presentation). Argue with the Readings- you can choose to write a response with citations to nee of the course readings or a reading related to the main themes of the course that you have found through your own research.
This helps you to gain practice in responding to specific points, word choices, and techniques in the readings. (Example of response with citations: In his essay “Fire in the Belly,” Lass claims that culture has become toxic to the mental environment (84). However, I think that he is a little full of it. He offers little actual evidence to prove his points – for example, he claims A (30), and seems to think that stating B is “proof’! ) Translate a Narrative from One Medium to Another, or from One Mode to a
Combination – you can take a class-appropriate narrative from any medium or modality and translate it into another medium or modality. This involves taking the central themes and ideas and representing them in another way. Also include a one page rationale explaining how changing the medium changed what could be said / how it could be said, as well as why you chose to change the work from its original form to the form of the translation. Supplemental Research on Course Topic – do supplementary research on a topic to present informally to the class on the day that the related reading is being discussed.
Learn a Composition Program – teach yourself a composition program you didn’t know how to use before, keeping a composer’s/learners log while doing so to record the ups and downs of the learning process. We will be using Powering as a class for some compositions, but you can learn about the visual aspects of MS Word, Adobe Pacemaker, Audition (a sound composing tool), or Moviegoer/ related movie making composition tool. Many of these programs are expensive to buy, but can be downloaded on a trial basis for free.