It was a great day at CHC today--an amazing opportunity to learn by doing, playing, kicking and just being together. As we played, we thought of some of the observations many of you made in your essays about the power an experience like CHC has to help us relieve stress and reconnect with the important things we lose sight of in our often crazy lives.
We even had a small setback (that's Carlos trying to retrieve our kickball from the tree branches), but learned that such setbacks are sometimes just invitations to adventures.
Speaking of adventures, we are now entering end of the semester territory! The countdown is on. We have about four weeks left of the term. This is a time we can look back and begin to see how much we have accomplished; it is also a time when many students lose and often drop or stop working as hard as they did at the start of the semester. Take some time to think about where you are and how you are feeling. I would strongly suggest you remember many of the skits of the first weeks of the term and keep in mind all of the interventions that we came up with to keep the main character from not having a dissatisfying experience. Unfortunately, I have to say that in all of my classes I have lost really good students over the past couple of weeks. (The last day for me to drop students is this Friday. If you are not sure that you are going to stay in the class for whatever reason, please let me know so I can drop you rather than have to assign a failing grade at the end of the term.)
Last week we evaluated papers. From the comments I overheard, I can tell that this was an unnerving experience for some. It is a difficult thing to evaluate anything let alone someone else's written work. I looked over the papers and I'm ready to give them back to you. Overall, I feel most of the evaluations were accurate and fair. If you believe your paper was not fairly assessed, however, please take time to print another rubric and reevaluate your paper. When you finish, write a one-page justification why you changed the scores. Make an appointment with me. I will be available starting this Friday through Wednesday of this week. I will reconsider your grade once you have met with me. You have until Wednesday of next week to resolve any issues with your paper. Failure to do so will mean that you will keep the grade you were given. For those of you who got a note from me requesting that you go to the Writing Center, you will need to make an appointment this week and have a session with one of our tutors by no later than next week. Failure to do so will mean that your grade will be 280 points, a 70%.
Some important things to think about as we look ahead to next week:
-We will do a short writing exercise to explore ways to improve revision and editing skills in reference to grammar. To prepare for this work, please read and take notes from "Attending to Grammar," an excellent page from Dartmouth College. In your notebooks, define and describe the 20 most common grammar mistakes; use the grammar drill exercises to provide three sample sentences showing the problem and how it is corrected.
-Start giving your photo essay more thought. We hope you've been collecting photos around an interesting theme related to CHC. If you haven't, come to class next week with some ideas about what direction you may be going in and the strong intention of taking lots of pictures. We will take some class time on Monday to work on the essay and have set a tentative deadline for the first week of December.
Keep in mind the photoessay will be submitted as a Storify link; we will provide the form to turn it in soon. Remember that the essay is worth 500-points. Please feel free to schedule an appointment to see me if you want extra help. Here's the rubric for the photo walk essay.
You may also want to review the assignment below:
Photo Walk Group Essay
Two weeks ago I introduced the photo walk assignment. By now you should have a theme you want to document on campus. If you don't have one, get together as soon as possible with your group to come up with one. I would suggest themes that allow us to see CHC from a different angle, one that we may not take time to notice.
The way you collect your photographs is up to you. I strongly suggest you do an inventory of the the cameras you have available. Camera phones work just fine. On the web side of things, I would encourage everyone that has a smartphone to use Instagram, a free app for Iphones and Android devices. Using Instagram and a unique hashtag # for your group will allow group members to easily share the photographs with one another. You can find many of the pictures taken there under #stillsmallvoicewalk.
Once you have taken a good number of pictures (many more than you will actually use in the essay), the next step for the group will be to determine which ones to use to create a photographic essay that captures a dominant impression. Pay attention to this requirement as it calls for a strong thematic goal before you even start your walk around campus. (If you are not sure what you are looking for as you take pictures, it will be a lot harder to come up with a strong dominant impression for the final document later on.)
Each group member should create a Storify account. Take time to learn how to use this service. It is easy to use but will need a little bit of prep time to get comfortable. I will show you in class how to use it. Once everyone has access to Storify and has a username, have one person create the page for the photo walk in Storify and then go to the settings area of the application and give each group member editor status. This will allow everyone to access to the page. You now will be ready to put your text and pictures together in a way that will be very easy for you to share. Try this at home this week so that when I demonstrate it in class, you are already familiar with the process.
Shanty 2012 Extra Credit Assignment
If you are planning on participating in Shanty 2012 (November 17) and receive 100 extra credit points, please make sure to talk to me during class!
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