Today’s plan:
- Attendance
- REMINDER: Monday’s class will meet in the library (Michener 303)
- Workshop: JaRay, Tyler
- Homework: Last weekly writing (do research), Preparing to Write the Final paper Canvas Quiz
Homework
There’s two obligations for homework. First, you need to complete your last weekly writing. As with last week, this writing should be research for the final project–read something that either talks about a problem or talks about one way to fix a problem. In your writing this week, make a direct connection to last week’s article. Let me repeat, make sure your reading this week speaks to your reading from last week as much as possible. If you are having trouble, email me and I will dig some stuff up for you.
We have a library research session on Monday. Being my first semester at UNC, I’m not exactly sure what the library session will entail. My hope is that they will introduce you to the various databases and search engines you may use to find research. To maximize the effectiveness of the session, I want you to nail down your topic and have done some preliminary research so that you have some names or key words to work with.
So, I’ve put together a “quiz” on Canvas. The quiz revisits some of the Booth reading, and asks you to find/summarize some research. You can and should revisit past weekly writing. This is the time to figure out what of that previous reading is relevant. Note that you will likely have to rewrite your summaries of that material as your paper topic develops, but the time you invested reading and writing was (hopefully) not wasted.
I have finished grading the first wave of Booth quizzes (but admit I am way behind on the weekly writing). The plan now is for us to meet in the library Monday. I will then give you time to do more research in the computer lab on Wednesday. During Wednesday’s class, you will sign up to meet with me sometime on Friday for 15 minutes. Instead of class on Friday, I will meet with each of you for 15 minutes to talk about your projects. I will be available from 9:00 to 4:00. If you cannot meet during that time, then please let me know and we can arrange to meet on Thursday. You will bring a one page, single-spaced proposal paper to our meeting. I will share a template for this proposal in the computer lab on Wednesday.
If there’s time remaining, I want to go over the first question in the quiz:
Now that you’ve had some time to reflect, and hopefully done some research into the question for this week’s weekly writing, I want you to complete this one more time.
Before you do, let me clarify. The first blank should be something narrow and specific–a single person, a single document, a single event. Maybe two people, may three documents, maybe a couple of events. IT SHOULD NOT BE A GENERAL THING. This means do not say “I am studying Black Lives Matter because…” Black Lives Matter is too big, too general. Narrow this down. I am studying “Deray McKesson’s campaign to be mayor of Baltimore…” Don’t say “I am studying Joyce’s Dubliners” That’s too much! Say “I am studying three stories from Joyce’s Dubliners (and name the stories)…” The point here is to be specific.
As to the second blank, you want to be specific here to. What are you looking at your person/object/event in order to learn? “I am studying Colin Kapernick’s protest of the anthem in order to learn what specific policies activists such as Kaepernick support…” I am studying the reasons people attend electronic dance concerts because I am trying to show that there are more reasons than simply drugs and debauchery…”
As to the third blank, this should address a broader problem. It doesn’t repeat the second blank, rather it says “ok, if you buy this analysis of the second blank, then we can use this research to think about this bigger issue.” So” I am studying electronic dance concerts because I am trying to show that people attend for more than just drugs and debauchery in order to argue against mainstream media depictions of these concerts as simply negative.
Something like:
I am studying video game addiction in order to learn more about why players waste so much time playing games in order to complicate Jane McGonigal’s idea that games are healthy for people. Unlike McGonigal, I believe there are a lot of gamers who cannot moderate their play as she advises.
