My Style Writing

And A Half Inches (Original) 

I'm the runt of my family. At 5'8" (and a half inches), I'm inches shorter than my younger sisters, a head shorter than a young cousin, and I have to crane my head to look my dad in the eye. Grandma, is actually two inches shorter than me in the real world, but lives in a world where I am still only 4'10". But I'm not. I'm 5'8 (and a half) inches.

Grandma used to measure our heights against the wall in the laundry room. The strip of wallpaper is still covered in pencil markings detailing my growth, alongside the rest of my family.

"Oh Heather," Grandma says every time she presses my back to the wall, carefully checking that my feet are flat, "When you were a baby, I thought for sure you'd be tall. But you're not. You just didn't grow."

Dad's pencil mark is the pinnacle. Followed closely by his younger brother, then his sister, then my grandfather (who I'm told used to be taller). Next is Emma, then Bre, then me, then grandma. Grandma swears I cheated when I marked hers even though Dad and Aunt Brenda witnessed it. Dad even had to stop her from standing on her toes.

Shopping with my sisters and my grandma, I am never allowed to buy "long" pants. They insist that I, at 5' 8 (and a half) inches do not need long pants. I am not tall, like them.

I realized, as I was walking to class this morning, that my pants are too short. I know Bre was with me when I bought them. I know she told me I didn't need the long cut. The average height for women in America is something like 5'6", so, comparatively, I am tall. Tall enough for long pants at least. The thing is, I keep buying pants that are too short at my family's insistence that I'm too short.

The thing is, I'm different they are, aside from being short. There are other things about me that are just too too for them. I'm too liberal. Too outspoken. Too masculine. Too sensitive. I try not to let these things bother me. I try to believe that I'm outside of their influence. But if that's true, why am I standing in front of my class today in high waters?

At my age, it's highly unlikely that I'll continue to grow anymore, so I'll probably always be the runt. But I don't always have to wear high waters.

And A Half Inches (Revised)

At 5'8" (and a half inches), I'm inches shorter than my younger sisters. I have to crane my head to look my dad in the eye. Grandma, who is actually two inches shorter than me in the real world, lives in a world where she is two inches taller, and measures our heights against the wall in the laundry room: a strip of wallpaper is a spatial family tree.

"Oh Heather," Grandma says every time she presses my back to the wall, carefully checking for flat feet, "When you were a baby, I thought for sure you'd be tall. You just didn't grow."

Dad's pencil mark is the pinnacle. Followed closely by his younger brother, his sister, then my grandfather (who I'm told used to be taller). Next is Emma, then Bre, then me, then grandma. I marked Grandma's height. She swears I cheated.

Shopping with my sisters and my grandma, I am never allowed to buy "long" pants. They insist that I, at 5' 8 (and a half) inches do not need long pants. They need long pants.They are tall. I am not tall.

I realized, as I was walking to class this morning, that my pants are too short. I know Bre was with me when I bought them. I know she told me I didn't need the long cut.

The average height for women in America is something like 5'6". In America, I am tall, or at the very least, above average. I'm definitely tall enough for long pants. But I keep buying pants that are too short at my family's insistence that I'm too short.

The thing is, I'm different they are, aside from being "short". I'm  too too for them. I'm too liberal, too outspoken, too masculine, too sensitive. I try not to let these things bother me. I try to believe that I'm outside of their influence. But if that's true, why am I walking around today as if I am waiting for a flood?

Class Blogger 10/29

Hi all,

Here is Chris' account of class for 10/29. Check it out if you need a refresher or missed class.

http://www.cp111793.blogspot.com/2012/10/1029-class-blog-false-rules.html

Rubric Final Draft

Hi all,

Here is the final draft of the rubric. Please let me know if you have any questions.

t

Paper 2 Assignment Sheet Plain Text Version

Paper Two: Visual/Textual Interaction

Requirements

7-8 pages, double-spaced

MLA Format

Hard copy turned in during class

Due Dates

Discovery Draft Due 10/3 – Must have a copy you can share with classmates

Rough Draft 1 Due At Conferences(10/8 - 10/12)

Final Draft Due 10/24 – Hardcopy in class

Goals Associated with Assignment

Focus on a purpose

Respond to the needs of different audiences

Respond appropriately to different kinds of rhetorical situations

Use conventions of format and structure appropriate to the rhetorical situation Adopt appropriate voice, tone, and level of formality

Use writing and reading for inquiry, learning, thinking, and communicating

Understand a writing assignment as a series of tasks, including finding, evaluating, analyzing, and synthesizing appropriate primary and secondary sources

Integrate their own ideas with those of others

Understand the relationships among language, knowledge, and power

Be aware that it usually takes multiple drafts to create and complete a successful text

Develop flexible strategies for generating, revising, editing, and proof-reading

Understand writing as an open process that permits writers to use later invention and re-thinking to revise their work

Understand the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes

The Assignment

For Paper Two, you will build on the observation and analytic skills employed in Paper One with the objective of exploring connections between written and visual texts. In achieving this goal, you will focus on how elements from both visual and written texts serve to interpret, emphasize, complicate, or mask one another. Think of your favorite magazine, for instance. Now imagine if it had no visuals in it whatsoever, no pictures or cartoons or ads. How different would your magazine be? The visuals that are included in your magazine serve a distinct purpose, and for this essay you will consider what that purpose is. You will be required to analyze elements of the visual text like image, layout, color, design, and lighting. You will also consider qualities of the written text, such as voice, tone, audience, and style. Through a comparison of the two texts and how they work with and/or against each other, you will make a specific claim about the media‘s ideas, values, and overall message and support this argument with details obtained through close observation and analysis.

Getting Started

Your first step should be to select a text with visual representations. Your choices are basically endless. If you are a fan of comic books/graphic novels, you might consider how the images in Art Spiegelman‘s Maus tell a story separate from that of the text, adding meaning to the relationship between father and son. Also significant is the choice to portray the characters as mice, which adds another layer of meaning to Spiegelman‘s memoir. In analyzing a text like this, you might consider elements of color, point of view, arrangement, movement, and style. Perhaps there is an illustrated storybook from your childhood that has always intrigued you, such as Green Eggs and Ham or Pat the Bunny. If this is the case, you could discuss the narrative and text alongside the book‘s images, looking again at the illustrator‘s use of things like color and style.

Options for approaching this topic:

Perhaps you could focus on one or more articles from magazines such as Newsweek or Time, examining the written texts and corresponding photos and illustrations. For example, you could look at the coverage of the war in Iraq or a primary election through the ―lens of writers and photojournalists. Or you might consider how ads in a magazine like Cosmopolitan typically compliment what is being said in an article. It‘s no coincidence that a shampoo ad would appear on the page next to an article about how to get great hair.

You might explore website text and graphics, observing sites such as college and university homepages and discussing things like mission statements and messages addressed to prospective students. You could then talk about the textual message in relation to corresponding graphics, layout, and design. Or you could consider how a particular movie or play deviates from its original screenplay (or perhaps from the book it was adapted from).

Another option is using a cultural icon as the visual element of your paper. An icon is an image, symbol, or idea that has become commonplace in a society. Cultural icons might be thought of as people, pictures, or events that have a powerful influence on our thinking. Often writers think of themselves as ―iconoclasts, which literally means to blow up icons or commonly held ideas. These writers cause us to see the world differently. All of the following are cultural icons: Seminoles, Bob Dylan, Meryl Streep, Hugh Heffner, Dr. Seuss, The Beatles, Alcoholics Anonymous, Woodstock, Pearl Harbor, Van Gogh, Shakespeare, and the Mona Lisa. Choose your own icon to write about (not necessarily from the above list). The idea of this paper is to write informatively about a cultural icon. As a byproduct of learning and thinking about this icon, you should also be able to analyze it. Make a specific claim or claims about the icon‘s ideas, values, and overall message. Support your claims as strongly as you can. In addition to writing about the icon, include a picture that helps readers understand the icon better. Don‘t just throw in any picture; choose one that goes well with your focus. Consider how elements from both visual and written texts serve to interpret, emphasize, complicate, or mask one another.

Some possible questions to consider while drafting:

Do I have a clear message, argument, or thesis? Do I need one?

What role does this icon play in our culture?

What effects does this icon have on the way we think?

What kind of readers do you envision? What would they want to know?

Include at least one primary source (the textual component). Feel free to also incorporate secondary sources; for example, the controversy surrounding media‘s manipulation of how its viewers understand the Iraq war.

Rough Drafts, Workshop and Revision

For this paper, we will complete a discovery draft, rough draft, and final draft. The final draft will be graded as-is, with the opportunity for revision. If you do not turn in a draft, your final grade will be penalized 10 percent for each missing draft. Likewise, missing peer review will cost your final grade 10 percent. This means that a paper missing a draft can receive, at most, 90 percent. A paper that misses a workshop will also receive, at most, 90 percent.

If you choose to revise your paper, you’ll need to draft a revision memo to accompany your new draft. The memo should detail the changes you made and why and, perhaps more importantly, the changes you chose not to make and why you chose not to make those changes. Remember: this is your work. Own it and take the opportunity to defend your writing choices and to recognize weaknesses and engage in self-critique. While you are not guaranteed a better grade after a revision, your grade will never be lowered after revision.

Image from http://harlotofthearts.org/issues/issue_2/mccorkle/obama-poster/

Rubric Building for Paper 2

Second verse, same as the first. But this time, we'll be coming up with 10 criteria for grading. Once your groups have completed their lists, please type them into the document here.

Class Blogger 10/22

Hi all,

Here is the link to Jackie's class blogger entry for 10/22. In includes important dates and information, so be sure to check it out.

http://jacquelinemoreda.blogspot.com/2012/10/class-blogger-1022.html

Mid Semester Evaluation

Hi all,
Today we're going to be doing a mid-semester evaluation. Please follow the link at the bottom to get started.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dFpxa3VzZ28ydF85YnF1SXBkeEpmYVE6MA#gid=0

Class blog 10/15

Hi all,

Here is the link to Marisa's class blog for 10/15. Because she's awesome, she wrote it like a pirate and included pictures of the fabulous Johnny Depp.

Check it out; it's a lot of fun.

http://www.marisastokers1101.blogspot.com/2012/10/october-15th-class-blog-cinderella.html

Class Cancelled for 10/19

Hi all,

Sorry to do this, but I need to cancel class tomorrow (10/19). I was in a car accident this afternoon. I'm ok, but sore and a little beat up. I'll email you feedback on your papers tomorrow so you can continue working on them for your peer review on Monday. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Thanks,

HL

Reading for 10/17

Hi all,

I have received some questions about the reading for tomorrow. Please read pg. 55-71 in the Handbook.

Thanks and sorry for the mix-up,

HL

Conference Schedule

Hi all,

Here is the conference schedule for this week. Please remember a missed conference counts as a missed class and failure to turn in a rough draft of your assignment will result in an automatic 10 percent deduction from your final grade. If you can’t find your name on this list, please email me at hl12d@my.fsu.edu as soon as possible.

Thanks,

HL

	Monday		Wednesday		Friday
				10:45 AM	Kalie Godwin
11:00 AM	Andrew Mazzarella	11:00 AM	Stephanie Roman	11:00 AM	Max del Monte
11:15 AM	Connor Capes	11:15 AM	Sam Lemelman	11:15   AM	Patrick Stebler
11:30 AM	Pascal Kolb	11:30 AM	Jake Najjar	11:30 AM	Sharon Scarlett
11:45 AM	Alex O’Daniel	11:45 AM	Kelsey Buckley	11:45 AM	Ali Mondini
12:00 PM	Jen Cheslock	12:00 PM	Andy Elovic	12:00 PM	Matt Gourges
12:15 PM		12:15 PM	Kole Buchanan	12:15 PM	Alexis Cornejo
12:30 PM		12:30 PM	Samantha Klein	12:30 PM	Allie Clark
12:45 PM		12:45 PM	Abby Richardson	12:45 PM	Caroline Ellis
1:00 PM		1:00 PM	Vicky Kopecky	1:00 PM	Chris Peppy
1:15 PM		1:15 PM	Shone Joseph	1:15 PM	Jeffrey Perez
1:30 PM	Marisa Stoker	1:30 PM	Austin Cunningham	1:30 PM	Morgan O’Rourke
1:45 PM	Patrick Hahne	1:45 PM	Kelly Kalich	1:45 PM	Lanie Miranda
2:00 PM	Layne Deshong	2:00 PM	Alexis Brailsford	2:00 PM	Jackie Moreda
2:15 PM	Derek Torres	2:15 PM	Mitchell Gotleib	2:15 PM	Chris Benjamin

Starry Night

For this activity, you will analyze a poem or song in tandem with Starry Night, Vincent Van Gogh’s famous painting. Each group will have their own poem or song and will be responsible for developing a thesis to fit their analysis. Focus on the similarities between the words of the poem and the visuals in the painting. Have any images in the painting inspired certain parts of the poem? What image/color in the painting struck the author of the poem/song? What first strikes each student? Has the author altered anything in the painting? What details are lost or added in these “translations”? Do these textual “translations” convey a different meaning or evoke another emotion?

After you’ve discussed the questions above, write a paragraph and thesis together to share with the class. Remember to keep the following in mind when crafting your thesis:

• ·         An aspect of the painting/poem/song that is meaningful to your group
• ·         Developing a thoughtful stance
• ·         Anticipate a “so what” question

Post it to one blog and email me the link and your group number. Hopefully, we will have enough time in class to present and discuss our analyses as a whole.

1.       1. The Starry Night by Anne Sexton

That does not keep me from having a terrible need of—shall I say the word—religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars.Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother

The town does not exist

except where one black-haired tree slips

up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.

The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.  

Oh starry starry night! This is how

I want to die.

It moves. They are all alive.

Even the moon bulges in its orange irons  

to push children, like a god, from its eye.

The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.  

Oh starry starry night! This is how  

I want to die:

into that rushing beast of the night,  

sucked up by that great dragon, to split  

from my life with no flag,

no belly,

no cry.

2.      2.  Starry Night by Tupac Shakur (poem)

A creative heart, obsessed with satisfying

this dormant and uncaring society

you have given them the stars at night

and you have given them

Bountiful Bouquets of Sunflowers

but 4 u there is only contempt

and though you pour yourself into that fame

and present it so proudly this world

could not accept your masterpieces

from the heart.

So on that starry night you gave to us

and you took away from us

the one thing we never acknowledged

your life.

3.      

3.        3. “Vincent (Starry Starry Night)” by Don Mclean (song)

Starry, starry night

Paint your palette blue and gray

Look out on a summer's day

With eyes that know the darkness in my soul

Shadows on the hills

Sketch the trees and the daffodils

Catch the breeze and the winter chills

In colors on the snowy linen land

Now I understand

What you tried to say to me

And how you suffered for your sanity

And how you tried to set them free

They would not listen, they did not know how

Perhaps they'll listen now

Starry, starry night

Flaming flowers that brightly blaze

Swirling clouds in violet haze

Reflect in Vincent's eyes of china blue

Colors changing hue

Morning fields of amber grain

Weathered faces lined in pain

Are soothed beneath the artist's loving hand

Now I understand

What you tried to say to me

And how you suffered for your sanity

And how you tried to set them free

They would not listen, they did not know how

Perhaps they'll listen now

For they could not love you

But still your love was true

And when no hope was left in sight

On that starry, starry night

You took your life, as lovers often do

But I could've told you Vincent

This world was never meant for

One as beautiful as you

Starry, starry night

Portraits hung in empty halls

Frame-less heads on nameless walls

With eyes that watch the world and can't forget

Like the strangers that you've met

The ragged men in ragged clothes

The silver thorn of bloody rose

Lie crushed and broken on the virgin snow

Now I think I know

What you tried to say to me

And how you suffered for your sanity

And how you tried to set them free

They would not listen, they're not listening still

Perhaps they never will

4.      4.  "The Starry Night" by Robert Fagles

Long as I paint

I feel myself

less mad

the brush in my hand

a lightning rod to madness

But never ground that madness

execute it ride the lightning up

from these benighted streets and steeple up

with the cypress look its black is burning green

I am that I am it cries

it lifts me up the nightfall up

the cloudrack coiling like a dragon's flanks

a third of the stars in heaven wheeling in its wake

wheels in wheels around the moon that cradles round the sun

and if I can only trail these whirling eternal stars

with one sweep of the brush like Michael's sword if I can

cut the life out of the beast - safeguard the mother and the son

all heaven will hymn in conflagration blazing down

the night the mountain ranges down

the claustrophobic valleys of the mad

Madness

is what I have instead of heaven

God deliver me - help me now deliver

all this frenzy back into your hands

our brushstrokes burning clearer into dawn.

5.      5.  From “Van Gogh in Moods, Both Dark and Light” by Benjamin Genocchio (art review)

The cypresses stand tall and unbudgeable in the blustery wind as, perhaps, a symbol of strength and fortitude.

The sky, by contrast, is speckled and swirling. Clouds spiral and whorl, or twist into tight knots, rising up from behind a mountain range that slopes gently downward to where it joins the land. Foul weather is on the way.

An explosion of wheat grass, golden and yellow, carpets the foreground of the painting. The grass leaps high into the air like flames, mimicking the elegant, vertical, slender shape of the cypresses.

This work, “Cypresses,” by Vincent van Gogh, was painted in June 1889 during his confinement at the asylum in Saint-Rémy in the south of France. Until September it will be hanging at the Yale University Art Gallery, on loan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City as part of a two-work show organized by Jennifer Gross, the museum’s curator of modern and contemporary art.

The other painting is van Gogh’s “Starry Night,” on loan from the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Also painted in June 1889, it provides a very different view of the southern French countryside.

Perspective is the most obvious difference between them. The cropping and closeness of “Cypresses” convey an immediacy and almost tactile relationship to nature, immersing you there in the grasses beneath the grinding sun. “The Starry Night,” by contrast, is painted from up high, the town off in the distance and possibly observed from the artist’s window at the asylum. You get a feeling of detachment.

…

Then there is that incredible sky in “The Starry Night.” The moon and stars are balls of orange-yellow light verging on the radioactive. Meanwhile, the clouds have begun to coil, twist or whirl into atmospheric surf. An unearthly glow confers a further intensity to the picture. It is manic and tripped-out.

All this neatly equates with the madman of legend. But the idea that van Gogh’s paintings are the expression of his illness and thus somehow “mad” is so wrong-headed that it requires immediate refutation. It was van Gogh’s illness that stopped him from painting. His paintings are the product of his moments of lucidity, his efforts to stay in touch with reality. They couldn’t be saner.

In both paintings there is ample evidence of the artist’s concision, exactness of judgment and remarkable powers of visual analysis. And how brilliantly he assimilates color opposites, mixing together hot colors like orange, yellow and red with cold whites and blues to give the paintings added zing.

He is also looking closely at nature. Although some of van Gogh’s paintings were spontaneous outpourings of creative energy, in many cases he plotted out his pictures. He made countless drawings, impassioned sketches in which he worked out compositional elements. His paintings are mindful and premeditated.

Reading for Friday

Hi all,
Sorry for the delay. For tomorrow, please read the Handbook pages 157 - 161. Please do read the Interpreting in the Visual Arts box on pg 161 as well.

Thanks,

HL

Class Blogger 10/1

Hi all,

Here is the link to Kelly's account of class for 10/1. Take a second to check it out. She did a nice job using images and reporting the happenings of class.

http://www.kellysblogenc1101.blogspot.com/2012/10/class-blog-october-1st.html

Link to Paper 2

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B4LEqo5RknpkaWNIVkZZS2dxcmc/edit

Class Blogger 9/28

Hi all,

Morgan got us started with class blogging this week and did a great job using pictures and links to add more depth to concepts we discussed in class. Check it out for a quick review of what went on, what you missed, and where to go for more.

http://mororke.blogspot.com/2012/09/class-blog.html

Thanks, Morgan!