I think we got off to a great start this week! Our class discussion today was lively and engaging, and I hope we’ll hold ourselves to that high standard as the semester moves along. If you didn’t participate much in today’s discussion, please don’t hesitate to jump into the mix next week. If this class is going to succeed, we need to hear all of your voices!
To follow-up on what I said in class, if you haven’t done so already, please do two things before we meet on Monday: (1) leave a comment on last week’s blog post, and (2) sign up for a Delicious account and send me your username via email.
Next week, we will focus on photography as a means of documenting the world around us. Please complete the following tasks before you come to class next week:
- For Monday, please read pages 236–243 in Convergences and come to class ready to discuss Wendy Lesser’s essay about Weegee. In addition, please do some online research to familiarize yourself with the work of two photographers mentioned in the Coles essay: Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange. Wikipedia is a fine starting point, but try to go beyond that. When you find an interesting resource, bookmark it on Delicious using the “engw1302″ tag; this will allow everyone in class to see each other’s bookmarks. (Also, you should make sure that the page you want to share hasn’t already been bookmarked by someone else.)
- For Wednesday, please read pages 244–252 in Convergences and be prepared to continue our discussion about documentary photography. Your Definitional Essay is due at the beginning of class on Wednesday, so please be sure to carefully review the assignment sheet as you write and edit your paper.
- We will spend the entire class period on Friday getting to know our counterparts in Dr. Loewe’s ENGW 1302 class by conducting a joint activity with them. We will give you specific instructions about the activity on Friday, but all you need to know right now is this: If you have a digital camera, please bring it to class on Friday.
I think that’s everything for now. If you have any questions about any of these items, or if you want to talk about your Definitional Essay, feel free to leave a comment on this post, email me, or come see me during my office hours (1:00-3:00) on Monday. Otherwise, have a great weekend!