This Week's Conference Schedule

If you do not have a conference time, email me ASAP.  Your conference is required.  If you don't attend a conference this week you will receive an absence.

Course Recap for Friday October 14, 2016

How to Determine a Good Thesis

Your thesis is the most important part of your paper.  It gives your paper structure.  Determining what the thesis of your analysis paper is will help you determine what details from the piece you should include in your paper and which ones to exclude.  I had you guys answer several questions about the movies you are thinking of analyzing.

1. What are the larger issues or topics your piece talks about?  For Carrie this would include bullying, religion, abuse, sexuality, high school, etc.  Then I asked you to ask what you feel the piece says about those topics? For Carrie I could say that the piece talks about how bullying can turn people into monsters or that sexuality especially in women is a bad thing.  These would be potential theses for an analysis of Carrie.
2. Next I asked you to consider the type of conflict you have.  There are 5 archetypal conflicts that are usually present in most stories. Man vs Man, Man vs Self, Man vs Nature, Man vs Technology, Man vs Society.  Determine which of the conflicts you have. Then think about who wins the conflict and why, what does that say about that thing?  For instance, nature wins in Titanic, why?  Because humans underestimated it.  They thought they built something indestructible but nothing is indestructible. Or in Carrie we have man vs man and everyone loses, why?  Maybe because everyone who refuses to stand up to bullying is just as complicit as the bullies and so everyone suffers in the end.
3. Next think about how the societal descriptors like race, class, gender, sexuality for the characters in your movie and how they may affect your character and the piece.  In Carrie, Carrie's religious background and her gender has an effect on the piece.  A potential theme could be how these things affect her.
4. How does the history surrounding the piece affect your interpretation of it?  What real life events might the piece be influenced by?  The feminist movement was hitting it's stride in the 70s when Carrie was released, and so it is pretty significant that de Palma made a movie with a mostly-female cast where just about every woman is crazy.
5. Know your director.  Know who they are and know some of their other work.  Sometimes a good way to find a theme is to spot the reoccurring images or themes throughout their body of work.  If nothing else, this information can provide you with good background  info that you can use to support whatever your thesis is.

Song Analysis

We analyzed a few songs together.  We looked at how the lyrics, the music, the time period the song was written, the background of the artist, etc all can be used to help us determine the meaning of the song.  The two things I want you to keep in mind as you choose your own songs is the fact that a set of lyrics can mean different things to different people depending on who's listening and to pick songs where some of the lyrics are up for interpretation.

Blurred Lines

Extra Credit: Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke is a song that faced a lot of criticism after it's release.  People accused the song of being misogynistic, promoting rape culture, and disregarding a woman's right to consent.  My challenge to you is to defend this song by coming up with a positive interpretation of the song.  After all, lots of people like it, so there must be something positive in it.  Briefly right up how you interpret the message and defend your interpretation with lyrics and other elements from the song.  If it is useful, you can also use the video, but remember your main point is to defend the song.

Homework

• Outline for Movie and Song of your choice. 2 separate outlines Check out the Sample Analysis Outline underneath Class Documents and there is also a Blank Analysis Outline in case you lose or mess up the one you received in class. Due Fri 10/21 in class
• Read Sonny's Blues,The All-Girl Football Team and Virgins -PLEASE GIVE YOURSELF TIME TO COMPLETE ALL THE READING  (underneath Class Documents) Due Fri 10/21 in class

Course Recap for Friday, October 7, 2016

Homework

• Read Cult Movie Review: Carrie by John Kenneth Muir and Horror, Femininity, and Carrie's Monstrous Puberty by Shelley Stamp Lindsey.  As you're reading these articles, take notes on the different themes these writers saw in the movie Carrie.  What did they feel the movie had to say about the world, about high school, about womanhood, and any other topics the movie addresses?  Also make note of what things from the movie they believe help illustrate these themes. (The Horror, Femininity, and Carrie's Puberty is a VERY dense piece.  Please give yourself enough time to parse through it.  The intro in particular can be a bit hard to understand but it becomes less so as you continue.  Do not give up.  Summarize it the best that you can.) Due Friday October 15 in class
• If you could analyze two movies for your next paper, which movies would they be?  Have them in mind when you come to class Friday.

Course Recap for Friday, September 30, 2016

Revision

We did peer review today in class.  You received feedback from two students on one paper, and one student on the other.  I will also be giving you feedback over the weekend.  You should receive feedback from me by Wednesday night.

Your task now is to revise your two papers using both the feedback you received and your own intuition as a writer.  There is always some aspect of our piece that can be improved.  Revision is more than just going in and correcting grammatical mistakes.  It means re(en)visioning certain aspects of your piece to shed new light on the topic and improve the quality of the piece.  Rewriting a short passage for clarity or adding details to a description, adding a section of dialogue to better illustrate a scene, these are examples of revision.  Taking away from a piece can also count as revision.  Maybe you have too much information in some places.  If your original draft is 750 words, I will not mind if your final draft is a bit shorter if the sections you eliminate help to improve your narrative.

Some technical aspects you want to make sure you don't forget:

• Make your changes directly in the original Google document you shared with me.  This will allow me to track your changes and see just how much (or how little) you have revised.  
• Make sure you are formatted correctly, double-spaced, 12 point font, MLA Header, with MLA running head.
• Give your piece an actual title (not just personal narrative).
• Make sure you have five lines of standard dialogue in both narratives.  Please review Hills Like White Elephants if you need a refresher on how dialogue should be formatted.

Homework

• Work on revising your Narratives.  Final Drafts are due Friday, October 7 (at the beginning of class)  Any papers submitted after 10:15 will be considered late.