Novel Experience & Expression » blogging

Focalizing Voice Distance (04-Sept)

Gary Hink — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 18:04:14 +0000

F 04-Sept Cambridge / Narrative Chapter 6 plus
Katherine Anne Porter: “Theft” (1929)

Online Discussion — required (attendance/participation credit)
See instructions below and post replies in comments here.

Part I (due by 2pm)
Part II (due by 4pm)

Reminders / Other Tasks:

Request Discussion Dates (by 04-Sept)
First Blog Entry (“reading journal”) — Due Friday (on your blog)
Read The Great Gatsby over long weekend.
- (discussing through Chapter 4 on W 09-Sept)
- Read Abbott Chp. 6 closely for Gatsby discussion.

operating principle:
Narratives “don’t tell us what to think but cause us to think. Narrative…is a ‘machine to think with’.” (Abbott 63)

Friday 04-Sept Online Class Discussion
(required for attendance; recorded as double participation credit)

Porter’s “Theft” & Cambridge / Narrative (Chps 4-6)

Part I: post comment by class time (late penalty applies).

1) Identify a specific example from “Theft” of one narrative concept from Abbott:

Normalization of Sequence/Events (pp. 44-5)
- Causation (cause/effect), series (p. 41)
- Constituent / Supplementary events (pp. 23; 230-1)
Closure or Absence/Closure (pp. 63-4)
- at level of expectations (pp.58-9)
- at level of questions (pp. 60-1)
- in terms of resolution (pp. 56-7)
Narration (pp. 25; 40; 55; 68-9; 238-9)
- “Voice” (pp. 70-3; 243)
- “Focalization” (pp. 73-4; 233)
- In/direct discourse (69-70; 77-8; 234)

Note: Ideally, everyone will try to identify a particular concept without repetition of examples; although, varied examples of a repeat concept are perfectly fine (and even productive for Part II).

2) Briefly describe the “function” of your example, as a narrative “device” in the text (review class notes and Abbott on this).

– in other words, describe the significance or consequence of the author’s decision for narrative discourse, the role/factor of this device in the text; for example, the influence/impact upon your reading/interpretation.

Part II: briefly reply to one classmate (by 4pm), in a comment here.

–flexible options / suggestions; prompts (choose one; remember, replies can be brief):

Compare/contrast the function that your classmate has described, e.g. how your readings differed, and how this changes our understanding of the short story.
Compare/contrast classmate’s example with another narrative — either one we’ve read this week, or one you’ve recently encountered elsewhere (in any medium or form: e.g. short story, TV episode, video game, news account, spoken narration / anecdote, etc.). Ideally, focus upon same/similar concept from Abbott, to discuss examples.
In response to classmate’s analysis, describe any new insights (e.g. what you’ve learned, what you see differently) about the particular text and, more importantly, about the narrative concept from Abbott.

Prospective: Key concepts from Abbot Chp. 6 for Gatsby
(to discuss in class and in your blog entry next week; review closely):

“Distance” (pp. 74-5; 232)

Diegetic narration (see Genette and Phelan, p. 75)

“Reliability” (pp. 75-7; 243)

Indirect discourse/style (pp. 69-70; 77-8; 234-5)

plus (earlier, review):

Frame (pp. 28-30)
* “Masterplots” (pp. 46-7); “Type” (p. 49); “cultural narrative” (Phelan p. 53)
“Normalization” (sequence, continuity) (pp. 41-5)
Narrative Discourse (sjuzet) & Time (pp. 16-9)

Blog Setup

Gary Hink — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 21:20:51 +0000

Over the weekend, please create your blog; then, post your link in a comment below.

In your first entry, please briefly introduce yourself (as we’ve not during class time): flexible expectations for this, but please include
major/grade and “technical experience level” (with tech./social media); rationale for taking course, (seeking what from this experience?); your “working definition” for “experience”; and any interesting information you’d like to share, perhaps an “experience narrative” (after Friday’s class)…

Note: See prior post for suggestions / elaboration on “blogging” in weekly entries.

Register @ Wordpress

WP Support site

Technical Instructions for Blog Setup:

Blog Setup:

Wordpress Register
Complete registration, using UF email account. Note: username will become URL (address) by default. e.g. http://janedoe.wordpress.com.
However, you can rename domain on next page:
e.g. Username: GHink. Domain: “experience.wordpress.com” And then (re-)title blog — Blog Title: “Experience Expression”
(Then click “signup”).
Next, choose Theme. Many to browse/select; choose a theme you like! (one expressive of your personality, aesthetically pleasing, relevant widgets, etc) Browse or search; preview or activate — you can always choose new themes without any permanent changes to your blog. I suggest two- (or three-) column layout.

So, once you’ve created your account/blog:

– your username is your URL (e.g. ghink.wordpress.com)

– login in order to post/edit: Wordpress.com

The “Dashboard” is the page to create content and edit appearance. This page presents full control of your blog — including appearance, entries/pages/content, and all administrative functions. Look around — the navigation is fairly intuitive.

Next, you’ll probably want to change a few Settings (Dashboard, left sidebar):

“General Settings“: Blog Title (if you’ve not already)
“Users” — “Your Profile”: Name, avatar, etc
* “Appearance” — “Themes“: (if you’ve not already)
* “Appearance” — “Widgets“:
– All optional, yet strongly suggest:
“Search,” “Pages,” “Categories,” “Tag Cloud,” “Links” (add classmates to your Blogroll).
Note: “Meta” is a key widget, in order to login directly on your page; (much faster than WP.com).

Now you’re ready to add content.

“Pages” (Dashboard, left sidebar :
First, edit the “About” page (required); at minimum, suggest Name, Course, Semester (like my current About page). Use privacy logic; do not post your email address, to avoid receiving spam.

Any additional pages are up to you. I will be able to distinguish your “official” class entries (weekly, for credit) by the tags and categories that you add to Posts.
“Posts“
First, edit the initial / default entry.
Here, briefly describe your blog; additionally, I would like everyone specifically to introduce themselves in their first entry (as we did not do so during class time).

– Once you edit the text-field, add Tags and the Category (right sidebar). Then click “Update” (for new entries, “Publish” button).

span style=”font-family:times,georgia,garamond;”>In the future, click “Add New” under “Posts” (left sidebar) — this is how you’ll add weekly entries and your response assignments.

Note on Tags and Categories: these are important for readers (me, primarily), especially as the semester progresses (and you accumulate 20 entries). This is how I’ll distinguish your “class entries” (for credit) from any personal entries that you might post (optional).

More on “Posts” at Wordpress Support
“Links” (left sidebar):
– “Edit” (delete default links)
– “Add New” (at minimum, the course blog; plus any others you’d like to add, such as your classmates’ blogs and relevant web sites).

For further technical help, you can find answers/instructions to most issues in the
Wordpress Support section as well as the
Support Forum

(both of which you can search with keywords).

Suggestion: “play around” with the interface controls, and you’ll likely intuit the functions fairly quickly (more quickly, I’d add). Specifically, when creating an entry, you’ll see two rows of formatting commands at the top of the text field, when in “Visual” view — these cover most functions, (basic and otherwise!). The “visual” view is the actual design/formatting (”what you see is what you get”) — this is how your “post” will look.
More about this later and/or by request, (and as always, email me with Qs/problems).

Blogging (as) Experience

Gary Hink — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 19:47:59 +0000

(from syllabus)
Blog Entries
1 minimum per week, beginning week 2; (100-200 words. Credit/no credit assigned).
Every student will create and maintain a blog throughout the semester, preferably using Wordpress
Blog entries due Wednesday each week, starting week 2, unless otherwise noted (e.g. weeks 8 & 14).

Elaborating upon today’s class, specific suggestions for blogging below.
Note: more technical instructions for blogging coming soon (i.e. setup / “tech. support”) — need not create your blog until next week (over weekend?)

Also, optional / additional ideas:
as part of blogging, use Twitter, Facebook, or other social media (?).
More on this below — could be very interesting and unique approach!

Weekly entries are informal (ungraded); consider as “Reading Journal”: e.g. post associative links/images, pose questions, note observations, describe insights – particularly connections between texts within and those outside of class. An enjoyable and productive way of engaging our “objects of study,” this on-going work serves as “research” and material for the final project.

Specific suggestions for blogging:

On a general level of the course, blogging itself is precisely (an) experience and (your) expression. The benefit to our method (experiment) is both to practice and develop our engaging with literature, as well as generate ideas through the process — consider as analogy the creative moments that occur during “band practice,” (not just refining old songs but generating a creative impulse!). For progress in our experiment (semester), this practice involves “warming-up”: not just “tuning,” but ourselves becoming in tune or “attuned” to different frequencies.

One perspective is our scholarly examination of our “objects of study” (literature); at minimum, your “reading journal” entries might note a specific literary topic/issue, such as one we discuss that particular week. This strategy helps generate ideas specifically for assignments.

We are also interested in additional “frequencies”: observations and connections from your unique perspective, involving any relevant personal/experiential knowledge. Specifically, explore insights through associations or connections between our texts and any content/material “outside” of class–this very much includes your experience from the past and at present (e.g. other courses, activities, media). We’ll try to develop a “three-dimensional” or “360°” perspective on “experience and expression.”

In both cases, also very interesting and productive to present new questions that our reading generates (i.e. how /what you are considering, newly or differently, as a result of reading).

Finally, your blog is the “experience narrative” of this particular semester, with all of the unique events and culture contextualized during “fall 2009.” The “incidental” associations that occur might likely provide fruitful avenues to explore for our project. We’ll want to be especially attuned to any “surprising” (accidental?) connections, especially any triggered by “involuntary memory” (more on this last concept later).

Optional / additional ideas, for blogging:

I have considered the potential use of Twitter, as part of blogging, and it might be interesting/productive in two ways. First, because we don’t know when an insight will occur, it is often useful to review our own experience as a narrative — a stream of “tweets” (entries) creates this narrative, showing us our process of engaging material (all courses, media, etc.). Alternatively, there is a new trend of users “tweeting” in character, taking up a role from literature/culture and writing in this voice. This is of great interest for us as a strategy of imagining and expressing others’ experience, which we will attempt to do at the end of the term.

The opposite of Tweeting “in character,” and yet very much the “three-dimensional” perspective of the course, would be using Facebook as part of the process. Both our novels and our class are “social networks” themselves; a new perspective would be testing what occurs when you conduct our experiment (method/process) within your established social network, especially regarding feedback.

Anyone interested in either of these options should contact me, perhaps for additional prompts/suggestions and certainly for technical advice (and to discuss how to integrate into your weekly requirement of 200-word blog entries).

2.0 Students = Participants

Gary Hink — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 00:14:43 +0000

Timely and relevant (brief) interview on The Wired Campus blog today:

“How Students, Professors, and Colleges Are, and Should Be, Using Social Media.”
Marc Beja & S. Craig Watkins. Chronicle of Higher Education. 24 Aug 2009.

More on this soon, with some specific Qs / uses for our class…