Programs: Ponders
Suggestions for Ponder Questions
What skills do you hope to gain in English 110? What do you see as your writing strengths and weaknesses? What are your class goals?
Apply Notice and Focus or The Method to either the Schlosser or Alden pieces and record your observations. What do you notice?
Examine a piece of packaging in your immediate or daily surroundings. What do you notice? What elements of Hine’s scholarship are at work?
Test your visual analysis skills by looking at one of the movie posters on the Visual Archive. (Or analyze one of your own finding and attach it to your ponder.) Consider the movie poster as "rhetoric"—what visual or textual choices are made, and how do they make a difference? How does the poster function as a product image (or “package,” in Hine’s terms)?
Apply The Method to an image in the Visual Archive and carry it through to analysis. What do you notice? What elements of Kilbourne’s scholarship are at work?
What are the differences between the five-paragraph “high school” essay and the college analytical essay that you will be writing for Assignment 2? What is the most significant change? Why?
Point out an instance of “difference despite similarity” or “similarity despite difference” in the Kothari and Sanders pieces. How does this observation complicate a traditional compare/contrast of these articles?
Identify issues and suggest corrections for this weak thesis statement for Assignment 2: "In examining mainstream American versions of Mexican food, there are many similarities to Barbas' work on commodified Chinese food." Does this suffer from any of the "weak thesis types" described in WA? What questions would you ask of the author? What would you need clarified? What changes would you suggest to make this more complex?
Summarize the comments made in your peer review(s). What are the major challenges or difficulties you are encountering in revising or rewriting Assignment #2? Why? What steps do you plan to take to address these challenges head on?
Why would I include the film Eat Drink Man Woman in this particular unit? What specifically does it have to connect it to the Sanders, Kothari, or Barbas pieces? (Again, move beyond simple points like “both are about food/culture/nostalgia…” and seeks out “difference despite similarity” and vice-versa.)
The board games in Scanlon’s analysis come from the 1990s, so they’re necessarily a bit dated. In the past ten years, how much has changed? Select a “gendered” adolescent-targeted product of your own choosing (makeup, clothing, technology, toys, games, etc…) and examine their Web site or other marketing—how might the product be instructive as well as entertaining or useful? What lessons are taught? What qualities are emphasized?
In your final paper, you will be examining a series of related texts ("primaries") through an analytical lens. They should also be specific in focus (instead of just "Reality TV," you could explore "makeover shows," "adventure competition shows" or "celebrity lifestyle shows," for instance). Consider in your prompt some of the possibilities that you could explore, and what sort of issues you could investigate within these texts to come to an analytical interpretation of them.
Summarize your experiences preparing for the group presentation and leading classroom discussion. How does taking an “instructor” role contrast to performing a “student” role? How were approaches, expectations, and results different?
What sources have you located? How did you find them? How do they support or complicate your thesis or area of research?
What obstacles did you encounter preparing your final version of Assignment #3? How did your research change after you encountered your first few sources? How did you address these changes and other challenges?
To workshop evolving your thesis, type your thesis statement in your post and explain whether it suffers from any or all of the "Weak Thesis Types" explained in "Writing Analytically" (pgs. 122-9) and if it fully anticipates complicating evidence. How can you go about fixing this?
Post your Assignment 4 in your ponder (.doc or .rtf for papers). What particular challenges are your facing? [Responders, offer helpful critiques.
Respond critically and evaluate the film that the class has selected. What does this film have to say about consumerism and its relationship to gender/race/sexuality/class, etc? Do you see any parallels to any of the texts that we’ve read for this class? In what way? So what?
How have your analysis or writing skills changed this quarter? How will this knowledge be used in your other classes?
Have an idea for Tried and True? Send it to fywp@osu.edu!
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