About the Listenings Assignment
The Listening Journal Assignment has four primary goals:
- to help students learn to listen deeply and expansively
- to help students understand the ecology of protest music
- to put into practice many of the theories read about in the texts
- to help prepare students for their podcast assignment
The assignment is informed by three Course Learning Objectives:
Objective 2. Critical Awareness of the Social Role of Media
Students will understand the history and context of the role that communication media (recording devices, music, text, samples, videos, etc.) has played in social movements. Students will be able to articulate and critique the role media has historically played and currently plays in society.
Objective 3: Effective Communication
Students will understand the principles, practices, and ethics of effective media communication, in particular in terms of how it applies to social movements, society, and protest music.
Objective 4: Reflection
Students will develop their understanding of the important role of reflection during the reading and communication process.
Objective 5: Risk-taking
Students will know what it feels like to step out of their comfort zones and take risks with their approaches to and understanding of the course activities and other course objectives.
Listenings Assignment Specifics
This semester we will be creating a collaborative blog using WordPress dedicated to our Protest Anthem podcast and issues related to those that we discuss and read about in class. The goal of the blog will not only be to post our Podcast Series, but to use the space a way to reflect on the song we have chosen to investigate through the process of close listening. We will talk about listening practices on First Listen Fridays and you will then apply many of those skills to your blog posts.
It is assumed that you are familiar with blogging because it is assumed that you have taken COM 200. If you are not familiar with blogging, please let me know and I will point you in some directions to help get you started.
Each student will be responsible for individually composing and posting FIVE listening posts during the semester — and replying thoughtfully to any and all comments you receive.
Each student will be responsible for composing two thoughtful and engaging responses PER WEEK.
Each listening post will be in response to a set prompt, which will be provided beforehand.
Each post should:
- be informed, insightful, curious, authoritative, and in-depth, and very well written;
- be 400 – 450 words long;
- have at least 5 meaningful tags and placed in the proper category (First Listen, Second Listen, etc.)
- features that are important to blogs and blog readers: links whenever having one would make a meaningful connection, images, embedded video and/or audio, and so on;
- The posts should be online by 11:00pm the day they are due.
Use care when composing your posts; make sure to check your spelling and grammar. Use paragraphs. Use author’s names and make sure to refer to the author with the correct pronoun. Cite page numbers when quoting and/or paraphrasing. Your entries will only be seen by Bill.
Due Dates
Each student is required to complete FIVE listening posts. They are due by 11:00pm on the following days:
- First Listen (Potentials): 2/1
- Second Listen (Connection and Context): 2/8
- Third Listen (Music and Education): 2/15
- Fourth Listen (Social Criticism): 2/22
- Fifth Listen (Lineage, Intertextuality, Ecology): 3/22
Please see the Course Calendar for any changes to these due dates.
Prompts
To see the prompts, go to the Protest Anthems website, click on the Listening number for that week, and see the prompt on that page.
Grading
Each response will be graded on the basis of 20 points, making a total of 100 points for this assignment.