About Homework Assignments

The assignments that are listed on this page are to be completed before class starts the day they are due. The latest assignment will be placed at the top to reduce scrolling.

for Tuesday, November 25

Class will not be meeting on Tuesday, November 25, so you can get started on your photo essay project. During the time the class would meet, however, I would like you to tweet ONE photograph that represents the kind of photograph you’d like to have in your photo essay. It should be consistent with the description in your photo essay proposal and employ one or more of the composition techniques link-to on the assignment page. Do not post your image before your class time.

Please read the essays by Burgin, Lister, Manovich, and Ritchin.

Since we have not had a moment to discuss all of the assigned readings, I’d like to offer an opportunity for students to earn some extra credit by completing one extra blog post. The post should put into conversation at least 3 of the essays assigned for the photo essay unit and consider them in terms one or more ways you see photographs functioning in contemporary society. In your post, if the author’s are photographers, incorporate photographs taken by the them. The blog post should be the same length as all other blog posts. If you complete it you can earn between 3 and 5 points added to the final grade of one project of your choice (social media, remix analysis, mashup, or photo essay). The post must be completed by Thursday, December 11. If you complete it, please email me letting me know which assignment you’d like the points added to and the URL of the post.

for Tuesday, November 18

Please read the historic essays by Niepce, Daguerre, and Westlake. Read them in this order so you can begin to see the progression of thoughts about photography. You can learn about and see the first photograph, which is by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce and dates to 1824, at: http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/permanent/wfp/. Please also read the more recent one by Morris, which connects to our discussion from class today.

for Tuesday, November 11

Please read essays the following essays: Sontag, “Photography” (1973); Berger, “Understanding a Photograph” (1974); and Kelly “Self Image” (1979). After reading the essays, try to summarize in one or two sentences what you think each author’s answer to this questions would be: “What is the purpose of photography? How is that purpose achieved?”

Please also spend some time looking at the following magazine covers:

• Esquire (October 1966)
• Esquire (April 1968)
• Glamour (August 1968)
• Rolling Stone (January 22, 1981)
• Vanity Fair (August 1991)
• Time Magazine (June 27, 1994)
• Rolling Stone (July 10-24, 2008)
• Rolling Stone (August 1, 2013)

We will be discussing the essays and the magazine covers in class. Please bring your copy of Sean Hall’s This Means This, This Means That just in case we need it.

for Thursday, 10/16

Please compose a storyboard for the first 20 – 30 seconds of your mashup. The storyboard can be created in either of two ways. One way would be to cut various pieces of paper into clips and draw the pictures, such as:

The benefit of this kind of storyboard is the ability to move the clips around to see what impact they might have in different places. (Note this one is missing other requirements of the assignment.)

The other option is to create a visual timeline of the mashup, such as:

This is a more traditional storyboard.

For each clip, please include the following information:

• the function the clip (that is, why the clip is being used)
• the meaning of the clip (using terms of semiotics terms if possible)
• the duration of the clip
• please also note if there is juxtaposition between two clips or montages among many clips
• please also note the audio track being used

As you can see from these examples, the storyboard should contain basic sketches, not actual images or stills from movies.

Please post your storyboard to the blog along with a brief summary of what we are seeing in the storyboard. Apply the category “storyboard” to the post.

for Tuesday, 9/30

Please read Middleton on remix and crisis in the humanities, Vaidhyanathan on copyright, and browse through “Copyright Term and the Public Domain in the United States” compiled by folks at Cornell University.

Several people tweeted a request to see a successful sample remix analysis. Here you go: Analysis of The Haunted Express. Note the assignment was slightly different than ours, with a completely different reflection statement. Focus on how readings/texts were incorporated into the analyses. The font colors could have been better.

If you have any questions about any of the readings or assignments, please let me know.

for Tuesday, 9/16

Please read McCloud’s “Vocabulary of Comics” and “Blood in the Gutters.” BBrowse through Garfield Minus Garfield.

The first weekly bloggers at our to be named blog are [to be added]. So, look for their blog posts by Tuesday and start replying!

for Thursday, 9/11

Please read the article by Edwards and Tryon, and both of Tryon’s single authored articles. Please also watch the videos under 9/11 on the Course Schedule page. The articles introduce theories on remix and the videos are examples.

Continue to live-tweet the readings.

for Tuesday, 9/9

Please read or watch the following (links available on Readings page): Kelly on Screen Literacy; McIntosh on historical remixes; Ferguson’s Everything is a Remix (parts 1 – 4); Gaylor’s RIP: A Remix Manifesto.

Start live-Tweeting the readings and be prepared to discuss them in detail.

for Thursday, 9/4

Please read the syllabus closely and read Computer Classroom Etiquette.

Download and install the Firefox browser (if you already have it, make sure it is the most recent version), and install the Download Helper plugin (requires Firefox). Download Helper allows you to save YouTube and other videos to your computer.

Please read the Social Media Blogging and Tweeting assignments. Think about names for the collaborative course blog, which will be dedicated to visual rhetoric and things related.

If you are new to blogging, some time soon please read Jill Walker-Rettberg’s “What is a Blog?” which can be downloaded from the Readings page. If you are new to Twitter, some time soon please read Johnson’s How Twitter will change the way we live and Silver’s The difference between thin and think tweets.

Please read the comic, Bloom Like an Artist by Ida Eva Margrethe Neverdahl (jellyvampire) and watch the following videos. The first two are explorations of the implications of YouTube. The others are on Creative Commons licensing, copyright, and fair use. These are all themes we’ll be returning to throughout the semester. Come to class ready to discuss them; there is no written response due.

“An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube,” by Michael Wesch (55.33 minutes):

“A Crisis of Significance” by a student in one of Wesch’s classes:

“Larry Lessig on laws that choke creativity”

“A Shared Culture”

“A Fair(y) Use Tale” by Eric Faden, Associate Professor of English/Film and Media Studies at Bucknell University, on the Fair Use Doctrine

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