Bill Traylor (1854-1949)
Good day, class. Hope you are well!
Assignment #3 is to be a summary on a topic of broad appeal–art. You will be required to describe the contents of one articles (see below). From there, week 6, we will move on to the short report (#4). You will be learning to find an angle on your subject and to support your view(s) by selecting what is relevant and interesting from background sources. You will also document in MLA style those source borrowings in the course of the essay. Both text and image sources will be fit into essay #4.
To start you thinking, look at the image below:
what do you see depicted, and what meaning do you take from it?
To start you thinking, look at the image below:
what do you see depicted, and what meaning do you take from it?
--------------Writing About Images
We experience the world through our senses and mind. Color, shape, sound, scent, texture, taste, composition and words play endlessly in our perceptual fields. Think of the images that culture produces–photographs, films, commercials, drawings, paintings, cartoons, logos, graphics, etcetera. What can one learn from visual representations? Can one analyze the particular messages or meaning conveyed, interpret the story told, point or theme illustrated? Indeed, whether we want to understand the documentary value or aesthetic appeal, or the social, political, or economic interests and attitudes that an image represents, close study can be fun and insightful.
How do advertisers get us to buy? What makes a particular photograph resonate? What storylines or themes implicit in images make us pause? How to begin identifying or “reading” the source content?
The following guidelines should help you write cogently about visual representations:
Source, Purpose, Audience
*Identify the context of the image(s) or video; that is where and how it has been published and distributed or exhibited. To what end or purpose was it created, and by whom?
*What audience does the image address or appeal to? How so?
*What is the most prominent element or figure in the image? And the primary focal point?
Objects, Figures, Story
*Identify the important objects and figures of foreground and background, consider the literal and expressive details of each, and their collective arrangement in the composition.
*What story or event is depicted or implied?
*What mood or emotion or idea(s) are put in motion by the use of light and dark, color, balance or lack thereof, the use of white space, graphic text or other elements, etcetera?
Take Away Meaning
*To the extent the image persuades by feeling, mood, dramatic content, and so on, what is to be learned?
What do the uses of the image suggest about culture, politics, social life, art, history, the human condition?
Assignment: Summary (#3): In roughly 300-350 words you are to present the main ideas and interesting details of the following article: "Chocolate Sculpture, With a Bitter Taste of Colonialism," by Randy Kennedy, posted Feb. 2, 2017, at nytimes.com. Read the article, look at the photo illustrations, and take notes of key information and central ideas. You should include two or three instances of direct quotation in the course of your summary. We will review the article in class today and, briefly, the protocols of direct quotation, paraphrase, summary, and plagiarism. You should become very familiar with the contents of the piece and bring a finished draft to class next week. I will allow an hour of time to finalize the draft in class next week and to trouble-shoot using quotations and avoiding plagiarism. For homework I want you to find one or more interesting examples of African art which you can research.
Note: a summary is not an essay, so you do not have to make your own point here. Your aim is to concisely capture the relevant and interesting points of the subject text. Later, in the short report, you will have your say in essay form.
Related topical links:
Outsider Art 1 and 2
Bill Traylor and
William Hawkins +
Tatoo Art
Bernard Lumpkin
MOMA
Select material for quotation on the following bases:
"In the Arcadian Woods," by George Makari, a psychoanalyst, he reveals that it is no easy matter to diagnose the specific cause or source of an individual's anxiety, for it is a "quintessential mind-body phenomenon" with complex roots scientists have yet to unravel. Since the 17th century, when the first modern medical descriptions of anxiety were recorded, the mystery has only deepened:
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Note: a summary is not an essay, so you do not have to make your own point here. Your aim is to concisely capture the relevant and interesting points of the subject text. Later, in the short report, you will have your say in essay form.
Related topical links:
Outsider Art 1 and 2
Bill Traylor and
William Hawkins +
Tatoo Art
Bernard Lumpkin
MOMA
Reference Guidelines: Provide the source title and author's full name in the opening paragraph or first use of the material. Use only the last name of the author in any subsequent tags. You may emphasize recent news, findings, or events as such. You typically want the element of timeliness in choosing your topics and sources. Readers like "fresh" stories. That said, they also like depth, to see the stories historical legs. Use quotation marks around direct, word-for-word borrowings. Use brackets [ ] around any material change made to a quotation for clarity (including an ellipsis (to abbreviate the length of the passage).
Using Direct Quotation
Select material for quotation on the following bases:
* the wording is particularly memorable, to the point, and not easily paraphrased
* the passage expresses an author’s or expert’s direct opinion that you want to emphasize
* the passage provides example of the range of perspective
* the passage provides a constrasting or opposing view
Format quotations according to the following guidelines:
Brief quotations of no more than three lines should be worked into the text within the usual margins from left to right, and enclosed by quotation marks. Use a signal phrase or tagline to introduce them, followed by a colon or comma.
Longer passages, four lines and more, should be set off in block format, indented and aligned 10 spaces from the left margin, with no quotation marks but those that may be internal to the passage itself.
Examples of Summary with Supporting Quotations:
"In the Arcadian Woods," by George Makari, a psychoanalyst, he reveals that it is no easy matter to diagnose the specific cause or source of an individual's anxiety, for it is a "quintessential mind-body phenomenon" with complex roots scientists have yet to unravel. Since the 17th century, when the first modern medical descriptions of anxiety were recorded, the mystery has only deepened:
Anxiety disorders are now associated with complex epigenetic models, the transgenerational transmission of trauma, a neuroscience for fear conditioning, and even a pediatric infectious illness that triggers auto-immune mechanisms and results in obsessive compulsive disorder.
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from “An Ocean of Plastic” (full text available on the web):
In the article “An Ocean of Plastic,” Kitt Doucette describes the threat of plastic to all marine life and, perhaps, human life, too: “Even small organisms like jellyfish, lanternfish and zooplankton have started to ingest tiny bits of plastic. These species, the very foundation of the oceanic food web, are becoming saturated with plastic, which may be passed further up the food chain.” The fish we eat, he emphasizes, may contain the residues of these ingested plastic particles, and thus may pose health risks. He explains in more detail below, citing also the authority of a leading marine biologist:
[. . .] the chemical toxins concentrated in the [plastic] waste lodge themselves in the animals’ fatty tissues, accumulating at ever increasing levels the higher you go up the food chain. It isn’t clear yet if these chemicals are reaching humans, but PCB’s and DDT are know to disrupt reproduction in marine mammals. In humans they have been linked to liver damage, skin lesions, and cancer. “The possibility of more and more creatures ingesting plastics that contain concentrated pollutants is real and quite disturbing,” says Richard Thompson, a British marine biologist who has been studying microplastics for 20 years.
Reference to the particular source material by title and author and the purposeful use of direct quotation where warranted are requirements in research reports. We will practice referencing and quoting from various textual sources as needed. The following list gives examples of suitable taglines to introduce quotations:
Dean writes, . . .
As Dean says,
According to another authority, author of . . .
Makari, the author of "In the Arcadian Woods," suggests a different view, claiming . . .
*Note: Plagiarism is theft of another's work, whether inadvertent or not. The following is one textbook example of plagiarism (The Brief Bedford Reader, 9th ed.) :
Original passage: If we are collectively judged by how we treat immigrants–those who appear to be 'other' but will in a generation be 'us'–we are not in very good shape.
Paraphrase (plagiarised): The author argues that if we are judged as a group by how we treat immigrants–those who seem to different but eventually will be the same–we are in bad shape.
A paraphrase or summary must express the original freshly; it is not enough to make superficial changes to the wording here and there. Moreover, the syntax–sentence structure– should not mirror the original.
The following URL illustrates the ways that quotations are presented and punctuated, along with whatever citations may be required: http://www.writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/QPA_quoting.html
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In the summary piece (#3), roughly 300 words you are to present the main ideas and interesting details of the following article: "Chocolate Sculpture, With a Bitter Taste of Colonialism," by Randy Kennedy, posted Feb. 2, 2017, at nytimes.com. You are to include two or three instances of direct quotation in the course of your summary. We will take time in class to review the piece before summarizing. For homework you will find one or more interesting examples of African art which you can research.
In essay 4, the short report, you will be writing about the topic of art, or one you can connect to the Kennedy article. You will tie an image (or several), film or video clip to on the larger issue(s) to which it speaks. Because we have taken as a start the piece on African art and artists in the West, you might develop an angle that expands upon that topic. You have many possible directions. We will brainstorm some in class. I have provided several already via links reproduced below, one of which is the subject of outsider art/artists.
The topic must be one which you can tie to the photo or image and foundation text. The idea is to expand on a subject by reviewing related topical material. A requirement is that you one or more images and two article or text sources (not Wikipedia) as source material. You have the first source in the "Chocolate Sculpture" piece. You must find a second to fit with the first. In the essay, you will introduce each source and detail its main contents or contribution to your essay and thesis. The report involves summarizing what you have read and forming conclusions about the material. You will provide some direct quotation from the sources; your sources provide a foundation for the development and support of the thesis of the essay. You will have some time to complete the assignment in class week 6.
Possible Topics (fill in the blanks):
Type the key words combined with plus signs into the search engine (I use Google) and see what news or reports appear. The Huffington Post, The New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, NPR.org, and many other sites regularly publish topical news.
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Museum or gallery art works make for ideal practice, too. An iconic image, on the topic, in whatever medium, one of those culturally embedded, instantly recognizable examples, makes an excellent choice. You could simply google search "iconic images," limiting the search by topic and era, and browse the selection. Catalogue the inventory of images that have currency on the topic today and that speak to you forcefully–socially, politically, aesthetically.
You want to make a connection with the reader and be as informative as you can in your description of the image and discussion of its historical/cultural significance, and personal, in so far as applicable. Along with the chocolate art story, you are to find at least one other recent (published within the last several years) article that provides cultural context and/or news and commentary to help you present the image effectively. Include two source references in the essay.
Note: The essay/report is to be a short work of 450-500 words that describes the image and the idea(s) it serves to illustrate or the questions to which it gives rise, whether social, historical, political, philosophical, aesthetic, technological, existential . . . . You must have a point to make in addressing the image and support that point by means of reference to the image. You do not have to be an expert on the subject the image addresses or implies, but you should be able to identify something about its impact and merits to make an interesting short essay.
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