Sirc-umventing the issue
An assignment idea or two, one inspired by Sirc (indirectly), one thought of pre-Sirc, inspired by Rice, but reinformed by Sirc. Both ideas nebulous, wanting refinement, but germination still of note I think. By the by, I really want to read this whole Arcades Project thing. Not that I have time to do any outside reading, other than a few snippets of Blender here and there. When will I ever read Only Revolutions, the newest from Danielewski? My copy sits, forelorn and lonely, on the shelf. Alas.
Assignments follow.
Assignment the first: This assignment deals sort of with writing a definition essay, but of a different sort. (Or at least, the sort I was used to writing in high school.) Students are asked to choose some word/idea and explore its definitions however they choose–but (like our wiki assignment) cannot use a dictionary. Further, they have to use at least three sources, and each has to be in a different medium, and one of which has to be an image without words. The students are asked to analyze how each text "defines" the word/idea and how these definitions might inform each other or conflict with one another. Not a real firecracker of an idea, I know. . .the idea is there but I’m not sure how to take it to the next step. . .any ideas, gang? One way I’ve thought of is blending this with the assignment Ellen and I concocted, and asking sudents to shape a "definition" solely through images. . . .Feedback wanted. . . .This would be the one that might turn into a research paper somehow. . .still working on it. . .
Assigment the second: This is the one inspired indirectly by Sirc. (I keep wanting to type Sirk and write about 1950s melodramas, but now I’m off-topic.) I’d ask the students to start with a random blog, or maybe a del.icio.us tag on someone’s account, and ask them to follow 15-20 links starting from there, as random and haphazard as they can be. Students asked to take detailed notes between sites and explore how the idiosyncratic and capricious nature of the connections inform one another. That is, how do you start, for example, at FoolsCap and end up, say, at Stormfront.org? You’d have to be careful, I think, to be sure the assignment didn’t turn into just notes on each site, but rather be very specific about the expectations of asking the perceived connections and links (pun intended) between the sites, not just between immediately succeeding sites, but how might sight three inform/connect to site twelve? Sort of a kind of turn on the mystory model maybe, except lacking the personal element?
