Showing posts tagged temple

FYW Portfolio Workshop for TU Students!

The Temple University Writing Center will be offering a First Year Writing portfolio workshop (two sessions offered: Wednesday, November 30 12pm-1pm & Friday, December 2, 4:30pm-5:30pm). This workshop focuses on supporting students’ efforts to assemble a successful portfolio for their first-year writing course. Topics will include writing the cover letter, understanding faculty expectations for the portfolio, and revising essays to meet those expectations. There will also be time for students to ask specific questions about their own portfolios. Students in any FYW course are welcome. Students can register through the writing center website:http://www.temple.edu/writingctr/incenterworkshops/index.html

Space is limited, so registration is required by November 29, 2011.

Racism & Science Fiction by Samuel R. Delany

Resources for Writers: Synthesis

I am hoping this will be helpful to my Temple students who used your analysis skills rather than your synthesis skills in our 2nd paper. 

GOOD SYNTHESIS…

(1)  It accurately reports information from the sources using different phrases and sentences;
(2)  It is organized in such a way that readers can immediately see where the information from the sources overlap;.
(3)  It makes sense of the sources and helps the reader understand them in greater depth.

THE DOS AND DON'TS OF TIME TRAVEL

The dos and don’ts of time travel by Jim Behrle. This is relevant to my Temple class, who just read Kindred, a book that features time travel.

Here is a video where Richard Pryor discusses his PAST use of the n-word. Pryor passed away in 2005, and this NY Times article written shortly after his death focuses a lot on a discussion of the word. This article and video may be of interest to my Temple or my Rowan students. 

Especially for my Temple students, if you choose to read this article, please note how this is an opinion piece that uses the words of others to prove its point. Rather than emphasizing his own stance on the use of the word, the writer uses quotes and beliefs from others as well as facts and statistics to prove his point, to let the reader understand his opinion on the matter.

"Mommy, What Does Nigger Mean?" by Gloria Naylor

This is another option for my Temple/Rowan students to read for Monday/Tuesday. As I mentioned in class, I recommend reading more than one of these articles posted.

"Can Whites Say the N-Word?" by Toure

Essayist, Toure, who I’ve mentioned in our FYW class before and also who recently has a book out called Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness? recently had this article published in Time Magazine. 

"Who Can Say Nigger?" by Randall L. Kennedy

This piece was published in the Winter between 1999 and 2000 by The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. Compared to the first selection I posted on the subject, it is less memoir/journal-esque and more of a scholarly article. This is a link to a PDF of it, and it’s an interesting, in-depth argument on the matter.

Teaching the N-Word

This is an interesting account of a professor and her students. She is a black professor with all white students, and this is a journal-like essay that discusses her experience with, as the title says, “Teaching the N-Word”. This is relevant both to my Temple FYW class as well as my Rowan Experiencing Literature class— we are each beginning to read a novel that includes this word many times. Huck Finn and Kindred.

Interview with Octavia Butler about Kindred

Drew Falchetta’s paintings are not normally overtly political. But this one is. Can an artist use a single painting to send a message amidst other paintings that are not aimed to send a message? Check out a bigger version of this work, and then look at his other works. Can an artist get the attention of a larger crowd with less political works and then use one work to say something political?

Drew Falchetta’s paintings are not normally overtly political. But this one is. Can an artist use a single painting to send a message amidst other paintings that are not aimed to send a message? Check out a bigger version of this work, and then look at his other works. Can an artist get the attention of a larger crowd with less political works and then use one work to say something political?

This is the cover of the book that Elaine Richardson refers to as one that saved her life in the introduction to her book, African American Literacies. An excerpt of this book can be found via google books. This is interesting for both scholars/students of race/discrimination studies as well as students studying language. African American Vernacular English, sometimes known as Ebonics, is, as Richardson puts it in her introduction, “a treasure”. She talks about how it has its own rules for its own reasons and that much can be learned from this. You may even go as far to say that it is its own art when it comes to speech, grammar and rhetoric.

This is the cover of the book that Elaine Richardson refers to as one that saved her life in the introduction to her book, African American Literacies. An excerpt of this book can be found via google books. This is interesting for both scholars/students of race/discrimination studies as well as students studying language. African American Vernacular English, sometimes known as Ebonics, is, as Richardson puts it in her introduction, “a treasure”. She talks about how it has its own rules for its own reasons and that much can be learned from this. You may even go as far to say that it is its own art when it comes to speech, grammar and rhetoric.

Shephard Fairey is a graffiti artist whose popular “obey” sticker, he hopes, will make its viewers reconsider the world around them. He supports “grassroots efforts to change the world for the better” and has showed his support for the Occupy movements. Read about that here. Here’s Shepard Fairey’s official website. You may want to look at some of Fairey’s work or graffiti in general and see how it could be interpreted as art that supports people who are not in positions of power and may help them to speak out. 

Shephard Fairey is a graffiti artist whose popular “obey” sticker, he hopes, will make its viewers reconsider the world around them. He supports “grassroots efforts to change the world for the better” and has showed his support for the Occupy movements. Read about that here. Here’s Shepard Fairey’s official website. You may want to look at some of Fairey’s work or graffiti in general and see how it could be interpreted as art that supports people who are not in positions of power and may help them to speak out. 

Can Whites Say the N-Word?

Toure, the essayist I mentioned at Temple who has a book out called Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness? writes here about people not of African American descent using the n-word. He addresses two plausible—TO HIM, let it be emphasized— situations when, perhaps, white people/people of other races using the N-word may be okay.

A great thing about this essay is that it discusses both RACE and ART, which are of our recent concerns in our FYW class. Definitely take some time to read this short piece.

This is the work of an Afghan-American artist, who has adopted the persona of “Jihadi Gangster” to satirize corruption in Afghanistan. Can modern comedy, such as this guy’s work, be art? He put up posters for a false campaign for his run for parliament of Afghanistan. By bringing attention to his cause, he is attempting to expose the hypocritical nature of the government of his country. How is he speaking back to the dominant society? A popular English-language magazine in Afghanistan had planned on running an article with photos of his art in it, but instead it was censored by the Afghan government. Are there other artists in Afghanistan speaking up for the people but being censored? How have they gotten around this? Are their voices often heard, or are they just “heard about”? What do you think? Here’s what one article in the Wall Street Journal on him says about his “campaign”: The stunts are part of a campaign the 40-year-old Afghan-American has been waging for the past three years against the excesses of the Afghan government, ranked as one of the world’s most corrupt. In the process, he has become the leading agent provocateur of the nascent Afghan art scene. “I think Aman can be a leader for Afghans in showing what provocative art can do in Afghanistan,” said Tamim Samee, founder of Afghanistan’s Contemporary Art Prize, a four-year-old competition meant to nurture the country’s young artists. In recent years, Mr. Mojadidi has helped train young Afghans about street graffiti, worked with Mr. Samee on the annual arts prize, and joined forces with expats who have injected a jolt of inspiration into Kabul’s evolving artistic community. Here’s 2 more articles about him: McClatchy Blog: Checkpoint Kabul, and what appears to possibly be his website.

This is the work of an Afghan-American artist, who has adopted the persona of “Jihadi Gangster” to satirize corruption in Afghanistan.

Can modern comedy, such as this guy’s work, be art? He put up posters for a false campaign for his run for parliament of Afghanistan. By bringing attention to his cause, he is attempting to expose the hypocritical nature of the government of his country. How is he speaking back to the dominant society? A popular English-language magazine in Afghanistan had planned on running an article with photos of his art in it, but instead it was censored by the Afghan government. Are there other artists in Afghanistan speaking up for the people but being censored? How have they gotten around this? Are their voices often heard, or are they just “heard about”? What do you think?

Here’s what one article in the Wall Street Journal on him says about his “campaign”:

The stunts are part of a campaign the 40-year-old Afghan-American has been waging for the past three years against the excesses of the Afghan government, ranked as one of the world’s most corrupt. In the process, he has become the leading agent provocateur of the nascent Afghan art scene.

“I think Aman can be a leader for Afghans in showing what provocative art can do in Afghanistan,” said Tamim Samee, founder of Afghanistan’s Contemporary Art Prize, a four-year-old competition meant to nurture the country’s young artists.

In recent years, Mr. Mojadidi has helped train young Afghans about street graffiti, worked with Mr. Samee on the annual arts prize, and joined forces with expats who have injected a jolt of inspiration into Kabul’s evolving artistic community.

Here’s 2 more articles about him: McClatchy Blog: Checkpoint Kabul, and what appears to possibly be his website.