Workshop Questions

Does it meet the general structure for an academic conversation?

                Academic Problem → Analysis of Art Object → How Analysis Informs Academic Problem

                Question About Art Object → Analysis of Scholarship → How Analysis Informs your Questions

                Question → Common Answer → Close Study Helps Us Create a Better Answer

Is the author’s question/problem interesting?

                Is it an actual question/problem, or does it feel forced?

                Do you care about the question/problem?

Does the author set up the conditions for which you might care?

Does the author’s argument help us answer the question or understand the problem?

                Is looking at the sources (art object or academic) a useful way to answer their question? Why

                Is there a better way to go about answering their question?

                Is this way of answering the question interesting, unique, or pleasurable?

Do they cite sources effectively?

                Is it clear when the author is using someone else’s thoughts?

                Is it clear who this other person is?         

Is it clear why the audience should care what this other person says?

Does the author do interesting and important work with quotes, paraphrases, and summaries?

Is this text enjoyable to read?

                Does the author find a way to preserve her voice in this genre?

                How might the author better stick to her brand?

Is the layout easy to read and consistent?

Groups for Workshop 6

1. Group 1
•  "It's Not You, It's Me"
• If You're Reading This, It's Not Too Late
• Natural Selections
2. Group 2
•  Wake Me Up When The Semester Ends
• My Parent's Eight-Tracks
• Almost Alternative
3. Group 3
•  Social Media Superstars
• The Pursuit of Hippieness
• Nu Metal Central
4. Group 4
•  The Deep End
• 1960s Rock
• The Golden Age
5. Group 5
• If You Are . . .
•  Background Music: Soundtracks and Scores
• Rap and R&B with Risky B
6. Group 6
• Best of Both Worlds
• Maroon 5 Mania 
• Second is the Best
7. Group 7
• No Cover Charge
• Destined to Be The Queen
•  My Parents' Playlist
8. Group 8 
• Millennials
• Railroaded
• Fairly Local

R.R. 11/20

Please Watch this video:

Please Answer these questions:

1. What is the overall emotion evoked from this video? Explain how the various elements listed below function in creating this emotional feeling:
1. Image
2. Sound
3. Gesture/Body Movement
2. Now look up the lyrics to this song. Ignoring the music for a moment, what is the pathos of the lyrics? Consider the following questions:
1. To whom is the narrator speaking?
2. Summarize the narrator's message to the speaker.
3. Does the narrator use honorific or pejorative language, and if so to what effect?
4. Does the argument reinforce, challenge, or degrade any of your values or beliefs?
3. What is the relationship between the pathos of the lyrics and the pathos of the music (discordant, complimentary, contradictory, symbiotic?) 
4. What is the relationship between the pathos generated by the music and lyrics and Outkast's ethos both as a band as a fake band created for this video?
5. Does answering these questions at all change your engagement with this music? 

R.R. 11/18

Please Watch This Video:

Please Answer these  Questions:

1. What is the claim in this song. Please quote directly, unless it's implicit.
   
2. What is the evidence/data that Ronson and Mars present to support their claim? Please quote directly, unless it's implicit.
   
3. What is the warrant that connects the evidence/data to the claim? Please quote directly, unless its implicit.
   
4. Is this model of argumentation deductive or inductive? Please support your answer.
   
5.  Is the "pathway of thought" utilized here effective given both the actual audience of this piece and the audience that Ronson and Mars invent for this song? Hint: you need to tell me something about both of those audiences to appropriately answer the question.
   
6. How would you describe Ronson and Mars's ethos?
   
7. What is the relationship between ethos and logos?

R.R. 11/16

Please listen to this song.

Please answer the following questions:

1. How does the band demonstrate the following elements of Aristotelian rhetoric to their audience?
1. Knowledge--
2. Goodwill--
3. Virtue--
2. Describe the relationship the band is trying to create with their audience. Provide a different answer for each of the following audiences: 
1. Actual Audience
2. Invented Audience
3. Future Audience
3. Describe the band's relationship to history and culture please provide a specific answer for each of the following  questions:
1. To what/whom is the band opposed?
2. To what/whom does the band align?
4. Considering your answers to the above questions--and incorporating other elements that you may not have discussed --do you consider Against Me! to have an effective ethos for their audience, time, values, and moment? Please explain your answer in depth.

R.R. 11/13

1. What is the explicit exigence for the piece you are analyzing? Remember exigence is not simply what the author is writing about but the situation/problem in the world to which she is responding. 
   
2. For the author (I mean what is explicitly stated, not simply your interpretation) how is dealing with "No Church in the Wild" or the Peruvian Punk Underground a fitting response to this exigence?
   
3. For the author what do we learn from either reading "No Church in the Wild" through Nietzsche or from considering the recording and distribution practices of Narcosis. I want to know what we learn from the reading itself, separate from its relationship to the author's stated exigence.
   
4. How does the author connect what he learned from his object of study back to his stated exigence and how does the lesson solve/complicate/enlighten the initial problem?
   
5. Make sure to put all of your group members names on the bottom of your response.  

ICA 11/11

Bailey uses philosophy and scholarship to understand the art object that is "No Church in the Wild." Now that we have reviewed Bailey's argument, do you think the move to use Nietzsche to read Kanye was effective? In other words, does the argument make you rethink the video, it's message, it's purpose, or its aesthetic value? Keep in mind that Bailey's overarching purpose was to argue for the value of philosophy by demonstrating how it can help us gain "a broader understanding of something." He wants to demonstrate that philosophy is a tool that can enable us to "unpack" art objects.

R.R. 11/11

Exigency means the situation to which the rhetor responds; it is that event in the world that demands she speak. Of course, exigencies--events to which persuasion/speech is an appropriate response--not only exist in the world independent of the rhetor, they are also created by the rhetor to justify her linguistic engagement. What is Bailey's stated exigence for this article, and is his article an appropriate response to it? Explain.

R.R. 11/9

For today's Reading Response I am going to ask you four questions. You must answer them all to receive credit. Further, no credit will be given to responses that deflect the question by stating that you were confused or the text was complicated. In short, you must attempt to answer each question.

1. What is the main argument (thesis) of Greene's article?
2. What, besides where it was published, makes this essay academic?
3. What, besides the profanity, makes it seem not academic?
4.  Do you find Greene's argument persuasive--why or why not?

Stuff for 11/6

Paul Lansky Notjustmoreidlechatter


Fat Boy Slim "Praise You"
Camille Yarbrough "Take Yo' Praise"
JBL LP Sessions "Balance and Rehearsal" 


Public Enemy "Fight The Power"


Danger Mouse "What More Can I Say"
The Beatles "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"
Jay-Z "What More Can I Say"

R.R. 11/6

Katz argues that "Sampling is a rich and complex practice, one that challenges our notions of originality, of borrowing, of craft, and even of composition itself."  While you have already explained how sampling makes you rethink your writing, you have not provided a definition for composition. Please do so now.

Just for fun, let's listen to "Stroke of Genie-us" while we write.

R.R. 11/4

This Chapter opens up a lot of definition questions:

1. Digital Sampling makes us questions the line between quotation and stealing. Especially if we think about Clyde Stubblefield and Marvin Gaye.
   
2. This chapter also asks us what is added in new iterations and if we can consider these new iterations art. Do these new iterations say something new about culture, history, and our relationship to it? Perhaps thinking about the song "Daydream" by the Wallace Collection, its re-mix by I Monster titled "Daydream in Blue," Lupe Fiasco's rap version titled "Daydreamin," and Alex Calver and J. Walker's version titled "Day Dreamz" might help us think about these questions. What
   
3. Notjustmoreidlechatter should make us consider what music really is. As might this. 

 Of course, all of these questions are important to us as writers as well who have to integrate sources within our writing to make new arguments that are clearly articulated as both argument and art. As a writer, what can digital sampling teach you about your craft?

Extra Credit Due 11/20

For this extra credit assignment you will need to create a three minute audio track in the style of either Notjustmoreidlechatter, which mixes up voices to create an audio track; "Praise You," which samples music and manipulates pieces of music to create a dance track; or "Fight The Power," the introduction to which functions as a sonic collage expressing Public Enemy's political beliefs. After you have created the piece, post it online--using Google Docs, or a similar product--and comment on this blog post both with a link to the audio file (either MP3 or OGG) and a link to an MLA Works Cited page of the samples you used.  To receive full credit on this assignment you must use at least ten samples and four audio manipulation effects.

Some things you might find useful for completing this assignment:
 Audio Editing Software such as Audacity
 A YouTube to MP3 converter
 Flac to MP3 converter

Workshop Questions

Global

·       Is there a clear theme identified?

o   Does the theme seem important for understanding the album?

o   Is the discussion of the theme interesting and important?

o   Does the author spend more time discussing the theme or the music

o   Does the piece feel 

·       Is reading this enjoyable?

o   At any point does it feel too dry, academic, or boring

o   Is the voice consistent?

§  Look at specific points where the voice falters and try some collaborative re-writes.

§  Brainstorm different ways to keep a light tone while dealing with serious topics

·       Alternatively, consider if we as music critics need to take these topics seriously just because academics do. Can we take the arguments seriously but still have fun with language/style.?

·       Alternatively, are there points where music critics need to take things more seriously?

·       What do you get from reading this?

o   Is the analysis interesting?

o   Does the reviewer tell you anything that is not obvious?

o   How does the analysis enrich your listening to the album?

Meso

·       Layout

o   Is the blog readable

o   Are images and videos laid out with a clear purpose or do they seem random?

o   Is the layout consistent

§  Paragraph breaks

§  Fonts

§  Colors

§  Image formatting

·       Do Paragraphs work together?     

o   Does each paragraph build from its preceding paragraph and establish a reason for the paragraph afterwards?

o   Might your review benefit from different section headings?

o   Does the introduction establish were the argument is heading or a major theme?

o   Are any of the paragraphs superfluous?