WORKSPACE | wtng321

9/8/16

Fraser defines the public sphere as the "site where social meanings are generated, circulated, contested, and reconstructed...it's cultural common sense." We can study and understand a variety of arguments from the public sphere, partially because there are so many different facets if interest or identification that make up this public sphere. But Fraser discusses that we cannot assume that there is only one public sphere.

One of the common themes in Fraser's work was the fine line between public and private--it's not as straight-forward as it seems. The separatation of the two often creates what "feels" like multiple public spheres. Politics, culture, class, or state of power often automatically place you in a specific public sphere. But this does not mean that as writers we only have to apeal to our own public sphere.

Photo by: Wix Free Images

9/12/16

Though I did have a hard time making my way through the photos and the text (I never read comics so it was tough to get into the swing of it) I did think it was interesting getting a behind the scenes tour of how radio shows are aired.

Here are 4 things I learned:

It takes a decent amount of time to set everthing up before a show airs. They were read 33 minutes ahead of time to make sure everything was all set up.
Interviews are typically not aired the way they actually flow. Out on the Wire talked about how interviewees can be told that their interview will take an hour, even if only a few quotes will be used for the actual show.
The more comfortable the interviewer, the more comfortable the interviewee. If the interview tells a personal story, the interviewee will be more likely to tell a personal story.
The name of the show is very important and should make sense of the information being given. "Do-Gooders" should be about good things!

9/15/16

Though I did not have any reservations with sharing this poem with the class, I did find it challenging to choose pieces of my life that others would find interesting. I saw 100% how that tied in with the chapter of On the Wire that we just read, because I think the part of writing this poem that I had the most difficult time with was creating a cohesive story. I felt as though my poem didn't quite flow, but after hearing everyone else's poems, I see that they don't have to. I actually really enjoyed listening to choppy stories because I think that reflects the rhythm of life. I somehow wish, though, that I could have shared more about more recent events in my life. I do feel that my childhood and upbringing have a HUGE impact on where I am today, but I feel that more recent events have proven to frame my identity more than distant events.

9/19/16

Working with Sana and Shanda will I think be both humbling and helpful as we begin this project. Some questions that may give us a better idea of how to approach this project could be…

What is the best way to be sensitive to who we’re interviewing? Will it be better to ask specific questions (assuming that we know their story) or is it better to ask general questions and let the interviewee take the reins?

What is the single most important aspect of this crisis that we should get everyone’s perspective on?

What is the best way to prompt deep reflection?

9/26/16

I thought that the conversation that we had last Thursday with Sana and Chanda was thought-provoking, informative, and extremely valuable to our project. Though they come from different backgrounds and interview experiences, they both touched on how they don't want to be pitied or sympathized. They talked about how empathy goes a long way when it comes to their level of comfort with sharing something. The other part of that conversation that stuck with me was Sana's comment about how the term "story-teller" bothers her. We have been using this term alot and to think that this term makes her feel as though her life is simply a story and nothing less made me rethink what a HUGE responsibility we have when learning about our partners and their lives. This project is more than just sharing a story, it's about learning the lives of others and educating the public so that a change can be made.

It was nice to have feedback and to hear the bios of other classmates. For my next draft, I need to work on sound quality and volume of background audio so that my voice can be heard. I would also like to add more audio to my bio (I was a little pressed for time with the first draft) because right now it is a little dry with just my voice and the random song at the end of the piece.

10/13/16

The biggest thing that I took away from this chapter of Out on the Wire was that there are no rules when it comes to structure. It's important to make considerations of which part of the story comes first and that the flow of the story is, but there is not one universal "perfect" structure when it comes to telling a story. The other part that I thought was important was making sure that there is an understanding between the story-teller and the person who the story is being told to. If there is no understanding of the details of the story, then there can be no consideration of the structure.

We got alot of great information from Bernard in our interview on Tuesday and I think we are going to have a difficult time boiling it down into a 5 minute video. The sequence of questions that we asked were in chronological order of his life, and I think that is the structure that we should use to create this video. We were also very careful to get clarification from Bernard when he responded to a question that we may not have understood the answer to or we wanted to find out more information about. We are now in the "reflection" process of our work where we need to consider all the information that we have, pull the most critical/necessary information to use, and create a cohesive story that has a unique purpose.

10/24/16

I don't know why, but I don't this chapter didn't really have as many helpful tidbits of information as the other chapters have. What I understood of this chapter was that sound helps one linger in the moment. It helps set the tone before a moment (making the listen become scared before something frightening happens) or continue a moment of emotion (when something sad happens, music allows the listener a few moments to reflect). Sound goes in and out of an audio piece--like a wave--to enhance the audio. The lack of sound also gives a piece a specific tone. I thought a lot about the music in The Hunger Games movies when I was reading this chapter. The musicians/director of these movies use reverb for most of the audio that makes up the killing scenes. I think this is effective because it makes the audience feel as though they are observing these scenes at 10,000 feet. I think that paying careful attention to sound in our piece will be very powerful because it will leave the viewer thinking about Bernard's life at some points and at the end will hopefully be thinking about a call to action. Sometimes I find that no sound at all can be more powerful than extra sound and right now, that is our plan for beginning our video story.

11/3/16

The "edit" and "editing" are two completely different things, I learned. Editing is the response to an edit--a spoken or written suggestion to make a video or story better (in all sense of the word). The result of editing is generally a cohesive story, good transitions, good framework, and lots of footage that has been cut.

Framing is something that we often discuss as writers in general. It means that we are to carefully select what we want to tell, what we want the outcome of the story to be, who we want the piece to speak to, etc. Rhetorical framing means catering to our audience. The example they used was epigenetics. This concept involved an understanding of science that some do not have. The editors decided to frame this story around parenting because this concept is applicable to more people.

Signposting is letting the audience know that something is important. There are many methods of doing this (whether it is repetition or emphasis) so that it catches the audiences attention.

11/10/16

When we first showed our draft to the class, we got alot of feedback that we needed to choose a specific focus for our story. The clips that we chose at that point we're a bit all over the place and neglected to have a clear focus of why we were telling Bernard's story. At that point, we only had one photo in our video, and we were told that the video would benefit if there were additional photos included so that it didn't look like the picture was just tossed in there. We were told that it didn't seem necessary to include music the whole time. After making some revisions and receiving feedback from specific individuals in the class, we found that there was a lot of jumping around in terms of the storyline. Bernard talks in the beginning about how he struggled, but then talks at the end about how great he thinks Haiti is, and then transitions into how he needs help with a fundraiser to help Haiti. We tried to reframe our method of telling his story to clear up much of this back and forth. The idea that we're trying to get at now is that Haiti does struggle (and the media tends to point this out), but that doesn't mean it's not a great country. Many Haitians take pride in their country, but they also understand that there are other places in Haiti that DO need help. This is where we bring in Bernard's "call to action" so that viewers can help if they choose to.

The only feedback that we received from my outside viewer was technical feedback...I showed her the most updated version (where we took into consideration the feedback from the class) so I think that shows that the feedback that we got and implemented was good.

11/14/16

Part 1

I think that having all three modes really helped me to understand why this project was created (even if I do not really understand what the story is about). I think that hearing history and seeing history is much more effective than just reading history...I'm beginning to understand more why multimodal writing is so important when telling important stories. From my understanding of what we've seen so far, oral history is just that--speaking about history so for others to physically hear. But because not everyone is an oral learner, other modes are used to "map this coherence" and make this story make sense for someone else. I think that this relates to our Quest for Refuge project because we are using several modes to create our community partners story. We've used writing and audio to create a cohesive story that (hopefully) makes sense.

Part 2

I talked about this a bit in Part 1, but I think that this project really embodies the reasons why multimodal composition is important. It's interesting and different, it lets people learn about the subject in ways in which we are best at learning, and it allows the viewer to "experience" the story that is being told. I think that it can be very difficult to write for public audiences because the general audience is often very vague. I think because there are so many different types of learning in this project, there is a more likely chance that a greater audience will understand (or at least appreciate) it. I think that representing someone's life is a task that should be taken very seriously because there's not one right way to do it. When we look at the Olive Project itself, there are SO many ways to navigate through it. I don't think that it would be easy to make it through the project the same way two times. I really enjoyed this project.

11/17/16

The purpose of this article (I thought) was to discuss the definition of multimodal and compare this term to other "accepted" terms that digital rhetoricians may use interchangeably with this term. It discussed a lot about the importance of a definition...the most important point, I found, to be that accepted definitions "help us determine collective values and interests." By including the process behind this project, seeing some of the successes and hardships that came along with creating this piece, and hearing from various scholars on each of the 7 definitions, I think that this project was thorough but not completely effective. Though Lauer did notate that there were no "corrections" made to the interviewee when speaking, that the audio clips were very short in comparison to the full interview, and that many of the interviewees did not repeat the "key terms" that were being discussed, I found that I just have more questions about what is and is not considered multimodal/new media/multimedia because there didn't seem to be a conclusion. Maybe this was the purpose? Getting the audience to think about their own definitions of multimodal. In that case, I think this form would be effective. But simply defining multimodal on it's own did not seem to be the outcome of this piece and its form.

What I found most interesting from the audio clips was the woman who discussed consistency in the "multiple" section. She said that she liked that others disagreed with her definition of multimodal because it allows her to see how others think which, in turn, shapes how she thinks. I appreciated that she said this because we are often so quick to want to conform in order to learn, but I appreciate that she willingly accepts other educated scholars disagreeing with her. The other that I found interesting was that those around you influence your definition (this goes for all facets of life too). The professor from Ohio State University who talked about being tactical in the "relative" section talks about how in her department at school, they describe these terms in a certain way...a way that is probably different than how we at RWU define or perceive multimodality. It makes me wonder whether or not there ever will be an accepted definition of this type of work...I didn't know that defining a word could be so hard!

11/21/16

Though I do think Amie was the head of our group because the project was on her computer, the three of us worked together to talk through the video and to create its multiple drafts. When we first started, the three of us met together to begin creating our log which we then turned into our first draft a few days later. Amie and I met several times to work with the feedback we received in class and sometimes we would Facetime if we were unable to meet. Nick and I took some time to film various sections of campus to be included in the video. There was constant conversation about this project over the course of the last few weeks.

I think what I like best about the video is how perfectly the songs match up with the words Bernard says and how it pauses when he pauses. It seemed as though almost every time we changed video clips, the music always seemed to fit perfectly with Bernard's audio. There isn't really anything that displeases me about the video except for the fact that I feel as though I've watched it too many times...I'm ready to step back from it and take a little break until our showcase.

I don't think that I would have wanted to do this project any differently. Yes, it was frustrating to tease the clips apart because there was really no main focus of our interview and there were several missing pieces from Bernard's life in Haiti/transition to America, but this is what Bernard wanted to focus on that day so that's what we had to work with. I think our editing process was efficient and I'm happy with our final product.

12/5/16

I really like how Derek REALLY incorporated the course readings and some of the activities that we did in class into his reflection. It was very obvious that he had a really thoughtful reflection about the class as a whole and I think that he really understood the purpose of the class. I already knew that I needed to work on this a bit more (finals week is taking a chunk of my soul at the moment), but seeing how well he did this makes me want to sit down and really look back at everything that we've done this semester and think a little harder about what I have learned. I think that this is what I need to focus on moving forward...because I really have learned a lot! I also think I need to read a little slower the next time I record my reflections. I always have an issue with this because I talk so fast...bad habit that I'm trying to break...but I wasn't cognizant of it when I was recording over the weekend,