Overview
Students will post at least four posts over the course of the semester. At least one of those posts should be close reading (textual analysis) posts inspired by one or more of your journal entries. At least one of these posts should be a creative/artistic/performative post developed form one or more of your journal entries. At least one of these posts should be a contextualizing research post. Each post will be graded. The average of your “Post Assignment” grades will constitute 25 percent of your overall course grade.
Learning Objectives
- Deepen engagement with overall text by narrowing the scope of consideration to a particular textual object (e.g. image, scene, break, repetition, etc.)
- Interrogate and develop initial observations by performing a sustained examination of a particular textual object.
- Strengthen close reading skills (aka textual analysis) by generating a claim based on a sustained examination of that textual object.
- Translate private consideration into a public (class) discussion by posing a clear critical question that opens the post up to class discussion.
Click here to check whether you’re in post group A or post group B!
Assignment Details
Each student will complete four posts. Of the four post, you must do at least one: textual analysis (close reading) posts; contextualizing research post; and a creative/artistic post. For the fourth post, you can pick from one of these three types of posts. While your post should have some relevance to the particular material being discussed in class that week, you can draw from any one of your journal entries to develop your post (i.e. your post does not have to be specifically related to your journal entry for that week).
The posts are shorter and less formal than a full paper, but they are more formal (and potentially longer) than your journal entries. The posts serve a public function, thus in writing your post, you have to consider your reading audience (our class) which for the most part you do not have to do in your journal entry. As such, you should spend time developing not only the ideas about the text that you wish to communicate but also the grammatical and formal elements that communicate those ideas. i.e. Check for clarity and accuracy in your syntax, spelling, and your citation references (including quotes, page numbers, titles, author’s names, etc. Each post will be graded based on the rubrics below. Your total post grade will constitute 25 percent of your overall grade for the course.
Guidelines for Close Reading (Textual Analysis) Posts
- Your close reading (textual analysis) post should be 250–500 words long. You should identify the specific textual object your post is focused on in your own words. And you should posit an appropriately focused claim about that textual object. Then you should explicate how you’ve arrived at that conclusion (interpretation) of the text. Your explication should center around your analysis of specific textual examples (quotes and/or paraphrased). Remember: As much as you cannot win a trial without evidence so too you cannot win a trial by simply placing objects you deem to be evidence in front of a jury without any explanation of how the jury should read these these objects as evidence of your primary case. Your post should conclude with one or two critical discussion questions that can serve as a bridge between the analytical work of your specific post to a broader class discussion.
Guidelines for the Creative Post
- Your performative/artistic post (a critical response) should include any visual, audio, or textual media needed to share your performance object with the class. You should also include 150 -250 word description of this performance/art response. Your description should describe what the object is (the medium, genre, key formal elements, relevant contextual information, etc.); what the object does/performs (i.e. key actions, themes, moods, etc.); and how that performance relates to the class material and/or class discussion. Your post should conclude with one or two critical discussion questions that can serve as a bridge between the creative and analytical work shared in your post and a broader class discussion.
Guidelines for the Contextualizing Research Post
- As we will discuss throughout the semester, an important way of engaging and thinking through texts, especially black cultural texts, is to actively research and consider the effects of relevant contextualizing material that can deepen how we read/interpret/understand a particular aspect of the text. Relevant contextualizing material may include, but is not limited to: historical information about a figure, place, event, item (or any other historically locate-able detail referenced in the text). Your contextualizing research post; information related to the historical conditions in/under which some particular aspect of the text was produced; information about historical reception (popular, artistic, and/or academic reception) of the text; artist, author, performer, producer statements about their craft, vision, life, politics, and/or about goals, intentions, or reflections regarding the specific text you’re considering.
- For this post, you will conduct a thoughtful, but limited scale, research on some relevant contextualizing material. Your post will include a link, image, clip, audio file, and/or quote referencing the most salient part of the source material your research has uncovered; a brief description of that source material (type, medium, author, date, publisher, objective, background); an explanation of its relevance to some specific aspect of the text we’re examining and how this historical material might affect the way we think about (interpret) some aspect of the text. The post should be between 300-500 words and include full and accurate citations for any and all sources referenced.
When Are Post Due?
- Each student will be assigned a post group [A, B, C or D]. On the far right column of the syllabus, you will see the class date for which your post group is responsible for providing well-constructed, thoughtful posts, that will help guide our in-class discussion. Because we need to read your post prior to the class period, you should plan to publish your post on the site, 36 hours before the start of class in which we will discuss it. (For example: If you see your post group on the 10/13 day on the syllabus, your post should be posted by 4:30 AM on 10/12 or really late Sunday night).
Guidelines for Publishing ALL Posts
- TITLE YOUR POST: Each post should include an original, creative title that illuminates some aspect of the post content and makes folks actually want to read and remember the post.
- CHECK RELEVANT CATEGORY BOXES: Make sure you put a check mark in any and all relevant category boxes. Using the menu on the right hand side of your post window, locate the “categories” menu. Check all relevant categories. Above all else make sure you check the category boxes that correspond to the your post group and the main text about which you’re posting. In addition to providing a quick reference for you and your peers, clicking the appropriate category boxes helps me grade. At the end of the semester, checking these boxes is equivalent to putting your paper in the correct faculty mailbox in the English Department. Even if you finish the paper and turn it in, I cannot count it if you put it in the wrong mailbox.
- PUBLISH YOUR POST. In order for us to read your post, you must publish it. To publish your post, you should click the “Publish” button in the upper right hand corner of the screen. When you click this button your post will not automatically post. Once you click this button, the site will ask you if you really want to publish your post. You must confirm by clicking “Publish” button again in the upper right hand corner. When your post has published, a message should pop up either at the top of the screen or at the bottom left hand part of the screen with the option to “view post.” You can also double check, by going back to the site, clicking on the discussion menu, and seeing if your post shows up.
Warning: No Double Dipping
- While your post is an elaboration on a journal entry, it is not a substitute for your journal entry. So make sure that at least some initial version of your post exists in your journal before you elaborate and/or revise that version to share on the class blog. You will still be responsible for a journal entry for that week. The assignment should help you develop your ideas, but it should not be viewed as an opportunity to double dip and have one piece count for both assignments.
Reading and Commenting on Others’ Posts
- Each week you are responsible for reading your classmates’ posts BEFORE the beginning of class. As part of your participation grade, you should publish at least two comments over the course of the semester. Your comments should be dialogical and analytic rather than evaluative. (Examples of evaluative comments: “I like your post; it’s interesting”; OR “Your idea is a really smart way to look at that scene”). Your comments should engage the central object of the post; respond in some way to i’s reflection question; and develop the conversation the post puts forward.
Grading & Assessment
For the Close Reading Posts
- 25% Scope
- Is your textual object of analysis specific and appropriately-focused, concrete, and text-based? (For more information about selecting a specific, concrete, and appropriately focused text-based object of study, check out the “What is a Textual Object of Analysis?” handout. )
- 25% Description
- Do you adequately describe the relevant context in which your textual object of analysis appears in the text? Do you clearly, carefully, and convincingly describe the formal function of this particular textual object of analysis in this part of the text (or if applicable in the text as a whole)?
- 25% Claim
- Do you posit an idea about how the particular function and context of your textual object of analysis affects the way we might read (understand) some larger aspect (theme, character, mood, etc.) of the text? Remember: when you make a claim, you are making an interpretation. Your claim must be an arguable statement, not a statement of fact. Arguable doesn’t necessarily mean that someone would say that your argument is wrong, or argue the exact opposite; rather it means that even though your idea is logically constructed and supported by textual-evidence, someone else could make an equally logical and textually supported claim that differs from your particular interpretation?
- 25% Critical Discussion Questions
- Do you pose 1-2 critical discussion questions? Is the relationship between the question and your performance response clear and specific? Does your question help clarify and/or help us focus on the relationship between your performance response the the class material to which you were responding? Is the question open enough to invite multiple view points and class exploration? Is the question focused enough to generate a discussion that must actually think through and/or builds upon the post rather than use it as an easy springboard to another topic or texts.
For the Creative Post
- 25% Scope
- Does your performance/creative object demonstrate a focused engagement with a specific aspect of one of the course texts (as opposed to being a loose thematic association).
- 25% Description
- Do you adequately describe your performance response (what it is; what it does; and how it relates to part of the text).
- 25% Analytical Relevance of your Creative Choices
- Is the relationship between the medium, form, and/or genre of your performance response and the aspect of the text to which it responds clear and generative? Do the more nuanced formal choices you make within that medium, discipline and or genre illuminate your engagement with the particular aspect of the text to which you’re responding?
- Critical Discussion Questions
- Do you pose 1-2 critical discussion questions? Is the relationship between the question and your performance response clear and specific? Does your question help clarify and/or help us focus on the relationship between your performance response the the class material to which you were responding? Is the question open enough to invite multiple view points and class exploration? Is the question focused enough to generate a discussion that must actually think through and/or builds upon the post rather than use it as an easy springboard to another topic or texts.
For the Contextualizing Research Post
- 25% Contextualizing Historical Material
- Does your post identify some contextualizing material that can affect how we understand/interpret some aspect of the text? Does your post present either as an image, video clip, audio track, hyperlink, or compelling quotes some or all of the most compellingly relevant parts of the source material? Do you accurately and completely cite the source material you present?
- 25% Description of the Source Material
- Do you provide enough information about the contextualizing historical material you present that your readers 1) understand what the document/material is and 2) how it relates to the primary black performance texts we are examining? Do you clearly and accurately describe the authors, medium, genre, audience, key objectives, important background, and/or other significant aspects of the historical material. Do you provide accurate and full citations for any sources referenced?
- 25% Explanation of Significance
- Does the post provide a clear and compelling explanation of the relevance between the historical material and some aspect of the class text? Does the post provide clear and compelling explanation of how reading an aspect of the class text through the lens of the historical framework suggested/evidenced in the presented source material significantly changes/affects some aspect of how we read/interpret the class text?
- Critical Discussion Questions
- Do you pose 1-2 critical discussion questions? Is the relationship between the question and the historical context you provide clear and specific? Does your question help clarify and/or help us focus on the relationship between the contextualizing material and some relevant part of the text? Is the question open enough to invite multiple view points and class exploration? Is the question focused enough to generate a discussion that must actually think through and/or builds upon the post rather than use it as an easy springboard to another topic or texts?