Summer Reading: 70 Blog Posts

Here we are at the end of the semester and end of your first year at DCAD. Congratulations to all of you! I'm planning to see almost all of you next fall, and I'm planning to actually see you, not an image of your head on my computer monitor. Please remember that I'm available to help in writing recommendation letters for you or to help copy-edit job letters and resumes. If for whatever reason I leave DCAD, you can reach me at my stable address: smithcaseysmith@gmail.com. 

Now that the semester is over, you might enjoy going back through the class blog. Start at the beginning and work your way forward. You'll discover that we learned a lot about writing in art-related contexts. I'm not going to list everything that you've learned; you already should know this. 

My last piece of advice: The best way to improve your writing is to read more. People don't read enough these days. What you choose to read is your own business. I'm not really talking about social media posts or unedited fan fiction. Read texts that have been edited. That's my advice. It could be literary fiction or genre fiction, or it could be history or biographies of your favorite artists, designers, animators, photographers, poets, or just about anything having to do with creativity. Have fun.

See you in August! Thanks for a great semester.

Celebrate the End of the Semester with Animation

 

Hello All!

Please, join us, the graduating Second Year Animation Students, tomorrow for a screening of our final animated shorts. We've been working hard all semester to bring you unique stories, dynamic characters, and a fresh perspective. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll scream...with joy! See you there.

DCAD Animation "End of Year" Screening

Tuesday, May 11th at 12:45 pm

Link: https://zoom.us/j/99859895707?pwd=TGNMMndJbGZRc2J4OE5VTU5zRTlkQT09

Banning My Book Won't Protect Your Child

 

Published Today, May 11, in the NYT

The Fear of Art

 

Click here for the article.

Fifteen Point Plan for a Brilliant Research Essay

 We're going to do this together as a class today...

1.    Make sure you fact-check, use reliable sources.

2.    Make sure that you proofread.

3.    Break up long paragraphs.

4.    Ask other people/editors what they think.

5.    Give it a real title, make it meaningful.

6.    Take notes, compile "best-of" passages.

7.    Logical argument is best, clarity!

8.    Argument isn't obvious.

9.    Use specific and concrete details and examples. Use statistics and quantitative data, tables, graphs. 

10.   Does your conclusion match your introduction.

11.   Do I (the writer) like my essay? Having fun?

12.    Always acknowledge the other side.

13.    Ask rhetorical questions?

14.    Don't use fancy words to show off.

15.   Double-check your MLA format.  

Turn in all late work

 Please reach out to me if you have any questions. You should have uploaded the following assignments when they were due, but I accept late work. Check your assignments tab in Populi to make sure you haven't forgotten to upload one or more of the assignments below. In chronological order from the first essay:

Why Art?   (10 pts)

Awesomesauce Review (10 pts)

Zine    (10 pts)

Catalogue Entry    (10pts)

Delaware Contemporary Art    (10 pts)

Delaware Contemporary Writing  (10 pts)

Artist's Resume    (10 pts)

Works Cited Page    (5 pts)

Censorship Research Essay     (15 pts)

Participation    (10 pts)

Dr Seuss: Censorship Magnet

 

FYI:  Dr. Seuss is no stranger to censorship battles.

Learning from Examples

 

Great Resource! How have other students successfully written an MLA-formatted essay?

Required Assignment for Thursday's Class

 Educational theorists might call this roll-out of the different parts of our research essay a scaffolded assignment. Today you have a non-binding Works Cited page due. You will probably find other sources that you will want to add, so think of it as a work in process.

For Thursday's class write the first two paragraphs of your essay and post them in the class discussion board. Pay close attention to detail, even the most minor. You've seen my example of an introductory paragraph, now it's time to write your own. 

Trust me, having this part done (much like the Works Cited page) will help you to have a quality essay by the time the upload is due, next Tuesday, May 11, at 9:00 am. 

Writing a paragraph with the aid of a secondary source

 

This article was published a couple of days ago. The current protest at MoMA is so fresh that it would beimpossible to find information about in a scholarly source. Other kinds of research can also be valid, but you have to use them carefully. Most people still think that only written texts (think library, Jstor, etc.) count as secondary research. Wrong. Oral interviews are a valid secondary source, so are certain types of other media such as film, social media, music, television, memes, and so on. 

Here is an example of an introductory paragraph (eight sentences) that I wrote this morning in the space of twenty minutes or so. It's not perfect, nothing ever is, but it does establish a clear thesis or argument. The passage highlighted in red is an example of weaving a secondary source into your essay by use of a signal phrase. The passage highlighted in green is my central argument, the point that I will try to prove throughout my essay. Toward the top of my essay, I will dedicate a solid paragraph to the counter-argument and examine its merits as fairly as possible. Subsequent paragraphs will give examples and evidence, some from my lived experience and some from my direct research, that prove the superiority (maybe validity is a better word) of my argument.

MOCK FIRST PARAGRAPH

It used to be easy to think that censorship was a fairly simple matter; the prime example is Nazis burning books. Who could be in favor of that?  But censorship in the arts today comes from every conceivable political position. In a recent online article published in The Guardian, Edward Helward writes, "“Strike MoMA” protesters, organised by a group called the International Imagination of Anti-National Anti-Imperialist Feelings, want to eliminate private philanthropy at the museum and create a social justice-oriented interpretation of modern art" (73). The name of the group seems to indicate that they don't take themselves seriously; maybe they know that their protest can't stand up to the moneyed interests that rule New York culture and high society. While the goal of promoting art that champions social justice issues seems laudable, on closer inspection it's deeply problematic. Art, and culture in general, needs to be free to examine all sorts of human experience. It can not limit itself to a particular perspective, or else it becomes a type of propaganda.

Getting the Basics Right

 

I can not lie. This video could make it to the hall-of-fame of tedious how-to videos. So why am I presenting it here, you might ask? Sometimes we just need raw information, with no bells or whistles, no distractions. Even though we're going to screen this five-minute video in class, some of you will still not follow basic MLA format. Please prove me wrong. 

Once you get the basics down, you can focus on what your essay is really about: Your ideas and arguments, written in your style with supporting evidence and research.