We started class today like usual, by condensing the room. Everyone moved out the extra chairs and pushed their desks forward to give it a better feel. Ben then threw a large garbage bag into the middle of the circle, after staring at it for a few seconds we all realized it was our work that had been taken off the walls. The very nice janitor Wayne saved our precious archives after speaking with Ben in the hallway on Tuesday afternoon. Ben was very glad Wayne found our work in the garbage because without it we would have lost our entire historical archive, “Without that random chance event all of our archive would have been lost and history would have looked a lot different!” Ben exclaimed.
On the topic of changing history we turned our attention to the controversy in Egypt, and how their history was about to change. A newly released article state that Mubarak was going to step down soon, possibly even tonight. We then brought up the article that Ben sent us overnight. This article talked about the economy and less about the protesters, this shift in storyline happened over the weekend. The journalists are no longer talking about the protests but more so about how the protests are now affecting the economy in Egypt. It is quite interesting to see how fast the focus can change on a story like this.
After covering the breaking news we moved on to a couple administrative things. Ben has gotten all caught up on grading and we will get emails with our grades and some comments later on today or possibly tomorrow. Along with our grades we Ben also added some comments to the end of the email, the comments aren’t going to be sent along with every grade we get but for the first few we will so we know how to improve our writings. The blog comment grades will not be sent out in an email, basically if you did it you get the point and if you didn’t do it then you get a zero. The blog assignment for this weekend will be up tonight and it will be regarding the tea party. Ben is going to send us some quantitative sources (stats on the tea party) and we will have to find a couple sources of our own to answer the questions Ben posts. The last administrative thing is that the reading for next Thursday is NOT in the course packet or from any of our books, we will get it by next Tuesday either in class or via email.
Now that all of that was taken care of, it was time for peer editing. We got into groups of 2 or 3 and exchanged letters with each other. After reading the rubric over (to refresh our minds of the criteria) we read our group members writing. After thoroughly reading through the writing we graded the papers on the rubric we received and made a few constructive comments on what they could improve on. Once we finished the peer editing in our groups we looked at a few examples from others in the class and the class commented on them. The first paper we looked at was Ahmed’s letter that was written to a friend of his. The information in the letter was fantastic and all the connections were smooth but the only concern the class had was whether or not he had his audience in mind when he was writing. Ben pointed out that you want to keep your writing personal, if your friend likes sports then relate a theory from class to sports. If they enjoy music relate it to music but make sure you make some sort of personal connection between your audience and the theory you have picked from the class. Next we looked at Sophie’s paper, which in contrast to Ahmed’s was very personal and focused on her audience (her mother). Sophie’s paper was a good example of how you can make all kinds of connections in your life; it does not necessarily need to be a current event in the news.
With the peer editing out of the way we moved onto the next part of the class. For the last 20 minutes of class we watched a video of Dinah Shore interviewing the producer of the movie “Network”. The producer had a very interesting take on his movie and on all television networks. The thing that stood out the most was that the director doesn’t believe anything that he sees on TV. He watches it purely for entertainment purposes because everything that is put on shows is edited and shortened to make a line or a speech sound more appealing. After watching this Ben asked us if we could make any connection from that interview and the things we have been studying in class. Brittany said that she thought the point that the producer brought up was very Hegelian, the news only shows the important parts just like in history. It is a selection process. Marika then commented that she understands why they do that because the true things aren’t necessarily entertaining which brings us back to a point the producer brought up. Networks are making shows and clips that sell, its about the money and economics not about the truth.
On the topic of truth, we talked for the last couple minutes of class about charismatic truth and bureaucratic truth. The concept that Ben wanted to get us thinking about was the Garbage Can Model. This model comes from sociology and talks about how ideas don’t come from rational linear thinking but instead from building on your peers ideas until you reach the best. An example from Network is when the producers are trying to figure out what to do with Howard Biel. They don’t just flat out say “We could kill him” but they all brainstorm ideas and come up with ones that are better than the previous one until finally they reach the conclusion of killing him. This model happens all throughout history, just think about it.
FOR TUESDAY READ ZERNIKE, IT IS AN EASY READ AND IT TIES EVERYTHING WE HAVE BEEN TALKING ABOUT IN CLASS TOGETHER.
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