What do you think of when you see this picture?

farm securities film

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXJ3NZr-2MU

Unit 2 Schedule and Assignments

Writing and Photography Unit 2: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men the Farm Security Administration

In this unit we will consider how photos and writing can be used to document people and place. In many ways, in this unit we will continue to question:

*What is the relationship between photography and “the truth”?

*How do these “documentary” photos, and the writing that goes with them, construct the place and the

people they document?

*What assumptions, both aesthetic and cultural, underlie the photos of Walker Evans and Dorothea Lange,

and others of the Farm Security Administration?

*How do the photos function symbolically, and how do we read them?

*Note: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men is on reserve at the library.

Works Cited Page Link / Westfield Reading and Writing Center

click here for info on making your works cited page

click here for info about making an appointment at the Westfield State Reading and Writing Center

Class Fri. 2/25: Peer Editing

1. self-reflection: what was your plan for revision after the conference? how did you implement that advice? what questions do you have?
2. announce Writing and Reading Center
3. Peer Editing:
* read your classmates' paper and answer the following questions (you may write directly on the paper, and also attach a sheet of notebook paper for the longer questions)
4. go over Works Cited page

HW: final draft due Monday. Bring Let Us Now Praise Famous Men to class Monday (you'll have reading from that book next week)

Class Fri. Feb 18

1. Five minutes writing and reflecting on William Eggleston essay assignment.
2. Discuss Questions related to William Eggleston essay.
3. Share Susan Sontag photos
4. Discuss answers to thought questions for Wednesday.
5. Share Friday Papers
6. Time-permitting: Share source summaries

HW:
Complete initial draft due Tues / Wed.
Revised draft due Fri.
Final due Mon. 2/28

*Let Us Now Praise Famous Men* by James Agee is next -- you'll need that book by 2/28

Conference Times Tues and Wed 2/22 and 2/23

Tues
IN ELY, NEXT TO SUBWAY
10:30: Kelsey, Cate S, Cara
11:15: Kelly, David
12:00: Bonita
12:45: Cait G

IN THE CLASSROOM
1:40 Joe, Bianca, Samantha


Wed.
IN ELY, NEXT TO SUBWAY
10:30: Gregg, Gabriela
12:00: Rebecca, Cassinda
12:45: Ashley, Jenn, Tori

IN THE CLASSROOM
1:40: Lindsey, Amber

Class 2/16

1.Sample Friday Papers.

2. In-Class Writing: Either answer questions I have written on your Friday paper, or attempt to answer the questions posted below.

3. Time permitting: share source summaries.

HW:
For Friday:
1) Friday Paper due. Prompt: Write an analysis on one Eggleston photo. What can you speculate it meant to him? What does it mean to you? What evidence do you find in the photo? Most importantly: Why do you think it is considered art? Why should we care about it?
2) Post a picture to your blog that you feel relates to some aspect of Susan Sontag's Plato's Cave essay (this is your choice, do whatever you want)

For Tues/Wed: Group conferences. Initial draft due at Conference.

Eggleston Thought Questions for 2/16

1. What do the photos mean to Eggleston?
2. What do they mean to you?
3. What does it mean to be a viewer of Eggleston's photos? (What does it mean to view something that you know has a personal meaning to someone else, but not know what exactly that meaning is?)
4. What makes these photos ART and not just snapshots? (why should we care?)

Sample Reflection: Sontag Vs. Eggleston

Caitlin Giglio

February 11, 2011

English Composition: Photography

Friday Paper 2

                When I look at works of photography I see life.  What I mean when I say this is that from my experience taking photos I’ve realized that it is easy to stand behind the camera and lose one’s self for awhile.  It’s very simple to do.  I don’t have to be a professional photographer to pick up a camera and capture an image.  This is one of the points that Susan Sontag makes in her passage, “In Plato’s Cave”.  In a way photography can be classified as an open door to a world where a picture is more important than the real thing.  Where a person can spend more time photographing an object rather than admiring or absorbing the beauty of the object itself.

Sample Reflection Paper: Vulnerability

Bianca Oberg 

Friday Paper # 2 

2/10/11 

Vulnerability 

In comparing William Eggleston and Susan Sontag, I have found an interesting component. At one point in her essay, Sontag describes photography as such, “To take a photo is to participate in another person’s mortality, vulnerability, mutability.” I believe in Eggleston’s Guide, Eggleston is showing the lives of his subjects, and they all seem to be vulnerable. Many aspects of each photo can show their vulnerability with the way his subjects are positioned in the frame. Another way he shows vulnerability is with the facial expressions of his subjects and whether or not they are making eye contact with the camera. Lastly, in Eggleston’s photos his people are in motion, and the candid aspect to the photographs enhance the feeling of vulnerability.

Class Monday 2/14

CLASS MEETS IN BATES 4 COMPUTER LAB TODAY

1. Continue Research Individually for 15  minutes.
2. In groups, present your findings to each other and make a master list of the Best Sources. (10 minutes)
3. Send me an email (jchristian@wsc.ma.edu) containing a list of the group's Best Sources -- (10 Minutes)

(The sources must be listed in MLA format, with a 2-3 sentence description of each source -- Tell what it is and why it might be helpful.)

4. Time Permitting: discuss Friday Papers from last week.


HOMEWORK:

For Wednesday:
Read 1 Source found by you or your group. Take lots of notes on it. On your blog: Post a 2 paragraph response to it explaining how you might use it in your Eggleston Essay.

For Friday:
1) Friday Paper due. Prompt: Write an analysis on one Eggleston photo. What can you speculate it meant to him? What does it mean to you? What evidence do you find in the photo? Most importantly: Why do you think it is considered art? Why should we care about it?
2) Post a picture to your blog that you feel relates to some aspect of Susan Sontag's Plato's Cave essay (this is your choice, do whatever you want)

Revised Calendar Writing and Photography

Mon 2/14: Meet in Bates 4 Computer Lab to continue research
Wed 2/16: Regular class, preparing for Unit 1 essay: Bring Eggleston Guide
Fri.   2/18: regular class, Bring Eggleston Guide, Friday Paper due

Mon. 2/21: President's Day Holiday
Tues. 2/22: Monday schedule, Class Canceled for Conferences (initial draft due at conference)
Wed. 2/23: Class Canceled for Conferences (initial draft due at conference)
Fri.    2/25: Revised draft due, Peer-editing, Friday Paper due

Mon. 2/28: Final draft due

WED 2/9/11 CLASS

CLASS MEETS IN THE LIBRARY TODAY

FRIDAY WE WILL MEET IN THE BATES 3 COMPUTER LAB

HW: Friday paper due. Prompt: Write a thesis-driven reflection in which you apply Susan Sontag's ideas (and your own) to gain new understanding of William Eggleston's Guide.

On Monday: Groups will present their research findings.

Class Monday 2/7

1. Considering Susan Sontag's "In Plato's Cave"
*How does Sontag influence your ideas about Eggleston's work? How could you use her essay as a source in your William Eggleston essay?

2. Time permitting: view thesis statements / photo-essays / etc

HW:
1) CLASS MEETS IN ELY LIBRARY ON WED.
2) CLASS MEETS IN BATES 3 COMPUTER LAB FRI
3) For Wed. Come to class with a good thesis statement for your William Eggleston essay. Also, come to class knowing what larger context you want to link Eggleston's photos to: History of Photography, Art and Art Theory, Social/Cultural Aspects of his work, etc... (this will help you as you begin researching)
4) For Friday: FRIDAY PAPER DUE. If you are writing this week, please consider how Susan Sontag's insights might be applied to Eggleston's Guide.

Notes on "In Plato's Cave"

p.3 For one thing, there are a great many more images around.
Photos alter and enlarge our notions of what is worth looking at.

To collect photos is to collect the world.
Photographs are really experience captured.

p.4 To photograph is to appropriate the thing being photographed.
Photos, more than print, turn the world into mental objects.

Photos get lost, bought, sold, become valuable....

Susan Sontag Friday paper

Kelly Vanderley

English Comp 2:  Photography

“Friday Papers”



            Photography has grown its own form of art. As our society has bloomed with technology so has the fundamental qualities of photographs that make up the world around us. In Plato’s cave, an introduction reading to Susan Sontags book on photography she mentions the specific details of the Art and truth behind a photograph. To William Eggleston, photography is a system of visual editing among its other elements that an individual photographer can capture. For both, William and Susan, photographs allow the ability to express images around us as tangible objects that are to be collected and cherished.

Susan Sontag Friday paper

Ashley McLain
English Comp 2 Writing/ Photography
February 4, 2011
Week 3 Friday Paper         

   From analyzing why photographers take photos of realistic objects I came to realize that this is the same idea that Susan Sontag has placed within her essay  In Plato’s Cave. Sontag expresses her thoughts that taking photos is influenced by our world and which we live in.

Class 2/4/2011

1. Considering Thesis Statements:
what makes a good one? (and practice) (look at sample reflection paper)
2. Continue looking at Photo Essays / Other Photographers
3. Introduce Susan Sontag's "In Plato's Cave" (time permitting)

HW:
1. Write, and post to your blog 3 excellent possible thesis statements for either a Friday Paper, or your Unit 1 William Eggleston essay
2.  On Monday we'll spend the bulk of the class going over Sontag, so be ready with questions and ideas
3. Class to Meet in Ely Library on Wed (you must have a thesis statement and research topic by that date)
4. Class to Meet in Bates Basement Computer Lab on Fri for continued research

What's this photo ABOUT?

Plato's Cave

 

Sample Friday Paper

Cara Cole

Writing and Photography

William Eggelston’s guide

Friday paper 1

            To sum up the appearance of Eggleston’s work in one word, would be simple. He seeks to capture the simplicity of a southern life and knows where to look for it. Eggleston’s childhood in the south is represented in each photo as if he knows each person and has been to each place. There is a simplistic nature about these photos and that’s what Eggleston intends for the viewer to see, however they also seem to be a paradox of some sorts. Although the physical appearance shows what looks like a quiet life in the south, the actual meaning of these people and places are much more complex. For example, the bike pictured on pg. 80, to us is a simple, green bicycle, however it may not be an accident that that photo is also the front cover. That bike is complex in that it belonged to somebody, someone with a story, possibly Eggleston himself. These photos are no accident, they are simple, everyday, items but to Eggleston they have a meaning, and that’s why he chose them.