Instruction
1. short papers (750-1000) words – 15 pts : limit 2/unit
In these essays, you will be analyzing a multi-media artifact that you find useful for explaining something about the reading. This artifact can be a short video, a music video, an image, a tweet, a newspaper article, a photo that you take, a video that you take, a movie, a song, etc. Anything should work as long as you cut it down to under 2 minutes. If you are analyzing something longer like a movie, focus on a shorter scene or two to analyze your points. You need to put this multi-media artifact in your blog. Most of your essay will be analyzing this artifact with respect to the reading, not summarizing the reading itself. Picking an artifact that challenges some of the claims made by the reading is a good way to do this. Think of this as a formal paper where you are making an argument about the relationship between the artifact and the reading that advances our understanding of the reading in some way.
Essential elements:
a. Unique Title
b. Thesis statement (5 pts):
Your thesis statement should be the last sentence of your first paragraph, should reference the multi-media artifact that you are analyzing, and indicate how it relates to the reading for the class. For instance, your thesis statement should state what your artifact illustrates about the limitations of the article or what could be done about the issues that the author highlights.
Good theses examples:
— 50 Shades uses the stigma of BDSM to mask the toxic nature of the story’s central relationship, its tacit endorsement of abusive or predatory dynamics going relatively unchallenged by Illouz’s chapter in any direct way; the wholly non-academic TVtropes page consequently having more critical implications for fiction juxtaposing BDSM with deficiencies in morality further highlights the ways in which Illouz missed an opportunity.
— While I agree with the authors when they said that bodies are capable of producing desire in objects whether or not they are animate, I use the article “Sex Dolls: For the Emotionally and Sexually Lazy Man Who Wants to Get Off” by Monique Judge, to disagree with the authors when they said that having faceless sex is not really having sex with a person.
— In this post, I explain why deceased rapper XXXTentacion is a useful example that demonstrates the nuanced effects of mainstream hip-hop as an instrument of late capitalism, paying close attention to the way Belle underestimates the role of major record labels in the perpetuation of hyper-aggressive, hypersexual African American masculinity.
— As shown in the attached digital artifact of a confrontation in the HBO series True Blood, homophobia can manifest in many forms without needing the invocation of ‘f*ggot’ by a heterosexual person; contrary to some sentiments Pascoe expresses in her chapter, ‘f*ggot’ still encapsulates the overwhelming hatred and fear of homosexuality itself with gender-roles serving only as supplements to orientation-stigma.
d. creativity/polish (5 pts):
Do your best to make your post interesting. Organize your ideas well into nicely written paragraphs. Link your paragraphs together in a logical way. Try to eliminate redundancy and present your conclusions in a way that will interest your peers to the best of your ability. Use citations and quotes sparingly, but do use them. Around 3 or 4 short quotes from the class reading and 2 or 3 short quotes from the artifact you are using is usually good.
e. pose a question to the class (5 pts):
The more directly these questions relate to your paper’s thesis and conclusion the better.