Previous Blackboard Items
This will be the home page and virtual blackboard for COMP 5250 for Spring
2003.
 You'll of course want
to take a look at the course syllabus and
think of any questions you have.
On Tuesday, we'll
talk about the first major project, Annotation
of a Text.
I much prefer to give
you tools rather than rules, but let's review the page Rules
to Set You Free and think of them as "enabling restraints"
Today, we'll learn
how to create links to open a
Javascript window for our annotations.
Journal Entry #1.
Who is the audience for your annotation project? Who will want or need
to read the original text? What value might your annotations provide to
them as you insert yourself between the reader and the text to provide
supplemental information, insights, or images?
In class today, I'll
ask you to create a set of folders like these on your Zip disk
The Annotation
of a Text is due to be posted to the Web by Sunday, Feb. 2 at 6 p.m.
Today, during class,
please post a draft (a.k.a., a "BETA version") of your
main Annotation of a Text page to the Web
and view it with a Web browser to make sure you'll be able to post the
final version between now and Sunday at 6:00 p.m. Post the URL and your
name in a message to our
discussion board, in the discussion titled "Annotation URLs."
Some useful pages in the Dreamweaver book (Towers) for posting to be
Web:
- Creating a Local Site in Dreamweaver, pg. 28
- Setting up a "Remote Site" in Dreamweaver, pg. 551
- Transferring files using the Site Window, pg. 554-555
If you use FTP to transfer files from home or some other Dreamweaverless
place, you might need UMD's
step-by-step directions for using FTP.
This morning you'll
spend most of the time working on your first project and, as needed, helping
others. I will also interrupt you once for an individual conference outside.
The Annotation
of a Text is now due to be posted to the Web by Sunday, Feb. 2 at
6 p.m.
Today, we'll talk
about Landow's Chapter 1. See also his Victorian
Web project at Brown University.
Note that I've added
a search function above to the class Web site.
Today, you'll post
the URL of your Annotation of a Text project
in a message to our
discussion board, in the discussion titled "Annotation URLs."
Be sure to include your name in the message as well.
Introducing the next
project, the Verbal as Visual Project.
Today, let's extend
the rhizome we began in the discussion
"Three
Plateaus" on the discussion board:
Consider the following:
"The problem, too, Derrida recognizes, is that 'one cannot tamper"
with the form of the book "without disturbing everything else'...in
Western thought" (47)
Giving Western thought its due for a moment, aren't there some advantages
to the arboreal structure of the book
and the achievements of book culture which we will forfeit when we develop
our ideas in plateaus and rhizomes?
We'll continue working
with Photoshop using the file "historyrocks."
Journal Entry #2:
Chunking and Labeling the Visual as Verbal
So far with the Verbal as Visual
Project, we've been focusing on the very necessary business of deciding
on a visual scheme or a conherent set of design elements (repeated colors,
fonts, visual motifs) to unify and give character to our pages.
Now, we should think about the over-all organization of the project,
which is essentially a set of screens or slides, rather than a continuous
flow of words that carry us naturally from page to page.
Notice in our example Seven
how the index page (the first, main, home page) allows us to choose among
four "loops" (three series of screens that develop the three
main characters of the film, and a fourth, one-screen loop that introduces
the idea of the site and its designer). This system of organization is
a natural choice for "remediating" a Hollywood film that, like
so many Hollywood films, is dependent on strong actors/characters. This
choice of organization actually suggests an analysis of what the appeal
and meaning of the film is based on (that is, one actors/characters, as
opposed to plot, dialogue, setting, etc.). Being an analysis or commentary
on the original text, the Verbal as Visual
Project is like a piece of literary criticism, which seeks to "reconstruct
a work in the image of its meaning."
This example leads us to ask: what are the component parts your own
original text for Visual as Verbal (not just textual parts,
but the thematic or aesthetic components of its meaning or appeal.
It also raises the interesting question of your index page: how will
you make these component pages, loops or choices available in a visual
as well as verbal way?
Journal Entry #3
To answer some of the questions above, take a look at the online handout
cognitive mapping from the Ideas
Site. Consider then the differences in cognitive
mapping suggested by the navigation menus of the following Web sites
of English departments around the country. Copy down on a page in your
journal the labels used in the navigation menus on the first, index pages
of these site.
What differences do you notice in the ways the each of the menus (the
words, the labels, the chunking) distill and "normalize" the
same discipline with different emphases?
Journal Entry #3
(again)
To answer some of the questions above, take a look at the online handout
cognitive mapping from the Ideas
Site. Consider then the differences in cognitive
mapping suggested by the navigation menus of the following Web sites
of English departments around the country. Copy down on a page in your
journal the labels used in the navigation menus on the first, index pages
of these site.
What differences do you notice in the ways the each of the menus (the
words, the labels, the chunking) distill and "normalize" the
same discipline with different emphases?
What are the dialogical oppositions (dichomoties) that define
these differences?
Text to Hypertext
Project
Our next project is the Text to Hypertext.
Workshop Thursday
On Thursday we'll workshop the Verbal as Visual
Projects. What should we look for in each others work, both to recognize
accomplishment and to suggest constructive revisions? From your own experience
working on this project, what are the central challenges and opportunities
of this project? Share your ideas via Webx in the discussion titled, "Verbal
as Visual Criteria"
Diachronic
and Synchronic
Text to Hypertext
Project
Any questions on the Text to Hypertext
Project?
Journal Entry #4.
Believing and Doubting Landow's Chapter 3
1. Take a look at Landow's Chapter 3 for
- one idea or passage about hypertext that you have trouble agreeing
with or understanding and
- one passage or idea about hypertext that you felt yourself immediately
agreeing with
2. Paraphrase those ideas in separate paragraphs in your journal. Why
do you think you resist one idea and respond to the other?
3. In his book Writing Without Teachers, Peter Elbow considers
the role of (dis)belief in the "intellectual enterprise,"
which I summarize on the page The
Believing and Doubting Games. Take a look at this summary.
4. Finally, visit our Webx discussion "Three
Plateaus" and post either
- a new message in the discussion to begin a new thread, or
- a reply to a relevant message in an existing thread
In that message, try either
- playing the believing game with the idea from Landow you disagree
with or resist (be sure to cite the page number) or
- playing the doubting game with the idea that you resoonded positively
to (citing the page number
5. Finally, reply to the message of one of your classmates.
Today, we'll learn
to put a search engine on your site (atomz.com).
Choose "search" and then "trial account."
Journal Entry #
5. The author function
Let's think about the "author function,"
first,
- by listing some words from the chapter by which Landow distinguishes
print authorship from digital/hypertext/networked authorship and then
- by testing these differences by comparing the "author function"
of two satirical forms: a Saturday Night Live skit vs. a Web site like
Black People Love
Us.
Today, we'll learn
to use Javascript rollover
images to add interactivity to a page.
Let's review the upcoming
projects we were discussing before the break: the Essay
from Discussion Project and the Interactive
Text project.
Geoff Ryman's Internet
novel 253 is an example of a
literary hypertext. Click on the first link, "Why 253?" to see
Ryman's introduction and try to explore for a few minutes. Try to monitor
your own responses (emotional, cognitive, whatever) to the experience
of Ryman's hypertext, especially as they may exemplify Landow's ideas
from Chapter 5.
We'll deal with Landow's
Chapter 5 partly by working in our Three
Plateaus discussion.
Today, we'll continue
with the in-class activity we started last week...
Three Ideas from
Chapter 5
Remember we had reviewed three ideas from Landow's Chapter 5:
- Landow's challenge to the notion that disorientation is always a bad
thing, and his argument (following Morse Peckham among others) that
disorientation and difficulty is fundamental to the workings of art
(117-118)
- Landow's call for understanding how hypertext indicates changes of
direction and what that new direction will be (the digital equivalent
to words like "in contrast," "nevertheless," and
"on the other hand" in conventional, linear writing). These
"changes of direction" are called tropes, which in essence
means "moves" (123-24)
- Landow's claim that two of the most characteristic tropes (moves)
of hypertext are "appropriation" and "juxtaposition/catachresis"
(171-172, 175, 177)
Experiencing an
Artistic Hypertext
Geoff Ryman's Internet novel 253
is an example of a literary hypertext. Click on the first link, "Why
253?" to see Ryman's introduction and try to explore for a few minutes.
Try to monitor your own responses (emotional, cognitive, whatever) to
the experience of Ryman's hypertext, especially as they may exemplify
Landow's ideas from Chapter 5.
Online Discussion
(toward the Essay from Discussion Project)
How did Landow's analysis about the tropes or "moves" of
hypertext stand up to your actual experience of Ryman's 253?
Chart your answers in our Three
Plateaus discussion. If possible and appropriate, add to an existing
discussion by replying to the last (or most appropriate) message posted
to that thread. If necessary, begin a new discussion simply by posting
a new message, rather than replying.
Online Discussion
(toward the Essay from Discussion Project)
Look for the most recent postings from your classmates in the Three
Plateaus discussion, and respond to each.
An Ominous Sign
Thumbnail Exercise
We'll do an exercise in creating a "thumbnail image" from a
larger original. The point here is to create the thumbnail image so that
when the viewer clicks it for the larger, more complete version, something
happens in terms of the effect/meaning.
- Select an original to use for this exercise from among the following
images, or pick an image of your own.
- Experiment with selecting portions of the image to save as a separate
image
- Mount the thumbnail on an HTML page, and make that image a link to
the larger image file. You might also include a verbal label that sets
up and the effect. For example, look at Geoff Ryman's "Journey
Planner" from 253 and see what you get when you click
the link for "Gulf War Syndrome."
- Save the page and images to your "exercises" folder and
send me the URL by e-mail.
Sample images:
Reading for Thursday
For Thursday, please Read George Landow's Chapter 6 (pages 178-218). Take
note of passages in Landow that might describe your own experiences conceiving
and designing your Interactivity Project.
Rob Wittig,
e-lit author and researcher, will speak at the Tweed Museum's Lecture
Gallery on Tuesday, April 15 at 10 a.m. Visit Wittig's
site to see examples of his work. His talk is entitled, "Creation
at the Crossroads of Literature, Design and New Media."
Interactivity is
a Matter of Perception
Keep in mind that "interactivity" isn't simply a matter of technical
functionality, but is an experience perceived. Consider the trAce Writing
Group's Noon Quilt
and this electronic version of the Gettysburg
Address. What meaning and effects are suggested by interactivity?
How is interactivity suggested by the meaning and effects?
Problem Solving
Today, we'll do problem solving in class on our Interactivity Projects.
Next Tuesday, April
15 at 10 a.m.
Rob Wittig, e-lit author and researcher, will speak at the Tweed Museum's
Lecture Gallery on Tuesday, April 15 at 10 a.m. Visit Wittig's
site to see examples of his work. His talk is entitled, "Creation
at the Crossroads of Literature, Design and New Media."
Mapping Your Interactive
Rationale (in 4 steps) -- Journal Entry #4
1. On a sheet of paper, draw a cluster/map of your Interactivity
Project, showing the "forking paths" of choices among the pages,
and indicating the interactive effects on the individual pages.
2. Then try to sum up in a sentence or two at the bottom of the page
the rationale for presenting this content interactively. What was the
point, for instance, of Peter Norvig's presenting the Gettysburg
Address interactively, or what effects or meaning did Geoff Ryman
achieve by telling the story of the train ride interactively in 253?
What's possible interactively that's not in a straight linear text?
3. Annotate your cluster/map with some "tag lines" (with page
numbers) that point to ideas and passages from Landow's Chapter 6 on Hypertext
narrative. Is Landow's sense of narrative and interactivity relevant to
your project (as one would hope)?
4. Visit the Three
Plateaus discussion to add to a thread, or to start a new thread,
that shares and develops these connections or complications. Be sure to
include page numbers from Landow whenever you mention him (as a help to
youself and others when you come back to this discussion later for the
Discussion into Essay Project).
Today at 10 a.m.
Rob Wittig, e-lit author and researcher, will speak at the Tweed Museum's
Lecture Gallery on Tuesday, April 15 at 10 a.m. Visit Wittig's
site to see examples of his work. His talk is entitled, "Creation
at the Crossroads of Literature, Design and New Media."
Focusing and Shaping
Your Essay
We're turning now to the Essay from Discussion
assignment. This is a chance to consolidate and reflect on what we've
done this semester, and the immediate goal is to focus and shape the essay.
Journal Entry #
5: Clustering on Ideas
1. Look at the "Three
Plateaus" discussion browse through Landow, and think about each
of your projects of this class.
2. On a blank sheet of paper, map in a big cluster the major ideas, insights,
experiences, distinctions and connections from the semester. Choose and
feature the items to the degree that they interested or were relevant
to you personally.
With this cluster, you're fishing around trying to find a particular
issue or question that you're interested in, or that's relevant to what
you do (or will do). What has surprised you in the projects that we've
worked on, the readings we've done, what we've discussed in "Three
Plateaus"? In what topics have the readings and your practical
experience spoken to each other?
3. As you cluster, look for emerging centers of gravities that might
give focus and purpose to what you'll write about.
Remember that you will have more to say about something narrowly defined
than something vaguely defined. Imagine writing an essay about everything:
you'd have hardly anything to say.
4. Now look at your cluster. Write a focusing sentence down at the bottom.
5. Turn the page over and write a quick, very informal paragraph that
grows out of that statement, builds on it. With this paragraph, you're
just thinking on paper, stringing words together to see where they take
you.
6. After you finish that paragraph, stop and "step back" mentally.
Read it over, make notes and additions. Then write a new focusing statement
beneath the paragraph. What you're looking for is a growing sense of narrowing
down your essay's focus.
Shaping (discussion)
With your most recent focusing statement in mind, look through the "Three
Plateaus" discussion. How do we get the spirit of a multi-perspective
"rhizome" discussion into a single-authored, linear text (tree)?
The challenge is not only one of making your point, but figuring out
how you want to write the essay. There are conventional and unconventional
ways of recognizing multiple voices in a linear, single-authored print
text. Here are a few possibilities to get our ideas started, moving from
conventional to radical possibilities. Can you think of other examples
of print documents that contain multiple voices?
- use the traditional academic technique of quoting and citing the other
voices (Landow, your classmates from the online discussion) who support
your point.
- adopt a narrative form: tell the story of your developing idea in
which your classmates and Landow are basically characters.
- present your point through a dialogue or multi-subject interview (and
edited and perhaps partly fictionalized version of the Webx discussion).
Be careful, though, that you don't put words or intentions in people's
mouths, and that you remember that your purpose here is to make your
point, rather than just to replicate a dialogue.
- depart from a linear text in print altogether, break up the page typographically,
etc.
Definition and
Derivation of Political
French. politique (14th c. as adj) political; Latin. pol{imac}ticus;
Greek.pertaining to citizens, civic, civil, political, citizen city, state
Monologue, Monologic,
Dialogue, Dialogic
There are interesting distinctions among these ideas. Consider the following
explanation
by Stanton Wortham of an example of "dialogical" writing:
Novels are built around double-voiced discourse. Bakhtin offers the
following simple illustration from Book 2, Chapter 12 of Charles Dickens,
Little Dorrit:
It was a dinner to provoke an appetite, though he had not had one.
The rarest dishes, sumptuously cooked and sumptuously served; the
choicest fruits, the most exquisite wines; marvels of workmanship
in gold and silver, china and glass; innumerable things delicious
to the senses of taste, smell, and sight were insinuated into its
composition. O, what a wonderful man this Merdle, what a great
man, what a master man, how blessedly and enviably endowed - in
one word, what a rich man! (TDI, 304).
In Bakhtin's analysis, this passage begins with a "parodic stylization
of high epic style." The first two sentences might echo the thoughts
of Merdle himself - Merdle the self-satisfied businessman, who fancies
himself as important as royalty. The italicized portion is "a chorus
of his admirers in the form of the concealed speech of another."
These words echo with the voice of Merdle's hypocritical admirers, who
sing his praises only because they want to share his wealth and fame.
Bakhtin calls the last seven words "authorial unmasking."
Here Dickens replaces all the earlier praises with the single word "rich,"
and thus shows the irony of Merdle's view of himself and the hypocrisy
of his sycophants.
The Doctor and
the Guinea Pig
Today, you'll sign up for conferences on Thursday to discuss the drafts
of your Essay from Discussion projects.
Since these are experiments, however, it's useful to have more than just
my response.
So, I'll ask you to exchange papers and read what your classmate's
come up with. We all know, of course, that this is a draft, that this
is not a finished product but a work in progress. Still, since you can't
hear the sound of your own voice, it's helpful to bounce some material
off someone else.
Once you've read each others' work, I'll ask each of you to tell me--as
someone who hasn't read the draft yet--what you think it's saying
and how it's saying it.
Basically, you're serving as both a doctor--who's mercifully but rigorously
examining the poor, shivering thing in its underwear--and a guinea pig,
the first trial reader whose reactions will help the writer and me to
decide what comes next in conference on Thursday.
Journal Entry #7:
Preparing for Conference
Following up from reading and discussing your drafts, take a few minutes
now to write down your ideas for the next draft of this project. What
do you intend to do next? What do you want to talk about in conference?
Bring this entry to conference on Thursday.
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