9/8/16
Fraser explains politics, culture, and the public sphere in a different light. She compares and contrasts what individuals say the public sphere is or is assumed to be versus what it actually is. She talks about how the public sphere used to be limited to certain individuals and excluded others such as women, and particular social classes. Although we have come past these exclusions and they are no longer part of society, Fraser talks about how these still currently exist in our society as well as the public sphere. Fraser also believes society should not be limited to one public sphere in order to push to better democracy.
9/12/16
After reading today's assigned pages of "Out on the Wire" many different areas of creating a successful radio story/podcast. The first thing that resonates in my memory is that the story needs to be told as a sequence of events. This put emphasis on the fact that radio stories need to flow so they can make sense and have a clear picture to the listener.
The second point that I learned through the reading was that in radio you have to first tell the story and then explain what it means because people infer meaning of things on the radio. The story must be told, explained, and then leave moment for reflection.
Another point that was brought to my attention was that when conducting an interview, you must structure your interview carefully and choose your sequence of events. When trying to get your interviewee to open up and become personal, you must first open up to them so that the atmosphere is comfortable and trust is built.
Finally, I learned that regardless of the topic of the story all radio stories have these elements in common: stories that ask big questions, surprising characters, narrative structure, and good use of sound.
9/15/16
When writing my about me poem, I first found it challenging to brainstorm the different topics. Once I created a line, the ideas started flowing and many memories started to come into my head. At this point, it became hard to even choose which ones I wanted to include because they all meant so much to me. When writing this poem I felt a sense of gratitude come over me that is often lost in the shuffle of everyday life. It made me come to realize that not everyone who has been challenged to reflect on their past such as I was doing at the moment, would have such happy and sweet memories. This realization made me very grateful and made me want to call my family to thank them. When choosing which memories to include, I picked the moments that stuck out to me that most and hit an emotional nerve for me. I felt as though those little moments were the ones that really shaped me into who I was and gave an accurate description of where I come from. The ones I feel would be the most revealing would be the ones specifically about my family traditions and relationships. I grew up extremely close to my family, and many of my friends were able to better understand me once they experienced a family dinner with us or a family event. Overall, I am happy we did this assignment because it gave me a moment to appreciate the little things again.
09/19/16
When Sana and Chanda come to visit I think some of these questions might be helpful to address:
What information about your interviewer do you typically like to know beforehand?
Does it bother you/make you uncomfortable when people get emotional hearing your story?
How can your interviewer support/comfort you best if/when you get emotional when sharing your story?
Are there certain factors that make you feel more comfortable when being interviewed?
What format of interviewing makes you feel most comfortable? (conversation/strict question& answer)
09/26/16
One of the things I would like to remember best from our meeting with Sana and Chanda was our discussion about comparing stories. One student asked what type of information should she share when giving an interview because her story would be different from theirs, and she didn't want to be insensitive towards the different life circumstances. Sana and Chanda's response to her question was especially warming to me because they told us to never devalue or compare our own stories and experiences because they are different from each other. They explained that they appreciate authenticity and value any information that someone chooses to share. Sana explained that even she feels like this at times when she shares her story because there are worse stories and situations than hers. This point of the conversation made me feel more confident in sharing my story and reminded that even though we are all different, we are all the same, which is human.
The feedback I received on my audio bio draft 1 was very helpful because I now have a better idea of what sounds I could use to enhance my story. I was lost on which sounds would fit my script but my group had good suggestions on possible sounds to add. I was unconfident about the flow and evolution of script but my group said it built up and flowed well. Overall, I was able to further brainstorm ideas for my audio bio based off of their feedback and from being able to hear their bios as well.
10/13/16
This chapter on Out on the Wire was about the process of editing your story and choosing the most important aspects to include in the story. The biggest takeaway I got from this chapter is to focus on the moments that are most emotional, influential, and interesting. This is important so the listeners/viewers do not lose interest in the story and so the most important aspects of the story were the ones that were included in order to get the main message across.
The interview with Cecelia was very enlightening and emotional. After reading the chapter, I feel as though I am going to reframe the sequence of questions throughout the interview from my original plan. I originally wanted to talk about her daily life, then move into her story as a refugee, and then end on a more positive note. Our first question we asked Cecelia was, "What would you like to focus on today?" which she responded "the war" and then started to go into her story. Because she initially went into the war, we started in the middle of our plan for the interview. After reading the chapter, it might be more beneficial to start where she started off. Starting off on a heavy note and then moving towards positive might be a better structure, rather than starting light, moving to heavy, and then light again.
10/24/16
From reading Chapter 4 of out on the wire, I think sound was metaphorized as the “Deep Sea” because sound connects the flow and sequence of a story, as the ocean connects different regions of land together. This metaphor made me think of the sound track for the Titanic, and the famous instrumental melody that plays throughout the movie. This reminded me of that melody for both the literal connection to the ocean, but also because this was the sound that played in all emotional moments of the movie and connected the story from beginning to end. This is the same for radio stories, meaning sound helps to connect and emphasize different tones and emotion of story for the listener. In terms of my own video I will be creating, this helped to emphasize the importance of reflecting on what sounds will be most influential for the point of view we are trying to convey. Sound will be very effective when trying to convey different emotions that were present in the interview.
11/03/16
Chapter 5 "Your Baby's Ugly" centers on the idea that the composition process involves growth from the initial first draft of your "baby," which requires editing, critique, and revision to reach a final product. The primary purse of the edit is to finalize your story in a way that it flows efficiently and is effective on telling the purpose of the story. This includes pulling the right emotions from the listener, getting the purpose(s) of the story across to the listener, and having the correct tone of the story. The process involved includes having multiple individuals listen to and assess your story in order to receive feedback and effective critique. Various opinions and commentary from other individuals assist with the editing process and allow outside perspectives. The editing process itself includes cutting out elements of the story based on effectivity, shortening particular sections, changing the flow or storyline, and adding outside elements such as sounds and images.
Framing and signposting are both important elements in storytelling. Framing requires choosing an angle for the story and choosing which perspectives and emotions you want to draw from the story. Framing involves connecting the story to a larger idea in order for the listener to relate. Signposting is the process of making the audience aware that an important aspect of the story is about to be revealed. This is a method of catching the audiences attention when storytelling. Both of these make storytelling more effective and compelling because they help to alleviate confusion as well as assist in getting the main purpose of the story across. They also help to highlight the purpose and guide the listeners throughout the storytelling process.
11/10/16
The feedback we received from both our classmates as well as our outside of class peer review has been very beneficial. The feedback from class primarily was to create a stronger, less abrupt ending and to add subtitles. They also suggested that there was a weak transition between the question which Cecelia states what she wants to focus on, to then asking her about her life here versus in Liberia. One other suggestion that stuck out to me was that there was no introduction of herself, and an outside viewer would not have known the situational context for our project. The advice we received from the feedback will definitely be used in our revisions. We will need to add an informational slide providing info on her life and the project. We will definitely will be adding subtitles and will construct a strong ending. We will most likely change the sequence of questions to make it less confusing for viewers.
The feedback I received was from my friend from home, Taylor Simone, who has no information regarding the quest for refuge project. She also suggested subtitles and suggested receiving background knowledge on Cecelia in a slide before directly jumping into her interview answers. She also could tell the ending was not finished and suggested giving a strong ending because Cecelia’s story was so emotional. Overall, the feedback we received was very helpful.
11/14/16
Oral history is the accumulation of information and history from past events, typically coming from recordings such as interviews, videos, and audio recordings. Thinking of oral history as a “co-constructive process of narrative composition” refers to oral history being used as a tool or guide in the process of telling a narrative. Oral history has primary information that can be used when composing a narrative. Attempting to “map coherence” onto the “disorder of lived experience” refers to the messiness of trying to successfully compose a narrative of life experience. Oral history can be used a guide to map lived experience into a way that is organized and can be understood by the audience because it helps to create a timeline. The implications of these questions can be used on our work with the Quest for Refuge Project because we are trying to condense the lived experience of an individual that was told in over 60 minutes, to be successfully represented in 5 minutes of video. These questions help to reflect on the importance of mapping out a route to follow in order to successfully tell the purpose and message of our community storytelling project.
The Olive Project helps me to think about multimodal composition in multiple ways. First in terms of story sequence, this project took a different approach rather than a simple “start to end” of a story format. The Olive Project has different images bulked together, followed by an audio and highlighted key words that transport you to a different part of the story that relates to the topic. For example, there is a clip that talks about their family chickens, where if you click the keyword underneath you are then brought to another clip talking about cats and cattle. This is different because the parts of the story are not related by time frame, but by subject. This is approach is effective because it makes the audience draw their own conclusions for the big picture, and get to know the story in different pieces.
This piece helps me think about writing for public audiences in terms of who the audience is and how you want them to see the purpose of the narrative. Typically, a biography or memoir has a “start to finish” approach, where this took a unique approach but was just as effective in getting to know her grandmother. This also had a more personal approach because you are hearing her tell various stories of her life rather than one large story from start to finish.
The Olive Project showed me that in addition to the persons story being told, conveying someone’s personality while telling that story is just as important. The Olive Project preserved the nature of the story and you feel as though you are really getting to know her grandmother. The approach is very authentic and personal, and does not feel staged as most interviews do. This will be important in our Quest for Refuge project as well, to genuinely convey the purpose and focus.
11/17/16
The purpose of this article was to explain how specific words such as “multi modal” or “multimedia” have different meanings and definitions based on different contexts such as audience, time period, historical context, etc. This article explained that thought by featuring various interviews with different individuals on how they define these words or explaining what terms they prefer over those. This form communicates the purpose because the article explains how multimodal writing uses many different forms unlike a simple written text, so the actual format of a webpage being used to describe this is a visual tool itself. With each interview, you not only see the quote of the person in text, but also are provided an image and an audio recording of the actual interview.
I found many things interesting throughout Part I and Part II of the article. Specifically, I found it interesting when listening and reading Cynthia Selfe’s interview in the audience-oriented section that she said she uses the terms “audio essay” or “video” instead of the term “multimodal” depending on her audience. She explains that most people do not have a clear idea of the word “multimodal” so using a more simple approach is more understandable for individuals outside her field. I particularly could agree with this, because when originally looking through the writing courses available I was unsure what “Multimodal Writing” was.
Another idea I found interesting in the same section was Cheryl Ball’s interview “Talking with students” in which she had a contrasting view. She does use the term “multimodal” when talking with students because students are familiar with the term “multimedia” which is an aid for them to understand. These two contrasting views put an emphasis on how important choosing language specific to your audience is in communication.
11/21/16
My specific contributions to the video project was a variety of elements. As far as the actual interview, I asked Cecelia the questions and conducted the interview, where Kathryn worked the camera and Julia took notes. In the processing of making the video, I collaborated with Kathryn and Julia in deciding the sequence of the video. I picked the background facts to include in the first few slides while Kathryn and Julia picked the music. I also worked with Kathryn in putting in the subtitles into the movie. Julia first listened to the video and wrote a general transcript, I then listened to it piece by piece to confirm and then Kathryn put it onto the video. We each watched and reviewed and discussed possible edits and tweaks to finally produce a final product.
The clips we chose to include in the video please me the most. We tried to pick the most genuine moments we experienced with Cecelia. I almost am happy with our decision to end the video on her advice to individuals going through a similar circumstance, I think this was an inspirational and positive note to end her story with. The part of our movie that displeased me is the subtitles. It was difficult to 100% put each word she said onto the screen because she bounced back and forth, and there was a language barrier. We took an extremely long time and tried to do the absolute best we could but I still wish it was 100% perfect.
If given the opportunity again to do this project, I would be able to avoid the trial and error with the computer software we used. We had many issues with iMovie seeing as none of us had the same software updates. This made it impossible for us and we finally figured out a method. Our ending method was exporting the video as an MP4 each time and downloading to a flash drive but this was difficult. If I was to do it again, I would have us either pay for the update or buy another software to make it easier.
12/05/16
After viewing some of the final reflections of the class, I really admired some of the formats and sound elements that some of my classmates used throughout their reflections. I can use some of these elements for my own inspiration when trying to pick appropriate audio elements to use in my final.
Going forward, I need to work on the creation of the audio aspect of my final reflection. I currently have an outline of the clips I would like to use in my project, and a revised intro page. My next step is create my audio pieces on audacity to be used to explain my decision process. Some of these will be combined with video elements as well.