Writing About Juno?

Per my proposition in class, is anyone interested in trying to pull together a critique of Juno to send off to a magazine or journal for publication? It will take a lot of work, researching where to send it off, and pulling together our arguments and evidence in a coherent way... but I am interested in doing it if you are!

Leave a comment if you think you might want to get on board for this...

LB :)

This is one possibility for submission:

A Style Nobody Can Deal With

I have heard from a few of you that the Tricia Rose reading (here online and outside my office door at HBS 207 if you weren’t in class last week!!) is a difficult read. Compelling. Fascinating. But hard to follow. Be patient with her. Seek out the big picture. What is she trying to say here.

You also might make a list of the words you don’t know and list them on your blog. Look those words up online and make links to any useful information you can find that helps you understand them. For example:

“Hip hop is an Afro-diasporic cultural form which attempts to negotiate the experiences of marginalization, brutally truncated opportunity and oppression within the cultural imperatives of African American and Carribean history, identity and community.” Check out my links (I mostly used wikipedia because the site felt rich and thorough, but you can look at any sites that help you understand the concept). Now… translation, anyone??

Also, remember to use the format I offer in the syllabus:

Some things I understand
Some things I don’t understand
Connections to texts/course themes
Questions/comments to raise in class

You can still write in a fluid, narrative form, but stay focused on making sense of the text and connecting it to other issues we have discussed. Check out Nicole’s blog for a good use of this.

I will leave you with a question to consider: how does Rose’s argument apply to 2008? Her article was published in 1994 so her examples and context are dated at this point. Do her overall claims stand up in 2008? (Sarah B sems to ask this question on her blog as well, and makes a good connection to Prensky.)

“I intend to demonstrate the importance of locating hip hop culture within the context of deindustrialization and to show how hip hop’s primary properties of flow, layering and rupture silmultaneously reflect and contest the social roles up to urban inner city youth at the end of the twentieth century” (402).

What do you think?

Pew Studies on Technology

Per our lively conversation on Monday about Prensky's article, I wanted to share with you this link to the Pew Charitable Trust Research Center. They release reports often, sometimes even weekly! If you want more information about Digital Natives and the digital culture in which we all live, check out the study on Teens and Social Media. Feel free to poke around at the other studies as well!

LB :)

So? How was Juno?

I haven't had time yet to post my thoughts about seeing Juno for the second time last night. (Sorry the weather spoiled our group viewing, but I am glad a handful of you were able to come out last night!)

If you saw Juno, with us or alone, I am very interested to hear what you thought... how does this film teach us about teenagers? How does this film teach us about gender? What assumptions does this film have about what is normal and natural and good in the world? What does it value? Who does it value? How do you know? (Think of Christensen's barage of questions that we used to analyze Beauty and the Beast!)

Here are a couple of reviews of the film that raise some compelling issues. I will post more of my own thoughts this weekend when I can take some time to organize and reflect.

Sex and the Teenage Girl (NY Times)
Changing the Script on Teen Pregnancy (Boston Globe)

Media Literacy

Hope you are having a good weekend. If you haven't already put your blog up, please make sure to do so before class on Monday. I want to get all the links set up, so leave me a COMMENT with your blog address once you have finished.

Check out this video I pulled off of youtube... Some of you may have seen TOUGH GUISE (produced by the Media Education Foundation) before. This clip raises great questions that compliment the issues Christensen raises in the reading this week. Leave me a comment and let me know what you think!

LB :)