9/8/16 

 

     In Fraser's argument about politics, culture, and the public sphere, she makes many valid points about how the public sphere is in need of reconfiguration. The once modern public sphere is no longer acceptable here in our post-modernist era. Fraser argues that the modern public sphere does not provide equal treatment for everyone in society. In reference to the political discussion in the public sphere, Fraser mentions that the use of the word "I" instead of the word "we" disconnects people in conversation and automatically will bring subtle forms of control over the other person. If someone is speaking "I think this," then that person is already telling their audience anything else is wrong in their mind. This creates tension and unwanted disconnect in society.

 

9/12/16

Four things to take away from the reading:

-For a radio broadcast to be interesting and keep people's attention, it must have a beginning, middle, and an end. 

-The stories should have something that people can take away from it, something that the person telling the story learned. This makes a much more satisfying story for listeners. 

-Stories must be planned out well in advance before air time, especially in earlier years of radio broadcast when everything was always live, so messing up was not an option.

-People want a story that they can connect to in some way, it should have some kind of personal or communal attributes to it. 

 

9/15/16

Some challenges I faced while writing this poem is what I wanted to share with the class and how. I wanted my own voice and personality to show through what I was saying. I found this difficult to do at first with the template that was given because it was so generic. However, once I started to really think about things to fill into each line, it became really easy for me to write exactly what I wanted people to know about me and see about me. While writing the poem, I realized that I have been through a lot in just the twenty years of my life. It makes me think about everything else that I have to come in life. I wanted to share the same experiences that everyone else has experienced, but I wanted to share it through my perspective. 

 

9/19/16

Questions for Sana and Chandra:

How did you feel sharing this to strangers?

How has telling this story changed from the first time you have told it to others?

Has telling the story gotten easier for you or is it just as hard to think about each time it is told?

Are there certain questions people ask that you are not comfortable sharing?

Do you feel like people could ask certain questions in a different way? Straightforward or more open ended?

 

9/26/16

Take away from discussion with Chanda and Sana

While listening to Chanda and Sana share their stories and explain to us why they have committed to this refugee project, I felt truly inspired by them. What really stuck with me that Sana had said was that they are people just like us. Before meeting with them, I feel as though I had put them in a different category of living as if they don't live in the same world as everyone else. After Sana explained that she enjoys having normal conversations with people that don't have to do with where she is from, it has helped me have more of an understanding of who they are and what they hope to get from this project. These women deserve the utmost respect, while also respecting that they are people just like us. This means that we should not talk to them as if they are from somewhere else, rather we should talk to them like we would our friend. Another thing that I found powerful to take away from the discussion is the power of voice. Just being one person in the fight can make a difference for people many people. Raising awareness to what is happening and has been happening to humans' rights all over the world is extremely important. The more that we talk about it, the more people have been informed about the ongoing issue.

....Feedback and Revision Plan 

While sharing my Audio Essay draft with some of my peers, I realize that the quality of the audio and the fluidity of the bio itself needs to be edited to be sharper and better articulated. It is obvious I have different parts of the story being recorded because of the change in volume and quality of sound. After reading through my bio a few times I feel that I know it better which will provide a more fluid tone for the essay while I am reading it aloud. 

 

 

10/13/16

     In chapter 4 of Out on the Wire, Keep or Kill: Story Structure, the main focus was about what really makes a story interesting and keeps the attention of the audience. If a story has too much of what is not your point, then people are going to be taken off topic and forget what the objective of your story is. This also leaves room for misinterpretation of your story and people will only hear certain things that you may not have intended to be highlighted in your story. It is important to bring in other material to support your story, but you want it to be relevant and worked within your story. It is important that you keep your main points in each section of your story without making it the only thing that you talk about. 

     Since our group has not interviewed yet, this chapter has helped me realize that yes we are interviewing Carolina about her story, but there is still more to be said that should be said within the interview on Carolina's part and on our part as the interviewers. We need to make sure that Carolina does not get the wrong idea that her past is all we want to know about her and she should feel comfortable sharing whatever she pleases. This will make for a much more versatile piece and one that flows more smoothly and isn't so abrupt and to the point. 

 

10/24/16

     In the book Out on the Wire, chapter 4 is titled "Deep Sea," and this chapter covers sound. I think this title is appropriate when talking about sound because the sea holds so many possibilities. Although the deep sea itself may not make a whole lot of sound, it definitely has the potential to. There is so much that we do not see on the surface of the sea. But if we look deeper, like in a story, we are able to learn more about it by hearing more things and these sounds allow those details to come to the surface. This adds more meaning and effect to the story once we are able to dive deeper into the story without having to do anything at all as a viewer/listener. 

 

11/3/16

1. What is the primary purpose of the edit and what does the process involve (be specific)

     The primary purpose of the edit is to take out any unnecessary information or noise that may overload or confuse an audience. This includes background noise, long pauses, inappropriate language or something that does not fit into the story line or the message you are trying to convey. A lot of people may not realize how much editing goes into making a film or podcast, or any production on a large or small scale. Everything is edited, and this is important because it allows the people producing to depict the story that they want to tell. 

 

2. The chapter details two important concepts in storytelling: framing and signposting. Explain both those concepts and how they function to make the story more compelling.

     While reading this chapter, I discovered what framing and signposting are and how they are used to make a story better and more intriguing. Framing is an important function of a story because this is what gives the piece structure. Framing gives the story a nice flow that is easily comprehended by the audience. Signposting helps to give the audience insight into what direction the story is going in, and what is most important that the audience should be keeping in mind.

 

11/10/16

1. The initial feedback we received from our peers I thought was helpful and efficient in helping us get to a stronger point. There were certain suggestions I agreed with, for example, the idea that subtitles may take away from Carolina's flow and the emotion she brings with it. I do not think that subtitles are completely necessary for our video's sake because she does speak very well in English, and the flow she has going may feel interrupted with block letters rolling on the bottom of the screen. Overall I think everyone understood the main theme of our video and could see that Carolina was speaking on her own behalf about a very personal and rough time in her life that she has fought her way out of, and is here today to share that story. People also caught on to what her passions are, which is when she speaks about the Boys and Girls Club, and how much it has helped her and how much it can help other people. Some peers did say that the pacing was good, however, the clips' transitions were a bit too abrupt and should definitely be slowed and smoothed down. Our group has already started addressing these issues by allowing Carolina's voice to do all the work and we just move the clips around so the story has more structure. We also are aware that we do not have smooth transitions as of right now, but will certainly be revising that over the weekend. 

2. Because our video was still at a rough editing stage when we were asked to show it to someone outside of class, it was a little frustrating to hear about feedback that I know needs to be revised and looked at again. Also, we had spent a lot of time the next day editing and ended up editing until late at night, so the newly edited version has not been seen by anyone, besides our group. My boyfriend was the one who watched the interview and really liked Carolina's story, but definitely thought the transitions needed to be there and more of a structured storyline as well. He understood everything she was talking about, from where she was from, but the history of where she was from could use more background context, and her life now. He said that he would like the addition of music where it is appropriate and more transitions for a better flow. 

 

11/14/16

Part 1:

     This background story is interesting and is a good segway into the visual piece that follows the background reading. I think that oral history is the history told through whoever is speaking of it orally. This is going to be different than what someone else recalls in their history, even if they experienced the same thing. I think someone orally talking about their history is only part of the narrative, and helps tell the story along with the visuals and other information added in. The oral history is not the only component in the story, but it helps shape the narrative and gives the readers/viewer more of a background before given any more information/visual. There is no way to put a narrative like this into a cohesive piece that has a start and finish because so much is overlapped and revisited that it would be impossible to have it mapped out. The idea of "disorder of lived experience," is more appropriate to think of this piece as because life experiences are not to have a clear bulleted recap or procedure, they happen randomly and over long periods of time. 

Part 2:

     The Olive project helps me understand and reiterates the fact that there are so many ways that a story can be told. There is not just one textual, or audio, or visual way of telling a story or getting someone's point across. These formats of storytelling can be used one at a time, a few at once, or even all in one piece. They can be overlapping each other, or they can be used together to help bring out the composer's point even more than just one way of showing a story. This piece really opens my eyes to all the possibilities there are to produce a story and share it with an audience. 

     I think when you are trying to represent someone's life through just one piece, it is almost impossible to do it in just one medium. An audience would benefit a lot more with text, visuals, and audio, rather than just one of those to represent the whole. There are certain things you do not see when listening to audio or reading a text. There are also things that you do not see that can be explained with audio or text. This is why having multiple ways of getting a story across is very important to how the story is portrayed and seen. 

 

11/17/16

1.     The purpose of this article is to dive into the term 'multimodal' and all the other terms that have seemed to be meshed together with multimodal. These other terms include new media, digital media, and multimedia. I think the author does a really good job of introducing the topic of multimodal, and what exactly she wants to explore when during this project she has created. Claire Lauer uses a variety of media in her composed piece to show her audience all the layering that is involved with multimodal. So, she is not only talking about it, she is showing it through visuals, audio, text, and even more ways of communication that would have never been paired up together in the past.

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2.  I thought that the metaphor Lauer uses from the story Romeo and Juliet were extremely powerful. When Juliet raises the rose and says "What's in a name?" is really declaring that we may call something one thing, but that does not dictate what the thing actually is. This metaphor really made me think about how there are so many things in life that we may call one thing, but can mean something completely different. In multimodal writing, the name multimodal may be used differently, or not at all when that is what someone is actually talking about or referring to. To me, multimodal is still a very new way of communicating and is still being developed and advanced every day. I think it needs to be taught more in classes rather than written text that only involves thinking about something and putting it onto paper with a pen or pencil and some sentences. 

 

12/5/16

1. In reviewing reflections today, it is clear that we need to be using examples from what we have learned in class and translate it into our final reflection piece. I want to include references from our text, Out on the Wire because I feel they do a really great job of explaining what multimodal consists of and how it should be used. The "So What?" is what I really want to focus on in my final reflection because I feel like that was the most important thing we learned in this class. A story is not really a story without a "so what." 

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2. Moving forward, I plan on adding in more references and including more of the "so what?" aspect of a story and tie it into our refugee project because I feel like Carolina's story is a great example of a story that definitely contains a "so what." Which will give me a good reference and help my audience understand what I mean by that "so what" take away. I want to try to record my voice and have myself draw something or create something that demonstrates how a process works and how there are different steps that can be taken to get to a final piece.