Hello everyone!
Last week marked the completion of your unit 1 readings. I hope you enjoyed the articles! I often tell students in my first-year English courses that assumptions about identity and human-ness are the kinds of underlying warrants that appear in ALL academic arguments. Asking/answering questions about what it means to be a person is inherently relevant for that reason.
Your final post of the unit allowed you to practice the type of writing that would be required of you in an art history class. The kind of analysis that is appropriate for art history is highly technical and precise. This might be surprising to you since we normally associate the arts with feeling and interpretation.
To view a handful of "Greatest Hits" that exhibit very strong descriptive writing, see:
Darien's blog: http://darienallen.blogspot.com/
Amber's blog: http://ambalicious7.blogspot.com/
April's blog: http://aprilpage333.blogspot.com/
Others of you also had insightful, deeply felt things to say about the artwork. It was fun to read your thoughts. :-)
This week, we'll be using previous blog posts as the rough material for a fully realized analytic essay. You can use your peer group members' reviews to help you judge which blog post might have the most potential to become a strong final essay. Be sure to expand on your topic within the appropriate field of inquiry. For example, if you decide to expand on the post about the Frida Kahlo painting, choose articles that appear in journals that are specific to the field of Art History. A link to ASU Libraries is available in the "Research and Writing Assistance" module of your Course Documents on Blackboard. Academic Search Premier and JSTOR are great search engines for journal articles. A good way to remind yourself about which field of inquiry is most relevant to your own essay is to go back to your book and look up the article you wrote about in the post; each article mentions which specific field the scholar was writing for, and will allow you to similarly narrow the scope of your inquiry.
View the following brief video clip to learn about the purpose of academic articles for your own essay writing: http://lib.asu.edu/librarychannel/2010/04/20/libminute_026/
Remember to post your rough drafts to Blackboard by Tuesday evening and to offer critique to your group members by Thursday evening. This will give everyone an opportunity to review their revision suggestions and edit their essays through the weekend before turning in a final draft.
This upcoming weekend, you'll recieve an email notification from me once I've posted my own revision suggestions for your rough drafts. I like to point out areas of strength/weakness as a way of guiding you towards a successful final draft. Keep in mind that my own feedback may be more constructive than praising. Know that I appreciate your effort and writing, and that my intention is to assist you in getting the best grade possible, and in teaching you how to write to a high academic standard.
Writing an academic essay presents an opportunity for you to be just as innovative and creative as in any other style of writing. You'll want to think of ways to surprise, interest, and motivate your readers to continue on. Remember: great writing is just as important as great thought. Also remember to write for an audience that may or may not be in this class; this means, you ought not assume someone knows what you're talking about. Spell everything out as you would have, had you been writing from a set of articles that none of your readers have read before.
If you have any questions, feel free to email.
Happy Writing!
-AP
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