Portfolio Overview

Portfolios are due on the last day of E306, April 28, 2011 and should reflect a comprehensive overview of the coursework.

Portfolios are not summaries; they should reflect assessment and analysis.

PORTFOLIO: Due April 28

There are two types of daily writing: one related to online reading and in-class workshops, and one related to Guest Speaker Presentations.

Your final portfolio should include, in order:

            Title Page;

            Table of Contents

            A one page reflective summary/analysis of the course

            All daily writing pertaining to coursework

            All daily writing pertaining to Guest Speaker's presentations (include your classmates' presentations)

 

SPEAKERS 

Tom Eblen, Herald-Leader columnist (cited role models Bobbie Ann Mason, Peter Taylor, Silas House)

Jonathan Miller (KY's secretary of finance at the time of his visit), founding website RecoveringPolitician

first discussion of building a platform: websites, blogs, social media

Mack McCormick, University Press of Kentucky (references Linda Scott DeRosier Creeker: A Woman's Journey (Women in Southern Culture) 

Tom Marksbury, screenwriter/novelist, UK instructor

JD Lester, children's author Daddy Calls Me Doodlebug; Mommy Calls Me Monkeypants; Grandma Calls Me Gigglepie

(JD references www.scbwi.org; write4kids.com; www.pred-ed.com. Who is the Association/Tribe that applies to your chosen field of writing)

Todd Wright, author The Self-Improvement Book Club Murder

(day job: attorney; Naval officer; referenced Charles Flood; "createspace" at amazon)

Kakie Urch, UK Assoc. Professor New Media

(referenced James Baker Hall; Bobbie Ann Mason; Guy Mendes; Gurney Norman; Silas House -- recommended looking at the lives of Writers; recommended books: The Clockwork Muse: A Practical Guide to Writing Theses, Dissertations, and Books; and  Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies For Every Writer)

Bianca Spriggs  How Swallowtails Become Dragons Kaffir Lily

activism; publishing; guerilla marketing. FIND YOUR TRIBE.

Christina Noll, University of Kentucky Alumni Association Magazine

brochures, catalogs, Search Engine Optimization

Drew Curtis, It's Not News, It's Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap As News

"Write even when you don't feel like it." "If you have an audience, you can sell a book." "People won't click unless you give them a reason." "1000 true fans."

Ed McClanahan  The Natural Man, Famous People I Have Known (Kentucky Voices) My Vita, If You Will: The Uncollected Ed McClanahan A CONGRESS OF WONDERS.

discussion: Ken Kesey; Stegner Fellowships at Stanford; 68/69 NCAA tourney; his tribe: Jim Baker Hall, Wendell Berry, Gurney Norman (Bobbie Ann Mason also a Stegner fellow). Never a great payday, except for seling Natural Man 1983 (the other book that sold that year was Mosquito Coast)

Dr. Kevin Nelson, neurologist, University of Kentucky Medical Center, The Spiritual Doorway in the Brain: A Neurologist's Search for the God Experience 

He is with Viking/Dutton/Penguin. Overseas rights to Simon and Schuster. Started with 50 page proposal. Practicing neurologist since 1984. 

Michael Geneve, Voices from the Peace Corps: Fifty Years of Kentucky Volunteers (Kentucky Remembered: An Oral History Series)

 2011 is 50th anniversary of Peace Corps. Taught in Mozambique (students didn't have books; had to build library to obtain funding/donations of books). Peace Corps goals: 1. Provide aid to a developing country; 2. Learn another country's culture; 3. bring the experience back to the U.S. and tell about it.

Katerina Stoykova-Klemer, Accents Publishing 

started out as electrical engineer behind the Iron Curtain; moved to U.S.; left language behind; stopped writing for 11 years. MBA Virginia Tech. MFA came later. Advice: read out loud; engage as many parts of the brain as possible. Role model: Richard Taylor (former KY poet laureate). Find like-minded people. Be accountable to others. Read each other's work. The idea behind Accents: "word needs to travel." Accents radio show airs on Fridays on WRFL.

ASSIGNED READING 

Why it's important to read David Foster Wallace

NYT "Why do writers abandon novels?"  (featuring Michael Chabon)

NYT: Story is KING

Does an Author Need a Website? HuffPo. (What are the ways in which a website could be obsolete? Consider mobile technology. Additional platforms. What parts of this interview are old-school?)

Publish or Perish author Susan Orlean talks about how the process of getting a book published in her New Yorker blog

The Problem with Memoirs  (New York Times, January 28, 2011 "A moment of silence, please, for the lost art of shutting up." 

Kentucky Voices: Call to Civic -- and Civil Action by Kentucky Secretary of Finance and Administration, Jonathan Miller, guest speaker, January 25, 2011.

David Carr's NYT essay Publishing without Publishers

Author Michael Chabon blogs for a week for The Atlantic

RECOMMENDED READING 

How Book Publishing Has Changed Since 1984: Peter Osnos @TheAtlantic: http://ow.ly/4zqRo

How Google Is Evolving Into a Media Company by David Carr- http://nyti.ms/eEUyXW

See Matt Cutts, UK Alum Google's Algorithm Tweaks Pushed Down "Two-Thirds" of Yahoo's Contrib Content http://t.co/JN3Q97f

Borders' Bankruptcy Shakes the Publishing Industry http://nyti.ms/edbOTQ http://ow.ly/1bnEfN 17 Feb

10 ½ Tips for Being a More Effective Author Online: http://dld.bz/MbU9

Stephen King Knows a Few Things About the Movie Adaptation of The Stand http://bit.ly/gJKRhe

Does your school use Twitter in a cool way? Stanford tops the list of most influential colleges according to  http://t.co/YDZlaKQ

EXERCISES
Obituary Writing
Classmate Interviews 

Project Format

Projects are due Thursday April 5, 2011.

Preferred spacing is 1.25.

Five pages plus Works Cited page (standard MLA), with appendices (interview transcipts, notes, etc). 

Staple your papers, then binder clip all appendices, notes, etc.

Format is: Introduction, Methods (interview, shadowing, research), Results, Discussion. 

Presentations: Do not read from your project. Provide your classmates with a thorough understanding of both your subject, and the Industry you shadowed. What are the market forecasts? Industry trends? Past evolution and expected evolution. Visual aids and handouts highly encouraged (but not mandatory).

Schedule of Presentations:
Thursday April 7, Last names A thru F.
Tuesday April 12, Last name G.
Thursday April 14, Last name H
Tuesday April 19 Last names J and K
Thursday April 21 Last names L and M
Tuesday April 26 Last names N thru R
Thursday April 28  Last names S thru Z.

Books from In Class Speakers

Fark.com founder and Lexington native Drew Curtis joined us in the classroom on March 8. Drew is also the author of It's Not News, It's Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap As News, which was published by Gotham. (Drew wrote his first book at the age of 16.) He also introduced the class to the "1,000 True Fans" and "nobody has a million twitter followers" discussions. (Reflect both in portfolio entries.)

Author Ed McClanahan joined us on March 10, and brought along a career's worth of books, including his first novel The Natural Man, an essay collection, Famous People I Have Known (Kentucky Voices), O the Clear Moment, and a collection, containing his favorite story, A CONGRESS OF WONDERS. He was also an editor on the Ken Kesey tribute, Spit in the Ocean, No. 7: All About Ken Kesey. His current publisher is Counterpoint, and his next book will be out this October.

UK connections he referenced in class included James Baker Hall, Wendell Berry, Gurney Norman, and Bobbie Ann Mason. All studied under Robert Hazel at University of Kentucky, and all were Stegner fellows at Stanford University. (Reflect on the importance of "tribe" in portfolios.)

The speaker scheduled for Tuesday March 22 is Dr. Kevin Nelson. His new book is The Spiritual Doorway in the Brain: A Neurologist's Search for the God Experience.

E306: Feb 15 and Feb 17, 2011

Our two guest authors this week both have books you can explore further online.

JD Lester is the author of  Mommy Calls Me Monkeypants and Daddy Calls Me Doodlebug along with the forthcoming Grandma Calls Me Gigglepie.

A thorough portfolio entry on JD Lester would include following up on the research her handout recommended, e.g., SCBWI,  and finding the appropriate association that fits for your genre (if it isn't children's literature). Then join it. Review some of the industry sites she recommended, e.g., "Preditors and Editors."

How did she stress the role of research, and how can you apply that to your writing path and writing career (or writing hobby, if that's the route you're planning). Discuss the role of writing within a Community, and how you plan to develop that community for yourself.

Todd Wright, whose new book is The Self-Improvement Book Club Murder reminded us that all readers will ask, "why am I reading this," and we should be able to answer that in the first sentence, the first paragraph, and the first page. 

For his eighth novel (first published novel), he chose a format that he would understand and that readers would understand: the Murder Mystery. It is not an experimental format.

A thorough portfolio entry will examine many of the topics he introduced:

How did he apply Anthony Burgess's theory of two plots?

How are you applying Vonnegut's advice (Read. Write.)

What did you think of Wendell Berry's assessment that computers make you write too much?

What is the role of an MFA program for writing, and what are some alternative paths?

How might the Borders bankruptcy (and others) impact authors, and booksellers?

Explore his "how-to publish" directions. Go to Amazon's CreateSpace -- sketch out a theoretical budget and  marketing plan if you were using this route.

Portfolio Points

Portfolios should be designed to reflect assessment and analysis, not summary.

What are the jumping off points inspired by the guest speaker or assigned reading? Are their arguments effective? Are there challenges? Examine in the context of larger trends, and in the context of your writer's path.

Interview Methodology

An important part of the research project will be Interviews/Shadowing with your subject.

Here are a few links you will find useful as you prepare for the interviews:

Interview Questions (MediaCollege.com)
Open-Ended Questions (MediaCollege.com)

Tools of the Trade: The Question (Poynter Online)

The Appendix for the research project must include transcripts of your interview and copies of all your handwritten notes, so maintain them thoughtfully as you proceed.

ENG 306: Tuesday January 25, 2011

Today's guest speaker was Jonathan Miller, Kentucky's Secretary of Finance and Administration. He is the author of  The Compassionate Community: Ten Values to Unite America.

Write up a thorough portfolio entry on Secretary Miller, with follow-up and research on the points that have the most application for your writing path.  Possible items for analysis might include (but are not limited to): what factors make writing a "tough business" (free content? the economic climate? digital factors)?  How might you envision his forthcoming website as a local HuffPo style hub (what would you want to see, as a reader?)? You might discuss his recent article on the Aspen Institute. How do garage door openers damage society? How does he employ Twitter and facebook both in his government role and as an Author? What are the ten universal ideals outlined in his book? What is the one principle that unites religions -- the Universal Moral Principle? Discuss The Most Awful Game in Sports History? Discuss the Y tradition. Discuss RFK's MLK speech referenced in class.

Prepare for Thursday's January 27 guest, Mack McCormick from the University Press of Kentucky.

Follow Five: Select 5 twitter accounts to follow that will enrich your professional and personal development as a Writer. Tweet those to share with the rest of the class. (Tag @ProfessorAceKy in the post.)

Finalize your Research Subject (proposals due Tuesday, February 1). You will share your Proposal in-class on Tuesday February. Prepare your portfolios (in progress) in suitable format to turn in Tuesday, February 1.

Portfolio Entries on our Guest Speakers

Write up each of our Guest Speakers as a portfolio entry.

The portfolio will include analysis and assessment of the Speaker's writing path.  It's not a transcript of the Speaker's class participation (although some summary is expected), it is an exploration of what they said and how you followed up on that information.

Be specific, and focus on segments that are learning opportunities for you. For example, Tom Eblen's presentation touched on: the importance of rewriting; blogging; management vs. editing vs. writing; business writing; photography; his educational background; his employers (Atlanta Journal Constitution; the AP; Lexington Herald-Leader).

He talked about the fact that the HL has more readers online now than the print edition. What are the implications? He discussed social media as a tool. He discussed different audiences for different forms of writing (a blog audience is not the same as a column audience).

He talked about the cinematic style that engages readers today and why. He touched on NPR's This American Life. He listed a few favorite writers: Peter Taylor and James Agee. He talked about Kentucky authors, Bobbie Ann Mason and Silas House. He talked about the process that went into his Martin Luther King holiday observations (and civil rights history). He named a few favorite interviews: Minnie Pearl, Jimmy Carter, Loretta Lynn. How does who you work for impact your choice of subject -- and your access to the subject? How would you resolve these issues?

What is the easiest thing for a Reader to do....? Why do we read our writing out loud? How will curiosity (or being "nosy") serve you as a writer? How could you use a short attention span to your benefit as a writer? Do you have something to say? What is the most compelling way to say it? How is everything "material?"

Your portfolio entry will use the Speaker's discussion as a jumping-off point for additional analysis and research. Be specific. Review your notes. Think. Reflect. Then write.

Twitter How-To

We use twitter for several reasons in this class.

As a communications tool, we use it to share information openly as a group; to share blog posts; to share information about our guest speakers; and to ask and answer class or university-wide questions. (UK's weather alerts are always available via twitter, for example.)

As writers, we can look at writing as a muscle. So we exercise every day. Writing in 140 characters is one skill; writing blog posts is another; writing research reports is another; writing portfolio entries is another; and writing in your notebook, every day, develops a different area entirely.

Twitter also gets us out of the classroom and into a network of millions of writers, editors, and publishers. There are novelists and screenwriters and medical writers and magazine editors, and every other permutation. Choose who you follow. Engage with them.

At a minimum, follow your Instructor and follow your classmates. (There is a list at ProfessorAceKY labeled E306. It is on the right of the screen. Click on that and follow your fellow students.)

Here's a link to a Twitter overview:
http://www.jhische.com/twitter/

 

BOOKS: On Writing, Stephen King

We discussed Stephen King's writing how-to book in class. It turns out, an anniversary edition was released last summer:  On Writing: 10th Anniversary Edition: A Memoir of the Craft.

It's an entertaining book -- half memoir, and half how-to.

You can read Janet Maslin's  New York Times piece here.

ENG 306: Today's Online Reading

Please read David Carr's NYT essay Publishing Without Publishers .

Write an assessment/analysis of this piece for your portfolio (cite in appropriate MLA format).

Discuss the "cutting out the middle man" approach to publishing. What might it mean for Anna Wintour and Vogue? What might it mean for the various career paths we discussed in Tuesday's class?  How does a trend toward putting the Brands in charge of content impact your path as a Writer?

ENG 306: Tuesday January 18, 2011

Today, English 306 students will:

start a blog. (You may password protect your blog if you prefer so that it is readable by your Instructor and your fellow students.)

Open up a Twitter account (a micro-blog). Again, students may opt to "protect" their status updates and password in classmates and instructor.

First online reading for in-class discussion:
Author Michael Chabon blogs for a week for The Atlantic

Analysis/assessment of this reading/discussion should be included in student notebooks/portfolio.
Also: Who has your Dream Writer job?

excerpt from Syllabus 
COURSE OVERVIEW 

Coursework: active engagement/participation in class discussion; daily portfolios; a research project
(shadowing a professional with report); in-class presentations of research.

COURSE FORMAT

Daily online reading. Daily writing. Daily discussion/workshop. Daily summary/assessment/analysis of guest speakers. Major research project (choose a working writer to interview and shadow; submit project proposal; interview and shadow writer; write research report).

RESEARCH PROJECT PROPOSAL:  Due February 1 (the Who/What/Where/When)
RESEARCH REPORT: Due April 5
Presentations of reports are April 7 thru April 28

Portfolio Due April 28
(Portfolio will be a formal presentation/write-up of the entire semester's work.)

*Syllabus provides grading breakdown; class schedule; etc

The Guest Speaker for Thursday, January 20 is:

Herald-Leader columnist Tom Eblen.
Please read all of Tom Eblen's January blogs.
Familiarize yourself with his background.
Prepare 10 questions for Thursday's class -- half should be related to his career path as a writer/editor, and half can be specific to his writing.