Writing Center promo video

Nov 9, 2011 | Projects, Students

One assignment in the English grad class Rhetorical Theory & Praxis (ENGL 652) focuses on student readings in the theory behind composition instruction and support in writing centers. This semester Dr. Bennett offered students the option of producing a promotional video that blended clear messaging with a connection with their audience. Read further to see his video assignment.

Thanks to Christina Johnson and Suzanne Shedd for sharing their project and for the Learning Studio’s own Ben Weaver for shooting it. Really nice work shot on one of our Canon 60Ds.
 

 

Video Assignment

Here is the final assignment along with grading criteria and ground rules that may be of interest to other faculty teaching with video for the first time. Thanks to Dr. Bennett for making this available.

OVERVIEW – You are to prepare a three- to five-minute advertising video for the ACU Writing Center that emphasizes your choice of best practices while providing standard publicity information—location, hours, etc. You may wish to highlight our tutoring hierarchy, our hospitality, our collaborative methods, or any other item that illustrates what we do. The goal is to provide boilerplate publicity information but also to demonstrate your understanding of at least one prong of best practices.”

CRITERIA – Grades will be based on overall quality of the video, workmanship, creativity, sound quality, and evidence of effort toward excellence.

GROUND RULES
1. The ACU Learning Studio, located in the Brown Library Learning Commons, is utterly prepared to assist you with this activity.

2. No unedited videos will receive credit. You must use Final Cut, iMovie, or other such program to assemble clips, arrange transitions, add soundtracks, etc.

3. Be careful as you capture video at the WC; many clients will be uncomfortable with being filmed. Consider using the space after hours with actors (I can give you a key).

4. Final products should be uploaded to YouTube with the URL then sent to me via email; I will then imbed them in the class blog.

5. Feel free to consult and share with other teams–ideas, strategies, editing techniques, and software capabilities. Collaboration is good and welcome!

6. Not all of your footage must be shot at the space itself; use texts, promo clips, etc.

7. I am not expecting technical perfection. I am expecting high quality.

8. Many students are excellent editors and videographers, but poor sound engineers. The most common problem I have found with such assignments is poor sound. Be ready to record and re-record your sounds and voiceovers.

REFLECTION ESSAY – After you have completed this assignment, write a short paper that explains the motivations, choices, strategies, and contexts that yielded your digital short. This paper should not merely capture “I made a movie” but, rather, “Here’s what I was trying to do in the movie, here’s why I chose this topic, and here’s how it connects to other readings (inside or outside our class reading list). Ultimately, a person watching the digital short should not need your paper to understand your argument, but it should substantially complement the movie in an explanatory manner.

Studio Lighting workshop

Oct 10, 2011 | Projects, Students

Nil Santana’s Advanced Photography class joined us in the Learning Studio last month for a couple days looking at studio lighting. Thanks to Kyle Trafton, one of our media production specialists, who helped Nil’s students to get the most out of a variety of lighting solutions.

Here are a few of the portraits Nil’s students produced in the studio as well as a few of their final submissions. For a glance at Nil’s complete assignment, see the links below.

Project Brief

You’ve been asked to produce a “cover story” in the style of a popular consumer magazine that you like. You will submit a copy of the magazine along with your assignment for comparison. In this assignment, you will produce one “cover” portrait photo, and in addition, you will produce two more “inside” story shots, either black-and-white or color, one of which will be a performance shot (environmental), and the other a more relaxed “everyday person” portrait that lets us see something of the person behind the performance role. . .

The nature of consumer editorial portraiture centers on celebrities, or at least people of particular notability. There is frequently an emphasis on performers of one sort or another, be it show biz or politics or science. The performance aspect may be overt or implied, but it is usually there. You will do well to seek out as a subject someone who either is a performer, or has aspirations to be in the public eye. Try to discover the specific nature of this desire and draw upon it for your work. (more…)

Advanced Composition videos

Apr 28, 2011 | Gallery, Projects, Students

Dr. Cole Bennett’s ENGL 325: Advanced Comp students produced Literacies projects that premiered this afternoon.

Student readings all semester focused on “theories of literacy from a variety of disciplinary perspectives, paying particular attention to readings that emphasize social and political issues related to reading and writing.” The course concluded with individual students or groups producing short videos that extended the focus of the course to consider other cultural literacies:

“Rhetorically, this video should attempt to convince the viewer that 1) the activity under consideration qualifies as an expanded form of literacy; and 2) society would benefit as a whole if such argument were accepted. How does the subject fall under a definition of literacy? Which definition? Why does it matter? How are our lives enriched if we agree with you? How might your opponents disagree with you, and how would you address such concerns?”

Thanks again to students from ENGL 325 for working with us in the Learning Studio. Here are a few examples of their work.

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