HTLM exercise D R A F T

Are you Web savvy? Or for all you know, do you think HTML might be a short-order cook's abbreviation for a ham sandwich with letuce and tomato? Here's an exercise designed to give you a taste of HTML. (OK, OK, you read the assigned chapter, and you already know HTML stands for hypertext markup language. Right?) Anyway, today we'll give you a taste of HTML on The Mackerelwrapper blog, taking advantage of a feature of Blogger that lets you use simple HTML tags in the comments field.

HTML tags come in pairs. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but 99 percent of the time you have to use them in pairs. The first consists of angle brackets -- the "less than" (<) and "greater than" (>) signs you remember from math class -- around a code. And the second consists of a "less than" angle bracket and a slash -- which looks like </ -- and a "more than" angle bracket around the same code. It tells the computer to stop doing whatever the first tag told it to do. For example, the first sentence of this paragaph would look like this in HTML: <b>HTML tags come in pairs.</b> The first tag tells the computer to start setting in boldface type, and the second tag tells it to stop.

OK, let's get started. What I want you to do is to choose something to write a brief paragraph about, and post it as a comment to this blog post. Something you won't be embarrassed to publish to the World Wide Web. Cats, dogs, ferrets, the Cubs, the Cardinals, quadratic equations, dumb in-class assignments, whatever. For demonstration purposes, I'll choose butterflies.

1. Start by writing a headline. To make the type big, enclose your headline in these tags: <h1> at the beginning and </h1> at the end. In HTML it will look something like this: <h1>Flutter by, butterfly.</h1>

2. Next, write something about your subject. It doesn't matter what. But here's what does matter: I want you to find a website that explains something about your subject, and create a hypertext link to that website. Here's how it might work: As I surf the Web looking for stuff on butterflies, I come across the legend of the Chinese philosopher Chuang Chou (or Zhuangzi), who once dreamed he was a butterfly. But, according to the legend, when he woke up "he didn't know if he was Chuang Chou who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Chuang Chou." Great story, huh? Really gets you thinking. I found it in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, so I'll create a hypertext link to it.

The HTML tag for a hypertext link starts with <a href=" and the address or URL (which stands for Uniform Resource Locater, right?) followed by "> ... so I highlight the Wikipedia page's address and copy it, then paste it into the tags so it looks like this: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuangzi"> ... then I'll write a few words that I want in the link and I close it with </agt; (see how it picks up the "a" from the opening tag)? Here's what my text might look like: The ancient Chinese philosopher Chuang Chou <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhuangzi">once dreamed he was a butterfly.</agt; When he woke up ...

Flutter by, butterfly

Butterflies don't make butter, but they do fly. And sometimes they make philosophy. The ancient Chinese philosopher Chuang Chou once dreamed he was a butterfly. When he woke up ...

See how the words "once dreamed he was a butterfly" are converted by the HTML tag into hypertext? There are quite a few other tags to learn in HTML (although most of us get started by pasting them in from a list of tags we find through a Google search). But this <a href=" hypertext tag is the basic building block of the World Wide Web.

Now it's your turn. Think of something to write about. Find a Web page about it. And post a hypertext link to it. You may post as a comment to this blog post.


Why don't you start by writing a headline.

Jan Morris: pendulum swing on U.S. "swagger"?

Jan Morris, British travel writer and author of a provocative book on Lincoln, has a piece in today's Guardian with any number of provocative insights on the "idea of America" -- and an evident love of Broadway show tunes.

For myself, I responded to them all too sentimentally. Like Walt Whitman before me, I heard America sing! I relished the hackneyed old lyrics - Mine eyes have seen the glory, Thy word our law, Thy paths our chosen way, Oe'r the land of the free and the home of the brave, God bless America, land that I love ... Most of the words were flaccid, many of the tunes were vulgar, but as I heard them I saw always in my mind's eye, as Whitman did, all the glorious space, grandeur and opportunity that was America, Manhattan to LA. Sea, in fact, to shining sea.

In those days we did not think of American evangelists as prophets of political extremism - they seemed more akin to the homely convictions of plantation or village chapel than to the machinations of neocons. We bridled rather at the American assumption that the US of A had been the only true victor of the second world war, but most of us did not very deeply resent the happy swagger of the legend and danced gratefully enough to the American rhythms of the time. We thought it all seemed essentially innocent.

Innocent! Dear God! Half a century, and nobody thinks that now. Far from being the most beloved country on earth, today the US is the most thoroughly detested. ...

A lot of it is standard (although I don't think Morris mentions President Bush by name), what what's evident is Morris' essential affection for Americans of 50 years ago:

A generation or two ago, most of us, wherever we lived, loved the generous self-satisfaction of it, if not in the general, at least in the particular. The GI was not then a sort of goggled monster in padded armour, but a cheerful fellow chatting up the girls and distributing candy not as a matter of policy, but out of plain goodwill - everyone's friendly guy next door. To millions of radio listeners around the world, the Voice of America was a voice of decency, and one could watch the lachrymose patriotic rituals of America - the hand on heart, the misty-eyed salute to the flag - with more affection than irony.

Morris says he hopes a new president, an artist no less, will come out of the 2008 elections, and restore what used to be:

All it needs is someone with a key to unlock that Idea again, and I hope it will be that next president, whoever it is, even now gearing up for the election. Please God, may it be a poetic president. Inspiration has been the true engine of American success, and all its greatest presidents have been people with a divine spark. The dullards may have been efficient, respected or influential, but the Jeffersons and the Roosevelts, the Lincolns and the Kennedys have all been, in their different ways, artists.

So may it be a president with the key of original inspiration who can release the Idea from its occlusion. All the ingredients are still there, after all - the kindness, the imagination, the merriment, the will, the talent, the energy, the goddam orneriness, the plain goodness - all there waiting to burst out once more and bring us back our America, blessed and blessing too.

"Give our regards to old Broadway", sang Cohan, "And say that I'll be there ere long." So will we, so will we, just as soon as America comes home.

Good high-school journalism course

An excellent-looking distance learning high school journalism course from Oregon, part of the COOLSchool website ... accredited by the Northwest Association of Accredited Schools.

A table of contents, with comments from Sue and Dean Barr, of Eugene, who copyrighted the curriculum:

Lesson 1. An Introduction. You'll be introduced to journalism through this first lesson when you write up a get-to-know-you profile as you learn the first rules of journalistic style.

Lesson 2. History of Journalism. Where we've been is important to knowing where we are going. The same is true for journalism. Journalism history will show us why we live with some of the protocols and constraints that we have today.

Lesson 3. Functions of Mass Media. In this unit you'll learn the qualities of a successful journalist and the functions of mass media in our society and its influence on our lives.

Lesson 4. Newswriting Qualities & Elements. It is important to be able to understand how a news article differs from other forms of writing, and how to distinguish between fact and opinion.

Lesson 5. Journalistic Style. If a news article is to be professional and consistent in its approach to titles, capitalization and abbreviations, it is extremely important that journalists learn and apply the rules of journalistic style.

Lesson 6. Interviewing & Gathering Information. You cannot write a complete article unless you know how to interview news sources and gather information from written sources and from the Internet.

Lesson 7. "Lead" Writing. Perhaps the most important part of the news story is the opening, called the "lead," which tells the reader what has happened. You must be able to evaluate information, select what needs to be included, and write a clear, concise lead.

Lesson 8. Newswriting. It is time to get to the real purpose of this course: to learn to write complete news articles. You'll be writing a number of different stories that will help you become a proficient journalist.

Link here to Iraqi blogs

Today's San Francisco Chronicle has an interesting overview of blogs being written from Iraq -- or, in the case of refugees -- about Iraq by Iraqis. The headline tells the story:

BAGHDAD BLOGGING
Bloggers in the war zone write both about the devastating effects of the conflict and about the events, relationships and frustrations that occur in their everyday lives

At the bottom of the story are links to Riverbend and other blogs. Riverbend is the best known in the West, perhaps, but they're all complelling because they give us a viewpoint -- a variety of viewpoints, really -- we don't get from our media in the U.S.

Chief Illiniwek 'honored' with racist webpage

American Indians have now been "honored" with a racist webpage. It was on Facebook, and it was called "If They Get Rid of the Chief I'm Becoming a Racist." It contained comments by University of Illinois students -- or people who said they were students -- about the controversy over the U of I's Chief Illiniwek.
And it demonstrated pretty conclusively the kind of trouble that racist sports mascots can lead to.

By far the most detailed and balanced report is in Inside Higher Ed, an online newsletter that covers colleges and universities. The headline, "Ugly Turn in Mascot Dispute," says it all. And the story links to a screen grab from the Facebook site. It was taken down last week after Native American faculty noticed it and grew alarmed because it threatened violence.

According to a Jan. 10 story in the Champaign News-Gazette, the offending comments were posted a month or two ago:

Late in November, according to the UI Native American House and opponents of Chief Illiniwek, one UI student reportedly wrote, "there was never a racist problem before ... but now i hate redskins and hope all those drunk, casino owning bums die." (The punctuation and spelling are as reported by the Native American House.)

About two weeks later, another UI student posted, "that's the worst part! apparently the leader of this (anti-chief) movement is of Sioux descent. Which means what, you ask? the Sioux indians are the ones that killed off the Illini indians, so she's just trying to finish what her ancestors started. I say we throw a tomohawk into her face."

It's hard to tell. Were the kids who posted this stuff being playful? Sounds like maybe they were. But when people threaten violence, you can't be too careful.

It's like a bomb scare. Even if you hear children giggling in the background when they phone the damn thing in, you don't take any chances. You evacuate the building.

So on Jan. 10, the U of I felt there'd been a little too much "honoring." The News-Gazette has the fullest account of the university''s reaction:

In an e-mail to students, faculty and staff Tuesday afternoon, UI Chancellor Richard Herman said he would not tolerate violent threats, and the university "will take all legal and disciplinary actions available in response to the threatening messages."
Herman declined to say if the university has forwarded the threats to any law enforcement agencies.

The chancellor learned of the postings earlier this week and became appalled after reading them, he said. He called the messages racist.
"From my point of view, it (the Web page) clearly promotes divisiveness and singles out people," he said, adding, "I need to make clear this sort of behavior, whether legal or illegal, is unwelcome."

In his e-mail to the UI community, Herman wrote the idea that the debate over Chief Illiniwek "could degenerate to personal attacks that threaten the physical safety and well-being of members of the campus community is something that all of us should find truly abhorrent."

Inside Higher Ed has a few more details, including the fact the website targeted (although not by name) a specific student of Lakota (Sioux) ancestery.

Stephen Kaufman, emeritus biology professor, spoke to Inside Higher Ed of "an atmosphere of intimidation on this campus.” He was concerned for the Lakota student, of course, but he knows something about intimidation himself. Inside Higher Ed reported:

Kaufman became the target of campus protest last fall when a student started an online petition rallying students to get him to resign for sending letters to high school athletes that the university was seeking to recruit.
The petition against Kaufman received over 3,300 signatures.

No doubt they were "honoring" Kaufman.

Since I teach a Native American cultural studies course at a nearby college, I hear a lot about Chief Illiniwek from my students. And I believe them when they say they really don't think anyone intends for the mascot to be racist, and they truly can't understand why others think it is.

Me, I think it's kind of like beauty. Remember the old sayings? Racism is in the eye of the beholder. And here's another that fits even better. Racism is as racism does.

More stuff for COMM 317 syllabus

How to study court cases in class? Here are links to a couple of very helpful webpages by Princeton Review, the test prep company (not affiliated with Princeton University). One is on how to study a casebook and the other is on the Socratic method, which we will use in class -- at least some of the time. The University of Chicago Law School also has several pages and links on Socratic method. Read them and be ready to join in a Socratic discussion in class.

More COMM 317 links

Would voters OK the First Amendment today? The First Amendment to the U.S. Constition says "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." Read the introduction to the First Amendment by Doug Linder, professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City Law School, and be ready to answer the questions at the bottom of the webpage.

'To keep the waters pure': Jefferson on media. From a webpage of quotes about the press taken from Thomas Jefferson's writings. On a website called Thomas Jefferson on Politics & Government: Quotations from the Writings of Thomas Jefferson maintained by the University of Virginia.

Here's one: "The only security of all is in a free press. The force of public opinion cannot be resisted when permitted freely to be expressed. The agitation it produces must be submitted to. It is necessary, to keep the waters pure." --Thomas Jefferson to Lafayette, 1823. ME 15:491.

And another, more frequently quoted: ""The basis of our governments being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter. But I should mean that every man should receive those papers and be capable of reading them." --Thomas Jefferson to Edward Carrington, 1787. ME 6:57."

The abbreviation "ME," if you're interested in this kind of thing, refers to the location in The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, (Memorial Edition) Lipscomb and Bergh, editors.

What do the Thomas Jefferson quotes suggest to you about the role of the press in the American Revolution and the early Federalist and Republican periods?

COMM 317 -- common law and Lord Coke

Some more links for the COMM 317 syllabus"

'Stork didn't bring our rights.' Read the essay on "Legal Foundations of Press Freedom in the United States" by Jane E. Kirtley, media ethics professor at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Minnesota, explains how judges going all the way back to Merrie Olde England brought us our rights. Also read about Sir Edward Coke, legal scholar and judge of the English courts of Common Pleas and King's Bench in the 1600s. Lord Coke is one of the guys who most influenced our system of law, our way of thinking about legal issues and therefore the rights we enjoy as American citizens.

Wisdom from Lord Coke. Several passages from a collection of quotes by The ... Institutes of the Lawes of England Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634), Chief Justice of the King's Bench under King James I:

There be three kinds of unhappie men. 1. Qui scit & non docet, Hee that hath knowledge and teacheth not. 2. Qui docet & non vivit, He that teacheth, and liveth not thereafter. 3. Qui nescit, & non interrogat, He that knoweth not, and doth not enquire to understand. Sect. 232b.

The reason of the law is the life of the law; for though a man can tell the law, yet if he know not the reason thereof, he shall soone forget his superficial knowledge. But when he findeth the right reason of the law, and so bringeth it to his natural reason, that he comprehendeth it as his own, this will not only serve him for the understanding of that particular case, but of many others ... Sect. 183b.

Law temporall ... consisteth in three parts, viz, First, on the common law, expressed in our bookes of law, and judiciall records. Secondly, on statutes contained in acts and records of parliament. And thirdly, on customes grounded upon reason, and used time out of minde; and the construction and determination of these doe belong to the judges of the realme. Sect. 344a.

I like Coke.

COMM 317 -- links

A couple of resources on the World Wide Web that I can use in the first couple of weeks of the mass media law course:

1. How to think like a lawyer: A website called LawNerds.com has a six-part tutorial for law students and pre-law students on how to cultivate a legal frame of mind, legal reasoning and the case method, among other things. Since we will use the case method in COMM 317, read those three sections. If you think you might want to go on to law school (an excellent career choice for communications majors, by the way), take a look at section 4 on what it's like to go to law school, too.

2. Briefing cases. Since we'll be using the case method to study media law, you'll need to learn how to brief a case. It's a special kind of abstract, or summary, that law students learn. And doing it will teach you more about logic than all the liberal arts courses in the world. Start with the basics of "How to Brief a Case" at 4lawschool.com, a website designed, logically enough, for law school students. Follow the links at the bottom to an excellent guide to writing case briefs from the University of Virginia Law School and an even better guide from the John Jay School of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York.

HUM 221 syllabus paste-in revision

Week 2

 

Myths of origin and of endurance. Read Zimmerman and Molyneaux, "Disposession,"
pp. 20-35. In Here First, we will read Evelina Zuni Lucero, "On the Tip of My Tongue," pp. 247-61, and Luci Tapahonso, "They Moved Over the Mountain," pp. 337-51, along with her poem "In 1864." On the Web, we will look at: (1) the Haudenosaunee
creation myth at http://sixnations.buffnet.net/Culture/?article=creation
; (2) some traditional Cherokee stories on how things came
to be the way they are; and (3) the "First Thanksgiving"
myth, including (a) an overview in The Christian Science Monitor
at http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1127/p13s02-lign.html,
(b) the primary historical sources at http://members.aol.com/calebj/thanksgiving.html,
(c) a newspaper story on at what Alaska Natives eat along with
their turkey at http://www.adn.com/life/taste/story/8435558p-8329710c.html
and (d) an essay by folklorist Esaúl Sánchez at
http://www.upenn.edu/pennnews/features/1995/112195/abrahams.html
suggesting one thing the myth does for us. Finally, we will read "A Story of how a Wall Stands" and other poetry by Acaoma Pueblo writer Simon Ortiz linked to the Internet Public Library.

HUM 223 -- today's presentations

Class is cancelled today. I can't get an answer when I call SCI, but we're on the Channel 20 list of school closings. Those of you who had presentations scheduled today won't have to give them -- I will just count your grade on the written part of your research project.

I'm posting this message to my blogs and the Message Board linked to my faculty page. If you see other students who are in our class, please let them know. And you'll turn in your final exam papers in the Presidents Room at the regularly schduled time Wednesday morning.

If you have questions, please contact me at pellertsen@sci.edu or my email account at peterellertsen@yahoo.com.

-- Doc

New office -- directions

I'm getting moved into my new office now, so I'm cross-posting directions to my class blogs and the Message Board linked to my faculty page.

I'm in Beata Hall (the old Ursuline convent) across Eastman Street from St. Joe's parish and school. Either Room 31, if you go by the list of room assignments I've been given, or Room 8, if you go by the numbers on the doors. I've also attached my business card to the door.

To get there from Dawson, go out the south entrance and take the walk past Ursuline Academy. You'll go between the buildings, with the old building on the right and the gym on the left. Keep going through the parking lot, and there'll be a porch on the right (women's housing is straight ahead). On the south end of that porch, there's a door with a Christmas decoration. Go in the door, take the stairs just to the left and you'll be on the floor with faculty offices. They're in the hallway to the left at the top of the stairs. It takes a little less time to walk it than it does to give the directions!

Computer and phone are now hooked up ... you can reach me, as before, by phone at 525-1420 ext. 519 and by email at pellertsen@sci.edu. Email is usually better, but the voice mail in my office is working again.

Nov. assessment newsletter -- ARCHIVE

NUTS & BOLTS

An electronic assessment newsletter
Springfield College in Illinois
-----------------------------------------
November 2006
Vol. 7 No. 4
-----------------------------------------
Editor's Note. Over the holidays, I hope to reconnect
the assessment pages to SCI’s website. Until that
time, I am publishing the assessment newsletter by
email to faculty and staff and archiving it on my
personal weblog at
http://www.teachinglogspot.blogspot.com/. -- Pete
Ellertsen, assessment chair

Santa has your assessment
questionnaires

A couple of quick reminders to get out in the November
newsletter, with the end of the month and the end of
fall semester classes both coming up this week. Also
an update on ominous developments in Washington, D.C.


Classroom assessment forms

Sometime this week, if the disruption from this
month’s move of faculty offices permits it, I hope to
have Classroom Assessment Questionnaires in the
faculty mailboxes at Dawson Hall.

This semester’s questionnaires will give us important
data that will help us devise ways to assess for the
Common Student Learning Objectives we derived from the
SCI mission statement in 2004, so it’s important for
everyone to fill them out and document any changes in
instructional methods.

If you have questions, comments or suggestions, please
contact me by email at pellertsen@sci.edu. As my phone
is hooked up and I learn my new office number, I will
post other contact information to the newsletter.

Feds still push standardized tests?

Speculation over mandatory standardized testing on the
order of the federal No Child Left Behind program
refuses to die down. Even though both houses of
Congress are about to change party leadership, it now
appears the U.S. Education Department may push for it
through the process of negotiating federal
regulations.

We’ll know more early in December, but The Chronicle
of Higher Education reported Nov. 24, “Margaret
Spellings, the education secretary, has decided to
focus on accreditors as part of her ‘action plan’ to
begin the most urgent changes proposed by the
commission. … Next week Ms. Spellings will meet here
with a few dozen accreditors, higher-education
officials, and business leaders in what is being
called an Accreditation Forum to discuss ways to make
the measurement of student learning central to
accreditors' oversight of colleges and universities.”

What’s ominous about this, the Chronicle notes, is
“[i]n the wake of the Democratic takeover of Congress,
the accrediting system is one of the few vehicles Ms.
Spellings almost totally controls to drive her
agenda.” The Chronicle’s headline sums up the story’s
tone: “Spellings Wants to Use Accreditation as a
Cudgel.”

“Many accreditors and college officials view next
week's one-day gathering with varying degrees of
suspicion, especially since several of them were never
formally invited,” reports Chronicle staff writer
Burton Bollag. “Some fear that in the name of
increased accountability Ms. Spellings will try to use
the forum to promote solutions they think are
simplistic, like comparing institutions on the basis
of a few easily quantifiable indicators.”

That sounds like federally mandated standardized
tests. Perhaps more troubling, at least for those of
us who do assessment, is what appears to be an
assumption on the part of the Bush administration
that, well, we aren’t doing assessment.

The Chronicle’s discussion of the issue is worth
quoting at length:

In particular, the agenda circulated for
next week's meeting has caused an uproar among the
accreditors, who say it contains certain incorrect
assumptions. For example, the day is set to kick off
with "a panel presentation by leading experts who will
build a case for change from inputs to outputs."

Critics say that ignores a major shift in accrediting
standards that has been under way for more than a
decade, as accreditors have moved from examining
elements like curricula and the portion of faculty
members with terminal degrees to looking at indicators
of what students have learned. In 1992, as part of the
reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, Congress
required accreditors to take into account student
achievement. In 1998, in another edition of the Higher
Education Act, lawmakers made it the most important
factor for accreditors to consider.

"I'm offended," Steven D. Crow, executive director of
the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools'
Higher Learning Commission, says of the panel on
outputs. "I'm doing that already."

Mr. Crow leads the largest of the six regional
accrediting groups, which together accredit nearly
3,000 institutions. "There is a perception — Secretary
Spellings and [commission] chairman [Charles] Miller
have expressed it in recent speeches — that is over 25
years old, that assumes we're just counting books and
square feet."

It’s hard to figure out what all this may mean for us
at SCI, since, as so often happens, the politicians
are speaking in code words, hints and whispers. But it
all still bears watching.

Reference: Bollag, Burton. “Spellings Wants to Use
Accreditation as a Cudgel.” Chronicle of Higher
Education 24 Nov. 2006.
http://chronicle.com/free/v53/i14/14a00101.htm

Email joke gets Bush's number?

Here's a joke that was going around on the internet just before Tuesday's congressional elections. It's a little out of date now, since President Bush announced U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's resignation the morning after the elections, but still worth recording exactly as it came in my email.

> Donald Rumsfeld briefed the President this morning.
>
> He told Bush that three Brazilian soldiers were killed in Iraq. To
> everyone's amazement, all of the color ran from Bush's face, then he
> collapsed onto his desk, head in hands, visibly shaken, almost
whimpering.
> Finally, he composed himself and asked Rumsfeld, "Just exactly how
many is
> a brazillion?"

Most of the Bush jokes I've seen are too hostile or edgy to be really funny. This one, maybe because of the egregious pun, is cute.

test test

Let's insert an image and see if it appears.

Humanities 223 term paper

HUM 223: Ethnic Music

Springfield College in Illinois

Fall Semester 2006

http://www.sci.edu/classes/ellertsen/humanities/hum223syllabus.html

Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art. -- Charlie Parker

Term Paper – Fall 2006

One of your requirements in Humanities 223 is to write a documented term paper (at least 2,000 words or eight pages in 12pt type) and deliver an oral report on some aspect of cultural and artistic expression in traditional music or a commercial genre derived from traditional music. This handout tells you how to do it. The instructions, and updates, will be posted to my teaching blog at http://www.teachinglogspot.blogspot.com/ -- Pete Ellertsen, instructor

Your overall assignment. Choose a musician, band or group whose work you enjoy or whom you want to know more about, and write a paper about their artistic influences; how their culture, their musical genre and/or artistic vision shaped their life and career; how they dealt with issues of commercial and artistic success; and their place in the history of American popular music. You may choose your own topic. But since this is an interdisciplinary humanities/cultural studies class, you will do best if you choose a historical figure or a contemporary musician who has been influenced by long-term musical genres (e.g. country, gospel, blues, jazz and the Anglo-Irish or African American cultural traditions they grew out of). Be sure to clear your topic with me before you begin your research. Your opinions and your response to the artist’s music are an important part of the paper, but you need to research your artists’ careers and respond to their music in order to support your opinion. You may use either MLA or APA style. A “Citation Machine” to help you with correct MLA or APA form is available on my faculty website at http://www.sci.edu/classes/ellertsen/facultypage.html .

How to approach your paper. In researching and writing your paper, you’ll want to address the following points. Not all of them will be appropriate for every paper you write (for example you don’t need to spell out for me that gospel singer Mahalia Jackson wasn’t a drug addict), but you’ll want to touch these bases in your research:

1. Some biography of your artist or band members, including musical influences, artistic vision (i.e. anything they said about music, like the quote from jazz saxophone player Charlie “Bird” Parker above), and how they made a living from their music. How did they handle the stresses of a musical career, including drug use, road trips, etc.? What compromises, if any, did they make between their artistic vision and commercial success? How successful were they, both artistically and commercially?
2. How were your artists received in their time? By later generations? By the public? By other musicians? How do you, personally respond to their music? Choose a song, or piece of instrumental music, and ask yourself: (a) What about this music stands out in my mind? (b) What in my cultural background, values, taste and interests makes me react to it that way? (c) What specifically about the music makes me feel that way? Consult my handout on literary reader [or listener] response papers and the sample essay on Kinky Friedman at http://www.sci.edu/classes/ellertsen/rosenblatt.html.
3. What does your artist’s career tell you about music and the arts, the communications media, the entertainment industry and/or marketing economics in American society? What does it tell you about American popular culture? How well does their music transcend the limitations of its particular genre or cultural background?
   

In researching the paper, you should both read up on the musicians and listen to some of their music. You will find some sources in the library, others on the Internet. If you have trouble tracking down recordings or sound files, see me and I’ll help out.

Robert M. Seiler of the University of Calgary suggests when his students write around music, they actively listen for the sound of vocals or instrumentals, and the “dynamics or the intensity of the sound, in terms of loudness, uniformity, and change.” He also suggests they listen for:

a. the movement of the piece, i.e., concentrate on its rhythm, meter, and tempo,

b. the pitch, i.e., in terms of its order and melody, and

c. the structure of the piece, i.e., its logic, design, and texture.

Seiler’s tip sheet is available at http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~rseiler/music.htm -- his examples are from classical music, but his suggestions work for blues or rock, too. They’re excellent.

Writing about music is a lot like writing about a poem or a play in English classes. In other ways, it's different. Here's what Dartmouth University has to say about one type of music paper:

In a review, you should focus on the form of the music. What sounds make up the music? How does the composer or performer fuse together these different sound elements? How do the different movements work together to create the music's overall effect? Remember to stay away from comments beginning with "I" that reflect only how the music affected you. Instead, question the music using criteria by which we judge excellence, and provide insight into those elements of excellence.

Dartmouth's tip sheet is available on line at http://www.dartmouth.edu/~writing/materials/student/humanities/music.shtml. I recommend it highly.

Who to write about? Any of the artists we have talked about in class are fair game. You can find plenty of information on historical figures like Stephen A. Foster, the Fisk Jubilee Singers or Scott Joplin. Blues and/or jazz vocalists like Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday would be good subjects, as would jazz musicians like Louie Armstrong, Charlie Parker or Miles Davis. You can write about gospel singers like Mahalia Jackson, Thomas A. Dorsey (who also sang blues as “Georgia Tom”) or more recent evangelists like Kirk Franklin who mix the music of today with roots music. As you read “Deep Blues” by Robert Palmer, you will learn a lot about Delta and Chicago bluesmen Charlie Patton, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, as well as the rock artists like Eric Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan or the Rolling Stones who emulated their music, and you can use Palmer's book as a starting point for your research. You will get other ideas as we watch “Feel Like Going Home” and other DVDs from Martin Scorese’s PBS series “The Blues” during the remainder of the semester. Just be sure to clear your topic with me first.

What are your deadlines? There are three. You will give me a two-page typewritten proposal by Friday, Nov. 3, in which you tell me which performer(s) you will research and what your tentative thesis is; and list, in MLA or APA format, three to five specific sources you have consulted. Your papers will be due by the week of Thanksgiving, which is the week of Nov. 20-21, but I will schedule your oral presentation, on a first-come-first-served basis, when you turn in your paper. So you are allowed to turn it in early. The presentations will be three to five minutes long, and they will be given during the week after Thanksgiving, Nov. 27-Dec. 1.

If you have questions please don’t hesitate to ask me. The quickest way to get hold of me is to email me at pellertsen@sci.edu.

october assessment newsletter ARCHIVE

NUTS & BOLTS

An electronic assessment newsletter
Springfield College in Illinois
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October 2006
Vol. 7 No. 3
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Editor's Note. Until I am able to post to SCI's assessment website again, I am publishing the newsletter by email and archiving it in the interim on my personal weblog at http://www.teachinglogspot.blogspot.com/. -- Pete Ellertsen, assessment chair

Of CATs, Professorenzetteln and assessment

Assessment and government intrusion into the classroom are nothing new. In fact, a recent book by historian William Clark makes a good case they have changed the way we think in Western society over the centuries. The book is “Academic Charisma and the Origins of the Research University,” and it is reviewed in the current issue of The New Yorker.

The review, by Anthony Grafton, makes me want to read the book. It also makes me think his students – and faculty colleagues – at Princteon are a lot like ours at Springfield College and Benedictine.

“Anyone who has ever taught at a college or university must have had this experience,” Grafton begins. He continues by describing the experience:

You’re in the middle of something that you do every day: standing at a lectern in a dusty room, for example, lecturing to a roomful of teen-agers above whom hang almost visible clouds of hormones; or running a seminar, hoping to find the question that will make people talk even though it’s spring and no one has done the reading … Suddenly, you find yourself wondering … [w]hy, in the age of the World Wide Web, do professors still stand at podiums and blather for fifty minutes at unruly mobs of students, their lowered baseball caps imperfectly concealing the sleep buds that rim their eyes? Why do professors and students put on polyester gowns and funny hats and march, once a year, in the uncertain glory of the late spring? … These activities seem both bizarre and disconnected, from one another and from modern life, and it’s no wonder that they often provoke irritation, not only in professional pundits but also in parents, potential donors, and academic administrators.

Well, I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’ve certainly had that experience. And I know what it’s like to try to describe what we do, and why we do it, to outside stakeholders.

Clark’s thesis is that American research universities evolved out academic traditions in 19th-century Germany, and they in turn evolved out of – get this! – bureaucratic policies and procedures in the petty electorates and principalities of the Holy Roman Empire during the 16th and 17th centuries. As Grafton paraphrases him, Clark notes:

Gradually, the bureaucrats devised ways to insure that the academics were fulfilling their obligations. In Vienna, Clark notes, “a 1556 decree provided for paying two individuals to keep daily notes on lecturers and professors”; in Marburg, from 1564 on, the university beadle kept a list of skipped lectures and gave it, quarterly, to the rector, who imposed fines. Others demanded that professors fill in Professorenzetteln, slips of paper that gave a record of their teaching activities. Professorial responses to such bureaucratic intrusions seem to have varied as much then as they do now. Clark reproduces two Professorenzetteln from 1607 side by side. Michael Mästlin, an astronomer and mathematician who taught Kepler and was an early adopter of the Copernican view of the universe, gives an energetic full-page outline of his teaching. Meanwhile, Andreas Osiander, a theologian whose grandfather had been an important ally of Luther, writes one scornful sentence: “In explicating Luke I have reached chapter nine.”

The upshot, according to Clark, was universities evolved ways of measuring learning that satisfied the bureaucrats, when they pushed for “results that looked rational: results that they could codify, sort, and explain to their masters.” During the Middle Ages, testing was largely done in debates known as academic disputations. They came to be replaced by printed dissertations and formal examinations, “exercises that were carefully graded and recorded by those who administered them.” In the language of our own historical era, we might say the new exams and dissertations offered greater transparency to outside stakeholders.

So when we fill out our Classroom Assessment Technique questionnaires at the end of the semester or ask our SCI sophomores to take a fill-in-the-bubble standardized test in the spring, we’re taking part in a government ritual that goes back to the Professorenzetteln of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation.
There’s a lot more in Grafton’s article than assessment. For example Mark Twain’s description of the time a thousand students “rose and shouted and stamped and clapped, and banged the beer-mugs” when a historian named Theodor Mommsen walked into a Berlin banquet hall in 1892. Or Clark’s new take on the old story of Abelard and Heloise, and its implications for the way we think today. Or what a doctoral exam was like at the University of Göttingen in 1787. Trivia? Sure. But fascinating trivia. And in the end, it helps us answer Grafton’s question – why do we pontificate in front of classrooms, dress up in caps and gowns and, in general, do the things we do in academic life.

Grafton’s article, headlined “The Nutty Professors,” was in the Oct. 10 issue of The New Yorker. It’s fascinating, and it’s still available on line at http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/articles/061023crbo_books

Assessment committee empaneled

Members of this year’s Assessment Committee are Bob Blankenberger, Brian Carrigan, Dave Holland, Barb Tanzyus and Pete Ellertsen (chair). Student Affairs Dean Kevin Broeckling and Academic Affairs Dean John Cicero are ex officio. Standing meeting time has been tentatively set for 2 p.m. the second Tuesday of the month in the Brinkerhoff Conference Room.

No commission left behind?

The Spellings Commission, named for President Bush’s education secretary Margaret Spellings, has issued its final report. Its recommendations were unchanged from earlier drafts issued in the late summer. Spellings outlined the findings of her Commission on the Future of Higher Education at a Sept. 26 luncheon of the National Press Club and called on Congress to act on a higher ed reform package. The Associated Press and a couple of major metro newspapers including The Christian Science Monitor apparently sent reporters, or assigned them to work the phone a minute or two and get a story. Local reaction stories ran in media markets like Austin, Tex., and Roanoke, Va. And several student publications, including The Cavalier Daily at the University of Virginia and The Daily Star at Northern Illinois University, also ran stories.

But other than that, the commission’s report was greeted by an almost total lack of coverage. It may be significant that during the week of Spellings’ speech a major congressional sex scandal broke out, former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., resigned his office and Congress recessed until after the November elections.

Inside Higher Ed had a good summary of the report Sept. 27, the day after it was issued. On line at http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/09/26/spellings

Miller lets fly at private colleges

Charles Miller, who chaired U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings' blue-ribbon Commission on the Future of Higher Education, took a >roundhouse swing at private colleges and universities in a "private" cover letter when he submitted the commission's report. The letter, which "was not part of the official document posted on the Education Department’s Web site," was obtained by the Chronicle of Higher Education and quoted today in the Chronicle's News Blog:

In the letter, Mr. Miller shares what he calls “strictly personal observations,” calling the system of financing higher education “dysfunctional.” He writes that “in addition to the lack of transparency regarding pricing, which severely limits the price signals found in a market-based system, there is a lack of the incentives necessary to affect institutional behavior so as to reward innovation and improvement in productivity. Financial systems of higher education instead focus on and reward increasing revenues—a top line structure with no real bottom line.”

In keeping with previous comments he has made, Mr. Miller singled out private colleges for the most criticism, writing that they resist being held accountable, as shown by their opposition to a unit-record system to track students. “What elevates this concern,” he writes, “is the fact that so-called ‘private’ colleges and universities receive a large amount of support from the public, that is, the taxpayer.”

Overall, the report's final version was little changed from the draft approved and released to the public in August. An article headed "Plan would hold colleges accountable for students' learning" in the Sept. 27 Detroit Free-Press by William Douglas of the McClatchy newspaper group details the implications for assessment a little better than most of the press coverage. Douglas writes:

WASHINGTON -- Looking to extend its education policies into colleges and universities, the Bush administration outlined proposals Tuesday that some higher-education officials fear will lead to standardized testing and trample on students' privacy.

Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said sweeping changes were needed to make higher education more affordable and accountable to people who spend tens of thousands of dollars a year to pursue college degrees.

In a speech at the National Press Club, she laid out proposals developed by the Commission on the Future of U.S. Higher Education, which she appointed a year ago. They'd extend to colleges the principles from the No Child Left Behind program, which seeks greater accountability from elementary schools by requiring them to give standardized tests and publicize the results.

"It seems to me there is an encroachment here to substitute the judgment on higher-education matters that ought to be made by presidents and faculty rather than legislators and commissions," said David Warren, president of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. "There is an ever-increasing reach into the academy."

Warren's concern about the tone of the Miller commission report, by the way, has been consistent. It may help explain Miller's blast at private colleges and universities.

Spellings touts NCLB for higher ed?

Nothing on the Google News site about the U.S. Education Department's hearings on using the Department's rule-making authority to force changes in higher education. Figures. The commercial media have shied away from the issue almost a year now. But an article in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on a speech and school visit by Education Secretary Margaret Spellings hints at a higher ed version of No Child Left Behind.

Here's the lede of a story by the Post-Gazette's Eleanor Chute:

Federal officials are taking the No Child Left Behind Act to the next frontier -- higher education.

In Pittsburgh yesterday, U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings said she will be making a policy speech about higher education at the end of this month.

She noted the federal government pays about one-third of the bill, in the form of grants, and basically puts "the money out and hopes for the best."

She said, "That was fine and dandy when higher education was kind of nice to have as opposed to must have. But that's changing more and more.

"We need to be more strategic, smarter, and make sure higher education is more accessible to more people if we're going to continue to be the world's innovator and the world's leader."

Ms. Spellings made the remarks before the National Conference of Editorial Writers at the Sheraton Station Square Hotel.

So it's back again. The idea was bandied about earlier by Charles Miller, chair of Spellings' blue-ribbon Commission on the Future of Higher Education. Then it was backburnered, toned down from a mandate to a suggestion in the final draft of the commission's report. Spellings is expected to release the final report Sept. 26.

While Spellings' prepared remarks to the editorial writers don't detail the commission's higher ed recommendations, she mentioned the subject on a visit she made with a Republican congressman to an elementary school in Findlay, Pa. The Post-Gazette reported:

On higher education, Ms. Spellings acknowledged that the $100 increase in federal Pell grants isn't enough and noted that costs have been rising about 7 percent a year.

"The next part of the debate on higher education is for us to ask why does it cost 7 percent more this year than last year. Is it a better deal to get out of Ohio State in six years or some private college in four?

"All sorts of things that parents want to know and deserve to know and can know and find out about buying a car or going to a restaurant or ordering a book online, you can't find out about on one of the most expensive decisions and one of the most important decisions that you and your child are going to make. ...

"I think we have to start challenging that."

Last month, the federal Commission on the Future of Higher Education recommended standardized tests, federal monitoring of quality and changes in the financial aid system.

Chute, the Post-Gazette's reporter, also paraphrased Spellings as saying "that No Child Left Behind is close to perfect, likening it to Ivory soap."

Well, that's one comparison.

Cultural studies: 'text' and other keywords

A link to cultural studies professor T.V. Reed’s pop culture website at Washington State University in Pullman, Wash. It includes, among other things, a link to his American Studies/English 471 course syllabus with a PowerPoint presentation in the first week defining keywords.

Among them: Text: "Any unit of meaning isolated for the purposes of cultural analysis."

Examples include "a single image in one commercial" ranging up to "a whole day of television programs."

Says Reed, "Texts can include words, images, sounds, even touch, in various combinations."

Other definitions include: Myth, ideology, encoding/decoding, subculture, hegemony, gender, race. Looks useful