November 11, 2021 Lesson Plan

Style: Rhythm and Variety (30-45 minutes)

What do you notice about the rhythm of the following? Is there anything notable about how the sentences follow one another or how sentences are constructed? Read below and have some thoughts ready.

The speeches given at the gala prior to Rob’s all mention equality, diversity, and community. All these are grand and amazing sounding ideas, as Joffe-Walt explains, but within the setting of the gala, they seem out of place. She draws attention to the contrast by noting that the gala is full of wealthy white people and the venue is in an Italian Renaissance inspired palace. To us, the paradox is obvious: the white and wealthy gala attendees are preaching about the importance of diversity when there is none to begin with at the gala. There is only one race and one economic group present. By doing this, Joffe-Walt has shown the podcast listeners that it’s possible that the gala attendees are not aware of and cannot understand how those who aren’t white and rich live. This gap in experiences between the white gala attendees and people of color establish that the decisions and ideas the white parents have may not be in the interest of the students of color.

Style: Rhythm and Variety #1 – ENG 2150, Fall 2021: Composing institutions (cuny.edu) (DON’T CLICK THIS UNTIL I TELL YOU)

Style: Rhythm and Variety #2 – ENG 2150, Fall 2021: Composing institutions (cuny.edu) (DON’T CLICK THIS UNTIL I TELL YOU)

Style: Rhythm and Variety #3 – ENG 2150, Fall 2021: Composing institutions (cuny.edu) (DON’T CLICK THIS UNTIL I TELL YOU)

 

Activity

  1. Open your in-progress research project (you can do another piece of writing, too, but it makes sense to do something you are currently working on–so research project or writing from another class).
  2. Choose a paragraph (don’t worry too much about which one you choose.
  3. Calculate the length of the sentences by following these directions.
  4. Record the length of each sentence.
  5. Then, label each sentence by what sentence type it is (if not sure, that’s okay; give best guess).
  6. Then write down all the punctuation you use (not each instance, just whether you used any of the following: period, comma, semicolon, em-dash, parentheses, colon, question mark, exclamation point, quotation marks, ellipses, brackets).
  7. Finally: make a revision that utilizes what we talked about today from one (or more) of the three style pages:

Style: Rhythm and Variety #1 – ENG 2150, Fall 2021: Composing institutions (cuny.edu) (DON’T CLICK THIS UNTIL I TELL YOU)

Style: Rhythm and Variety #2 – ENG 2150, Fall 2021: Composing institutions (cuny.edu) (DON’T CLICK THIS UNTIL I TELL YOU)

Style: Rhythm and Variety #3 – ENG 2150, Fall 2021: Composing institutions (cuny.edu) (DON’T CLICK THIS UNTIL I TELL YOU)

 

 

 

Independent Work and Audacity Help (30 minutes)

Some of you have Audacity figured out pretty well, so I thought instead of going over Audacity with everyone, we could do some independent work time while anyone who wants to learn about things like:

  • importing audio files
  • adding effects
  • managing volume of tracks
  • managing noise
  • exporting as mp3
  • getting used to interface with tips
  • saving multiple versions and backing up
  • generating silence

General tips on some of above:

—You’ll see the standard buttons for Play, Pause, Stop, etc. Keep in mind that you won’t be able to edit your audio if it’s only paused. You need to stop it. (The space bar will also allow you to play or stop your audio.)

—You’ll see a cursor tool. It works a lot like a cursor in Word. It allows you to click on or highlight sections of your audio so that you can copy, paste, or delete. You can do these things under the Edit menu or with the standard keyboard shortcuts.

—Next to the cursor, you’ll see the “Envelope” tool that will allow to you stretch out segments of your audio tracks so that you can emphasize key moments with higher volume.

—Finally, toward the middle-right of the toolbar, you’ll see various icons for cut, paste, etc. Among them, there’s the trim tool (it trims everything that you DON’T highlight with your cursor), a tool for inserting silence into your tracks, and tools for zooming in and out that will make it easier to edit your tracks with precision.

IMPORTANT: With audio editing (same is true for video editing), start by getting organized. Put all of your sound files in a clearly-marked folder on your computer and make backups in a separate folder in case something explodes on you. (You should continue to backup your work frequently throughout the process.) Then, if you haven’t done audio composing before, budget a good amount of time and expect a little frustration, at least until you get the hang of things.

  1. Audacity creates “projects” and these consist of two items: (1) an .aup project file and (2) a data folder. You always need both of these to work on and play your project (up until the time you save the final version as an mp3). Always keep these two items in a folder together.
  2. Although projects rarely get corrupted, back up frequently. If Audacity ever crashes or loses data, you don’t want to start from scratch. I make a duplicate copy after each substantial work session.
  3. When you are working in Audacity, close as many other applications as possible. Audacity works best when it’s not competing for memory with other programs.

Finally, see Labor Instructions from November 2 on other Audacity basics as well as resources for free sound. I have pasted some important parts from that here, as well:

  1. Try to add another track! E.g., some intro and outro music at beginning and end, some ambient noise that might thematically tie well into what you are saying (like when the sounds of classrooms or meetings added to what Joffe-Walt was narrating). Make sure you go back to the videos for help with adding tracks as both touch on this. Also try to add effects! Fade in/fade out is especially helpful for intro and outro music.

 

Here are some resources of audio files you could download and then import into your Audacity project (IMPORTANT: Note the descriptive text beneath it as it will sometimes request that you credit the creator; if the creator wants an attribution, make sure you include that attribution when you submit your audio file):

 

  1. Freesound – Freesound (will need to make a free account, and then can just browse for any type of sound or kind of music you’d be interested in).

 

  1. Free Sound Effects, Royalty Free Sound Effects, Nature Sounds (partnersinrhyme.com). Especially note “free royalty free music” and “free sound effects.” Some audio files (like much of “royalty free music” have a fee, so be sure to avoid those). You can just click download mp3 or download wav version, either will work. For “royalty free music,” right click options in middle of page and open new tab, then click the three vertical dots to download.

 

  1. Free Sound Effects to Download | ZapSplat . This just has free sound effects but is very easy to navigate and download stuff.

 

  1. Free Sound Effects Same as previous: free sound effects only, but easy to navigate and download stuff.

 

  1. Wikimedia Commons. If you search for something, make sure “audio” is clicked after searching to see all audio options. You can also try searching “music” or by genre of music to see what comes up. Sometimes there are some good musical or instrumental tracks you can download for free.

 

  1. Free Music Archive – Free to share and royalty free music. This has great music options. Make sure you credit creators by naming and linking to their stuff (or anything they specifically ask for).

 

  1. To get a file into Audacity, click “File” and then “Import” and then select “Audio.” Select the file from wherever you downloaded to on your device.

 

  1. NOTE: try to only use MP3 or WAV files as they are easy to import into Audacity. There are ways to use other audio files, so let me know if you want to and I can work with you on that (e.g., sometimes MP4A will be a thing). Usually, though, there will be an option to do MP3 or WAV.

 

  1. If you tried to add a track, listen to it and play around with it as much as you want based on what you learned from the videos. Don’t stress about it! This is all just practice. If you did not add a track with other sounds or music, that’s okay! This will be something you will have to do at some point, but you don’t have to do it now. Could be good practice, but not required.

 

  1. When ready to create an audio file, go to “File” and then “Export” and then select “Export as MP3” to save on your device as that audio file.

 

  1. When ready, submit your audio file to Blackboard. (see above, the beginning of the instructions for this assignment about Due Date and How to Submit). Make sure you submit the MP3 file and NOT the Audacity project file.

 

 

Independent Work Guidelines

For independent work, do the following with a partner:

Follow these four steps:

  1. Give an update about where you are at with your research project.
  2. Tell your partner what your goal is for your time working together.
  3. Work for a solid 20 minutes.
  4. Check in with your partner at the end and talk about[As you work, let me know about questions; I’m going to come around and check in with each pair]

 

Podcast Planning: Scheduling and Workflow (30-45 minutes)

I read all your Labor Journal entries! Was happy to read a range of choices for positions. Sometimes it was about doing things you love to do, other times about doing something you weren’t comfortable doing, other times it was about considering your identity position and taking on roles that boost representation for those identity positions for those kinds of roles, others thought about their career or the kinds of work they want to do in the future, trying something new, looking forward to a challenge. Lots of good reasons–have fun with it and also challenge yourself!

I want to take a moment to talk about the Team Charters and Task Schedules.

  • Keeping in communication to adhere to team charter
  • Buffer time in schedule
  • Project Managers and reminders / ongoing coordination
  • Be ready to adjust schedule as needed, but be in communication if doing that
  • Concerns or questions about schedule

 

Workflow Options (from Joanna Wolfe, Team Writing, p. 6):

  • All Together: Entire team sits down and works on project together. Usually one or two team members “drives” at the computer and others give feedback as the work happens.
  • Divided: The group breaks project down into sections and assigns individual team members to different sections or parts of project.
  • Layered: Each person on team is assigned one or more specific roles. Each person works on project in turn, adding their own expertise to product. Document slowly accumulates in layers as each team member revises as project moves forward.

Activity: Get with your groups and talk about how each thing on your task schedule will adhere to one or more of the different collaborative work approaches listed above. Be ready to talk about it so we can talk through as a large group how to strategize getting this work done from a perspective of collaboration rather than only individualistic approaches.

 

Other things:

Any points to make about what sorts of consistency we want across episodes? How to communicate about that?

Tone meetings starting next week? Time now?

Meetings across roles?

Getting narrators familiar with each group they narrate?

What else?

  • Other roles besides main roles: check in on how equal that is for workload
  • can do interviews in class next week, but recording may be more difficult than doing on Zoom
  • Transcription of episodes will be important
  • Safwa is narrating public and private
  • Alexia is narrating charter and specialized
  • Deadline can be pushed if we need it, keep me posted. Right now it is December 2
  • Use “Submit Audio Files Here” on Blackboard to share files. Do proper labeling of files.

 

Close Out (2-5 minutes)

-Labor Journal entry is different again this week, so read prompt. Complete Labor Log and Labor Post by this Saturday (11/13), along with Labor Journal entry.

-If you are signed up for Podcast Post today, complete that by tonight. Others, make sure you comment by tonight.

-For Tuesday (11/16), it is a light day. Only a Podcast Post is due and a comment if not posting that day. Use the extra time to coordinate with your group or work on Research Project, Draft 2. I think it would be a good idea to do at least one more meeting with your group before Thanksgiving break.

-For Thursday (11/18), there is a Reading/Listening Post that involves revisiting the Detweiler piece we read a few weeks ago. Re-reading  cane be important: you will always pick up new things when reading again because you are a different person in that moment of the second reading. Look it over again, and if your week to post, I’ll ask you to reflect about some considerations of what a podcast does and how that might influence how we finalize our own podcast. If not posting, you’ll comment on a post that Thursday.