Mudpit: Naming & Noticing:
Your small-groupmates helped you get a start on this phase of analysis on your text or artifact. Now you’ll extend this phase in your mudpit by adding a whole bunch of concrete, specific things you notice about your thing.
It’ll help to have your text or artifact in front of you. If it’s a show, watch it, pausing frequently to take notes. If it’s a toy, get it in front of you and examine it closely. You get the idea.
Remember to slow down & pay attention to each detail. Resist making judgments or jumping ahead to conclusions now, because they’ll most likely be pretty obvious, shallow interpretations. Remember, too, that the more time and energy you sow in the early stages of analysis, the more goodness you’ll be reap in the meaning-making phase.
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“Billy Sim” from SEX, DRUGS, AND COCOA PUFFS (remember to bring your annotated copy to class so you can refer to it in discussion)
Mandatory one: From p. 16: “Clearly, video technology cages imagination; it offer interesting information to use, but it implies that all peripheral information is irrelevant and off-limits. Computers make children advance faster, but they also make them think like computers.” Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Why? Back up your claims with specific evidence.
In what ways is this essay bigger and broader than The Sims and Chuck Klosterman? How (and where) does this connect to something larger?
How do Klosterman’s ideas develop as the essay goes on? How are they challenged (by himself and others)? Does he seem to change his mind about anything? Is your mind changed about anything?
What is Klosterman doing in this essay that you’d like to try in your own work?