AWOL & LDH2BMeaningless - Break Work

`Winter Break Work

1. Make Up Work & Improved Drafts - Please post these as new drafts. This will make it easier for me and others to know what's new. Hopefully each of you have the update from me of what you are missing and remember that the deadline for late & revised work is January 3 at 11pm. One of the major assignments that few people have adequately prepared is a synthesis - the "Big Paper" with an intro paragraph, material from various assignments, and weaving together of the big ideas of the course. This "Exhibition Style Paper" is an important part of the course and you should have a decent (still evolving) draft by the end of the break.

2. New Assignment - Please post one to two paragraphs describing your Winter Holidays and then a 1-2 paragraph analysis connecting your experience of these cultural rituals to the American way of life (AWOL) or dominant & marginal messages (Corporate &/or Folk) on the Good & Meaningful Life (LDH2BM).

Ebay Assignment - AWOL

The Basic Assignment

1. Find an item (as cheap as this one or as expensive as this one) that you'd like to buy that you have the money to pay for.

2. The item should be an auction item rather than the "Buy It Now" type. Check to make sure you will be able to pay for it - don't bid on "PayPal Only" items unless you have legal and ethical access to a credit card. Most items also allow "Money Orders" which you can get at the post office in trade for cash. Don't bid on something you don't want or can't afford. You may also have to create an Ebay account if you don't already have one.

3. Consider your strategy. Decide to make an early big bid, an early low bid, or a late or very late big or low bid, or repeated bids. Consider JBidWatcher.

4. Take notes on your feelings and actions while you wait for the auction to end.

5. Write a 1-2 paragraph description of your experience and a 1-2 paragraph analysis that connects your experience of capitalism, through this assignment, to the AWOL. Please post this to your blog as a separate item by December 19, 9pm.

Some more stuff about the assignment:
Ebay is a great example of how capitalism has permeated the American Way of Life. Everything in the world seems to be for sale and regular people are doing most of the buying and selling.

For our purposes of gaining insight into the forces shaping our lives we can analyze the strategies used by buyers and sellers and the mindset, habits, and effects on our lives that are engendered by participation in this particular free market. Since Ebay is a particularly free market that is hugely popular in the US we can gain a sense of how capitalism, in a relatively pure form, affects us.

I urge you to actually bid on and win an item on Ebay so you have the full effect of participation. I also hope that many of you will bid and lose so you get that experience as well. Of course I am unable to monitor your actions through Ebay and have little desire to be an omniscient tracker of your online activities. So if you track items ("watch this item") and record bids and starting and ending prices, etc., then you will be able to successfully approximate (fake) the assignment. This activity is yet another "real world simulation" like the auction we did this past Friday.

Be warned that some people get addicted to Ebay and that in general looking at a computer screen (even if it saves you money and gets you cool stuff) is not a really adequate substitute for living.

What to Do In 101 Today - AWOL

You can do one of two things in 101 today.

The main idea is to add to your big paper. We've been working on two frameworks that dominate the American Way of Life - capitalism and government.

For capitalism you can add to the big paper insights into how it affects what we do, what we think about, what we hope for, how our lives are shaped that draw from the auction and your early work on the Ebay assignment.

For government you can cut and paste and edit material from your A, B, C, and D assignments about the constitution. Especially D asks you to draw connections between the documented structure of US government and how we live.

The other option is to work on late assignments which are listed here.

What to Do In 101 Today - LDH2BM

In 101 today you can work on several different projects.

The main reason we're down here is so that you can add to your big paper. The main thing we've been working on the past week that you can add includes this set of concepts:

1. The "marginal messages of commodified culture" are those messages sold to us by advertisements, movies, tv, music videos, books, magazines, etc that define the good and meaningful life in a way which is unusual. These "marginal messages" expand the range of visions of a good and meaningful life both by offering new visions and also by (to some degree) contradicting the dominant corporate messages on the good and meaningful life.

2. Some examples and sources of marginal corporate messages on the good and meaningful life.

3. Some weaving and analysis of these messages to show their significance - to demonstrate their kinship (or successful divorce) with dominant corporate messages - to claim them as personally powerful in your own understanding or relegate them as insignificant compared to the tsunami of dominant messages - to theorize why the corporations put them out - to consider the argument that corporations manage (with our complicity) to "commodify our dissent".

You can also make up late work - here's what was due as of last week.

General Rubric For Assignments

thought i should put this online too - same one i gave you in september.

General Rubric for Assignments

10 – Among the best work done in the class. It fulfills all criteria from the assignment, is strong with thought-provoking ideas, has flavor and beauty, and has been revised and polished. This work is deep, colorful, and clean and would be welcomed by college professors.

9 – Good work, impressive. Reveals some strong ideas and areas of beauty or has been highly revised and polished –doesn’t quite manage to combine polish with strength.

8 – Solid job. Shows ideas and flashes of aesthetics but requires work to build those into a more powerful project.

7 – Decent work. The assignment has been completed without just “going through the motions”. Alternatively the work might have some strengths but have missed part of the assignment.

6 – Getting there. The work seems somewhat perfunctory – as though it were done last second or without intention. Doesn’t seem to have benefited from thinking time or from revision.

5 – Halfway – Most of the assigned work is minimally done with one or two decent parts.

4 – Partway – Most of the assigned work is minimally done.

3 – Something – Some of the assigned work is minimally done.

2 – A gesture – A bit of the assigned work is minimally done.

1 – Mas que nada – A tiny bit is posted.

0 – Nothing.

What's Due Now - AWOL

What's already been assigned in the 2nd quarter and what should be posted on your blogs?

Draft of Big Paper (intro paragraph connecting what we've been learning to a general theory of the American Way of Life - especially including "defining aspects" (freedom, opportunity, etc) and "dominant frameworks" (political and economic systems). sections on "dominant frameworks" - connecting what you've learned in basic economics to the AWOL and connecting what you've learned

Election Response

Part A Constitution Work (11/30)

Part B Constitution Work (11/30)

Thanksgiving Anecdote & Analysis (12/2)

Buy Nothing Day/Black Friday Anecdote & Analysis (12/2)

Wal-Mart Worker Trampled Analysis (12/2)

Part C Constitution Work (12/3)

Part D Constitution Work (12/5)

What's Due Now - LDH2BMeaningless

What's already been assigned in the 2nd quarter and what should you make sure you have already posted on your blog?

Please post all of the following assignments, remember the general rubric, new drafts should be posted separately.

1. Election Reflection (2-6 paragraphs)
2. Dominant Corporate Messages Analysis (2-6 paragaphs - music videos, movies, magazines, etc)
3. Big Paper (intro paragraph linking various assignments to the question of how to live a good and meaningful life - sections on your perspective, other peoples' perspectives, dominant corporate perspective, etc)
4. Thanksgiving post (how was your thanksgiving? did genocide come up as a topic? what does this cultural ritual reveal about efforts to live a good and meaningful life?)
5. Black Friday/BND post (did you shop or not-shop? what is your analysis of the connection between these contradictory cultural rituals and efforts to live well and meaningfully? connect your personal experience to your theories of larger patterns.)
6. Trampled Wal-Mart worker post (what does this show about how people live? about people's priorities? about our culture? if anything? use specific evidence.)