PRESENTATION COMMENTS HERE

Our project is a simple comic strip.  Please leave your thoughts and feedback on our project here. 

Conventions of Comics

-Short: comics are broken up into scenes, when making a comic you have to decide how many scenes you need to break your story up into. You should try to make it as short as possible, but enough to get your point across.

-Dialogue: In comics there are little to no dialogue. When words are put into comics it is just to make sure the readers can clearly understand what it going on in the picture.

-Drawing: the drawings that are in comics do not have to be amazing or even neat. The characters is comics can be as simple as stick figures, and in some comics the characters are over exaggerated. For example in super hero comics the characters will have extremely large muscles.

Steps in Creating Our Comic

Comic Genre

1. pick a top
- breaking up of scenes

2. Research conventions of comics
-drawings
-dialogue
-credibility
-details in visual
-(Research: collect examples)

3. divide work

Slide 4

Slide 3

Slide 2

Slide 1

Goals for project #2

This project is a very unique one. It is not the traditional styles of writing. This project is based on the visual genres that can express ideas just as well as writing genres. Visual genres include anything that isn’t writing that can be seen and portray an idea to whoever is looking at it. Our group is doing a comic strip as our visual genre. Comic strips are usual not very complex drawings with short captions that explain an idea. Most of the time if a person is making a cartoon about a celebrity, they will make the celebrity have certain features that will make a person seeing the comic strip know who he is. It is an easy way to show your thoughts and ideas to other people. Our comic strip is about a high school senior filling out college applications and selecting a college. The main conventions involved in our comic strip are seriousness and humor. Conventions are what are involved in the genre. It shows what makes the project’s genre a unique one. Our comic strip is humorous because it shows how the student is panicking and stressing out about the applications. This is funny because all of the people in class can relate to this. College applications are very stressful and it is difficult to make the decision on which college to go to. Also, at the end of the comic it shows him picking which college he will go to out of a hat. He is makes something that is a very serious matter and making it into a joke. The serious factor in this application is the fact of how important college is. It is a big decision to make for a teenager because it won’t just be their school for the next four years, it will also be where they live. It is important to like the area you are going to school in because it will make the college experience much harder than it should be. There is a lot to learn from this comic strip. It doesn’t only show how the college process is important and stressful; it shows that something serious can be made lighter than it is. If you put something serious into a joking matter, it may not seem as serious as it really is. A person might not stress over that important matter as much. I have never done a project like this before. This is the first class I have ever used a blog to make a project. It makes it much more interesting to do this than the typical sit down and start writing an essay format. It also makes it easier that we are in groups and can see other people’s perspectives and hear their ideas. The combination of a group’s ideas will make a better outcome of a project because it is a group effort and if everyone does their part, there will always be a better turn out than an individual assignment.

500 words

So far for my project I have learned a little bit about writing.  I have learned that there are different forms of writing then just writing papers or essays.  I learned that it is important to be able to use different forms of writing to fit your audience.  Also, I have learned that developing a script or outline involves writing.  I have been developing a different attitude toward writing through this project.  This project has shown me that writing can be fun, and funny.  Also, I like that we get to work with cartoons and comics.  I have learned that if you write about something you really enjoy that it is easier and you are more willing to put more effort into your work then the bare minimal.  Being able to work with what we want has really helped us to get creative with our project.  I think this project has made all the kids in class like english a little more.  Most of us were probably   expecting to have to write a bunch of papers, and now that we learned that there is more to english then just papers we have all began to have more fun in class.  

There are a few different conventions that go into our project.  We are using parody as our main convention.  Parody is when you take something that may be serious or have a different kind of message, and turn it to mean something else.  Parody can also be funny.  We are going for a funny parody of picking a college.    Seeing as we are doing a comic strip we need to keep our images kind of informal.  What I mean by that is we need to stay simple enough with our drawings.  We need to try and make the images clear using our drawings and words.  With the words you do not want to get too long or the audience might get lost or just loose interest.  The biggest part of using a comic is to make it humorous.  We are not trying to make people fall over laughing, that is not the point of humor.  We are just trying to get a little silent laugh or a smile out of our readers.  I feel that a smile is just as good as a laugh.  We portray, or express, our humor by using irony.  Irony is when you use words or images to convey a different idea of what something usually means.  For example, the idea of picking a college is pretty serious and usually means a lot to a person.  Our charter decides on what college to attend by picking out of a hat, which no one would do, at least I don’t think they would.  We also use irony in the college he ends up picking.  He chooses Illinois State, which according to all of us who are students at Illinois State would be a good choice.  However, our charter seems to show serious disappointment in his choice.  I think our audience will really enjoy our comic.   

Goals for Project 2: 500 word response

Currently I am in the process of completing the second project. Our group for project number 2, The Golden Gnomes, had to chose a type of visual genre to study, and then recreate. Our group chose to research the visual genres of comic strips.At first we thought we would struggle finding Research on our topic, because comic strips seem like such simple ideas, but there is plenty we have come across. This is really what i wanted to learn from this project, being able to pick any genre and have the skills to break it down and analyze each and every detail that it is composed of. Basically in a nut shell i have really gained a better understanding of conventions. Some of the conventions we have for our particular genre is the drawings, the drawing you find in a comic strip will be a lot different form the pictures you would see if you opened an anatomy book. The detail of the drawings in comic strips are very simple, they can even be as simple as stick figures. Another convention we focused on was the text used in comic strips. If you were to open a novel, could you scan the page and tell me what the main idea of the story is? well maybe but chances are probably not. In comic strips the text in each frame is meant to be short and simple, if there is even any text. Sometimes the pictures can do the talking, but in our comic strip the only text we included are a few words here and there in the the background so the audience has some sort of guide line to help keep them on track. Along with Audience, Another convention you have to think about when making a comic strip is who you are targeting. Our group really did not discover out targeted audience until we had out story line mapped out. Since our story line fallows the process of seniors in high school going through the college application stages, we decided that we would create our comic to mostly target seniors who can relate, or college students who are looking back at the process they once dreaded. Another convention that is not found in all comics, but we have decided to add into ours is humor. Our story line fallows this boy who ends up becoming so frustrated with the applications and decision making in picking a school, that he ends up just filling a hat with pieces of paper that have a college written on them, blind folds himself, and then randomly pick. Our last frame of the comic is the boy holding up the paper that say Illinois State University, but then we threw some humor into it, because there is also a speech bubble of the boy saying “Son of a...”. We kept the profanity out to keep it appropriate, but everyone will be able to complete the phrase in their heads. Being able to reflect upon the work we have finished in project two so far really makes me feel confident that I can fully understand the process that goes into creating a piece of work to reflect a certain genre. I am happy with our work an can see our project going in the right direction.

500 word

With our first English project we learned how to use blogger, and its different applications. Our group goal is to put together a concise and funny comic, while sending a message. This will be a challenge because we are doing a comic, instead of typing a letter like we did in project number one. This will be challenging because when we did the first project we just had to copy and paste our letter from a word document onto blogger, or just type it straight onto blogger. However our groups plan is to draw our comic out on a piece of paper and then scan it. Once we scan it we will use blogger to put the pictures online. We will get the pictures online and organize them in the order of our comic strip. I think this project will get different results from our group because we all discussed and agreed on a topic. Because we have collaborated and agreed on a topic, it will be interesting for everybody, causing students to get more into the project. This interest in our comic topic, causes people to participate more in discussions, and making decisions. Group discussion makes things better because you are getting everyone's feedback and ideas, which will give you more topics and opinions. Also we can give constructive criticism for each other's ideas or things like grammar, spelling, and making sure the story we are creating makes sense. If our story doesn’t flow properly or make sense, people won’t be able to enjoy the humor or message from the comic. Nobody would benefit from a poorly written comic strip, and people would lose interest. Another reason positive feedback is useful is because it can make others feel better about their work. They can get their constructive criticism and work on their draft to improve our comic strip. We want to make the posts as best as possible so the readers of the blog are satisfied with our work. We want them to get the correct message and humor out of our comic. Our group has cooperated very well over the last few days and needs to continue to do so. It’s important we all continue to listen to others and to participate in our group discussions. We need to listen to whoever is discussing and make sure we understand their views and opinions, and listening will allow our group to do that. Whenever you are talking, you want your group to pay attention, so you need to be respectful, return the favor and listen to others when they are talking to you about finally, after we all collaborate and come up with a good topic, we all need to do our job. Everyone in the group will be assigned a specific job in order to create the comic. We have already come up with the ideas for the individual comic boxes. Everybody in the group just needs to do their individual slide, and we will finish the project with ease. We have already worked together to get the hard part down, now all we have to do is the finishing work.

Goals for Project 2

For project 1, we learned how to use blogger and every tool with it. Now, in the second project, one of the goals I have is to focus more on the information I am putting in instead how to use blogger. This is the main goal that I am trying to accomplish. As a group, I feel like a good goal for ourselves is to make the blog as thorough as possible, giving the people reading the blog as much information as possible. Last time we didn't really focus much on that portion, but I feel like it will be easier to accomplish this time now that we have gotten more used to blogger. Also, last time through, I did not focus much on the information I was putting in the blog. I was focusing more on getting my work done as fast as possible. But, this time through, we have picked a topic that is more interesting to me, so I will be able to focus more and put down more and better information. Another thing our group is working on for the second project is discussing and participating more. Discussing can make things better because you are getting everyone's feedback or ideas, which you will get more ideas from five people than just one. Also we can give constructive criticism on each other's work on things like grammar, spelling, and making sure the information we are posting is valid. If our group is not posting valid information, then who is it helping? Nobody will benefit from that and it would be wasting everyone's time who is reading it. That is one reason why it would be good to discuss and participate in a group setting. Another reason why it could be useful is because it can make others feel better about their work. They can get their constructive criticism and work on their draft to make their post's better. We want to make the posts as best as possible so the readers of the blog are satisfied and are obtaining the correct information. Lastly, a goal that is usually put in the back of people's mind but needs to be stated is paying attention. We need to listen to whoever is discussing and make sure we understand everything they are say, and paying attention helps. Whenever you are talking, you want every single persons attention, so you need to be respectful and listen to others when they are talking to you about their topic. It is like the golden rule from kindergarten, which is "treat others the way you want to be treated". Well people don't always realize it but that's one of the nicest things you can do for people are presenting, and you can learn a lot by just paying attention. So, overall, these are the goals that I had in mind for myself and my group.

Plagiarism view of Karl-Theodor

Karl admitted to making a few mistakes, but denied cheating. He felt he didn't do anything wrong. He dad say that he had made some "serious mistakes". His thesis had work noticabley copied word for word. He feels he did nothing wrong because he didn't do it on purpose.

What is Plagiarism definiton

The definition of plagiarism is the unauthorized use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one's own original work, as by not crediting the author.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/plagiarism is where i got the definition of plagiarism. 

Explanation of Case

German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg was accused of plagiarizing his doctoral thesis in the process of getting his Ph.D. Guttenberg instantly resigned after being accused. After Guttenberg was accused of plagiarizing his doctoral thesis, Time magazine found out that a poll by ARD Television said that 74% of Germans did not care that Guttenberg did not care that he plagiarized, which is actually a large deal, but people do not know how serious it is.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2055800,00.html