Students will create a blog post describing, analyzing, and evaluating a popular media text of their choosing. This can include a song or album, tv show, movie, comic strip, book, an advertisement… be creative. As long as you can write about it as a cultural text, using the concepts that you learned in the course material you should be fine. If you aren’t sure whether your choice is appropriate, feel free to run it by your academic coach.
Students should include a basic description of the content they chose, to orient the reader and give any necessary context. Additionally, analysis and evaluation of the content should consist of a coherent thesis statement that is logically supported with evidence.
The questions below should help you think about the cultural elements in your song/album, and will serve as a guide for analysis and evaluation. An effective analysis should be structured around a thesis statement, but will address these questions. In other words, your job is not to simply answer these questions one by one. Instead, you must engage in writing as a process in which you develop a coherent and logical argument that deals with these questions. This is where critical thinking and communication are crucial skills.
To achieve core area objectives, students are asked to pay special attention to the following questions (Note that the labels in parentheses refer to the competency areas that are evaluated using the rubric that is associated with this assignment):
How does what you have learned from class apply to the media text? (Critical Thinking)
In what way does the medium through which the text is conveyed affect its message? (Critical Thinking)
How does the object represent an ethical position? If an ethical position appears to be missing, what could be the reasons that it is missing? (Personal Responsibility)
What underlying ideologies are conveyed in the message and how does it contribute to a popular ideological debate? (Social Responsibility)
How might these ideological debates and ethical positions affect individual groups in society differently? (Personal Responsibility and Social Responsibility)
GUIDELINES
Critical thinking, social responsibility, and personal responsibility are assessed according to the attached rubric, based on how well your analysis addresses the questions in the prompt. Communication skills are assessed as an overall component, based on the following guidelines and specific requirements.
In order to effectively address the above questions, blog posts should:
Be between 500-750 words, submitted as a discussion post that responds to this Canvas prompt
Engage in the writing process described below, to clearly communicate a thesis statement with relevant supporting arguments
Include concepts from the course material as part of the analysis and evaluation
Include pictures, multimedia content, and links to relevant content (as described below)
Accurately cite ALL sources at the end of your blog, using ASA formatting (See this Citation Guicixde for help and links to additional resources).
Last Completed Projects
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