ENG 1020: Photography as Artform/Historical Artifact (Academic Research Paper with Creative Component)
For this assignment you are to examine some aspect of photography that deals with it as an artform or historical artifact only. Do not focus on general topics such as wedding photography, the best digital camera to buy, etc. You are to present an informative paper with a journalistic spirit. In other words, present the varying views on your topic along witih any relevant information and do not insert direct, personal opinion.
This assignment is designed for you to learn to explore complex issues and difficult, abstract, or unusual ideas and in the process discover and learn something about yourself and the world and to learn about a topic for which you lack a strong base of knowledge. Writing and researching are processes of learning that lead us on a journey that begins with simple curiosity and ends with a realization of discovery.
Your goal for this project is three fold and is both an intellectual and creative endeavor. For Phase I, you will compose an academic research paper that examines some aspect of photography in some way. Here are some possible topics:
- Dorothea Lange: What it Means to be Poor in America
- Kevin Carter: The Horror of Death
- Robert Mapplethorpe: Making Homosexuality Acceptable
- Photography and the Truth of the Jewish Holocaust
- Documentary Photography and the perception of "truth"
- Sports Photography and the depiction of "the game"
- Architectural Photography
- The Fine Art of Photography
- Matthew Brady and the photojournalism of the Civil War
- Street Photography and Social Landscape Photography: What do they communicate about who we are?
- Landscape photography and the Nude: The work of Arno Rafael Minkkinen
- Photography and the art of Dance
- The Depecition of the feminine: How Photography Documents What it Means to be a Young Woman in China
- James Van Der Zee: Documenting "Black America"
- Photography as historical artifact: Historically what has photography documented about what it means to be American (or Black in America, A Woman in America, Poor in America, etc.)?
- Exploring Global Communities: What does Photography communicate about cultural values?
- Diane Arbus: Documenting the Small Tragedies of Life
- Photography and the Body: A Means to Communicate Ideas about the Self
- The Visual Art of Margot Neuhaus: A Dialogue with Nature
- "Truth" in Photography and Painting
- The Visual Documentation of Hurricane Katrina: What it reveals about the city, the government, and our country (can choose another historical event)
- The Making of a President: Photography and Creation of Political Identity
For Phase II of the project, you will choose a photographer's work that is somehow related to your academic research and attempt to emulate their style in regard to subject matter, composition, lighting, etc.. You will create a series of ten photographs and present these to the class along with an explanation of your artistic choices. The final phase of this project is the presentation of your creative work.
Phase I: The Academic Research Paper
Step 1: Explore Your General Subject Area: You should begin your search for a topic by exploring the library's databases and surfing the web. The goal is to narrow the general topic of photography down to a more narrow focus. Find some aspect of photography that makes you curious in some way or find a question somehow related to this topic that you would like to have answered that you do not already possess the answer to in any way. The library databases that you might find most helpful are Academic Search Premeir and LexisNexus Academic.
Step 2: Choose a Topic for Research: Often students mistakenly think that the most important step of the research process is writing the paper itself. This idea, however, is a misconception. Choosing one's topic for research is of utmost importance. It is critical that one choose a topic that they are very interested in, don't really know that much about, and one that they want to explore more. If you aren't interested in your topic, then reading your research material and drafting your paper will be tedious. In the end, the quality of the writing itself may suffer as well because of your lackluster interest in your topic.
If you choose a topic that interests you and one that you wish to learn more about, then you will likely enjoy this project.
Step 3: Form a Research Question:
Your research question should be related to some aspect of your topic that you have the biggest question about.
Once you have explored the broad, general topic of photography as artform or historical artifact, in your attempt to narrow your topic and focus your search for information you should form a research question to guide through the research process. A research question should be as specific as possible, so that your topic is not too broad.
For instance: What motivated Dorothea Lange to photograph the poor migrant workers of the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression?
NOTE: This is a tentative question only. It is subject to change as you begin reading your research material. Once you delve into your research, your knowledge base on your topic will grow, your perspective about the topic will change, and new ideas will likely interest you. Change your question as you see fit. Follow your interests and passions!
Step 4: Form a tentative thesis statement.
Often students agonize over forming their thesis statement for their research papers. It is, however, quite simple. Read over your research question. Based on the knowledge that you have today, attempt to answer this question in one sentence. This will become your tentative thesis. Remember that the thesis is the central idea of your research paper. It MUST BE A STATEMENT. IT CANNOT BE A QUESTION.
When you begin drafting your paper, the thesis statement will appear near the end of your introductory paragraph.
NOTE: If your research question changes, your thesis statement will change as well.
Step 5: Begin searching for sources for your paper. This step is fulfilled by completing the annotated bibliography.
You will need to conduct outside research on your topic. You must use dependable, reliable sources. These include book chapters, articles taken from books, magazine articles, journal articles, and newspaper articles. YOU MAY NOT USE WRITTEN SOURCES FROM THE WORLD WIDE WEB AT ALL!
Step 6: Develop a rough outline for your paper. After you have read about your sources and thought about how you might use them in a paper, the next step is to begin to organize your thoughts and your research material in a manner that communicates your thesis in a coherent way.
Step 7: Begin drafting your paper:
As a writer and researcher you have a responsibility to your readers to make the difficult concepts concrete and understandable. While writing, you should avoid vague generalizations. Where do you get the examples to develop your essay? Which examples support your thesis? Which do not? Which are the most convincing? Which are the most likely to interest readers and clarify meaning?
Step 8: Cite as you go. It is important that you cite all paraphrased and quoted material as you go. If the idea came from a source, you must demonstrate that it did. Otherwise, you are guilty of plagiarism.
We will cover this extensively in class.
A GENNERAL OVERVIEW
Purpose
The primary goal of this paper is to inform. You are to educate your audience about your topic. The assignment is journalistic in nature, and you are to merely report the opinion of others. You are not to directly include your own opinion in this paper. It is very important to remember that you goal is merely to inform, not argue or convince.
At all times, your tone should be fair and balanced and you should avoid argumentative language. To do this, you will need to use both qualifers and author tags (see class notes).
Audience
Your audience is a highly educated one. They are academics, scholars, professors, and experts in their fields.
Because this is a formal academic essay, you should never use contractions, ipersonal pronouns (such as you, we, us, my, mine, our, or ours), informal language or slang, or the first person (“I”).
Format
The overall word requirement for this paper is a minimum of 5 full pages and no more than 6 and it will require library research which means you must also include a works cited page. NOTE: THE CITED PAGE SHOULD NOT BE COUNTED AS PART OF YOUR 5-6 PAGE REQUIREMENT. IT IS, HOWEVER, FORMALLY NUMBERED AS THE LAST PAGE OF YOUR PROJECT.
To receive credit, your essay must include at least five written outside sources of research information pertaining to your subject. So, you will need to locate 5-6 written sources that deal with your topic that present varying positions and perspectives on your topic.
You should also locate a series of images on the internet to function as illustrative texts within your written document to support your ideas present in your paper (This can be achieved by right clicking on an image that you have located by performing a Google image search and then copying and pasting it into a Word document. Your research paper should include a minimum of 3 images.
Your essay should have a title. It should also be typed, double spaced, with one-inch margins all around, Times New Roman Font, & 12 pt. Refer to the required writer's handbook for this class for other questions about format and citations using MLA style. You may also refer to owl.english.purde.edu. You should have a minimum of five sources and a minimum of three visual sources. Include copies of each source with your final draft and highlight the material used in your paper on the copy of each source.
Image Format:
You will need to insert the image into your paper and position it in a
strategic place for best rhetorical effect. You can scan it in or save it off the web. Include a caption for each image, providing a Figure number, a title or description of the image, and the complete source.
For example:
Fig. 1: This striking photo by Mary Ellen Mark is a portrait of a small, barefooted child seated on rocky ground in the middle of nowhere with two chained monkeys, one huddled close to her side. As the title suggests, she is the daughter of a monkey trainer. Her vacant stare, so like that of the animals next to her, along with her appearance, grabs the viewer’s attention. It immediately brings to mind the numerous similarities between man and ape. Man is man an ape is just an animal, a lesser being, not capable of the advanced functioning and intellect of man. How is it then, that this little human being and her monkeys appear so alike in form and function? The photographer seems to be asking whether this is fact or if it is just our imaginations making such distinctions. While the relationship between man and animal is sometimes blurred, such as that with a house pet, it is not generally the case with exotic animals such as these monkeys.
Within the body of your paper, you should then refer to the image as "Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.
Please format your images to an adequate size to see detail in the photo without making it blurry.
If it is a web image, include “date accessed” in your MLA citation.
NOTE: Keep all planning work, brainstorming, freewriting, clustering, revision workshop responses, workshop questionnaires, HIGHLIGHTED SOURCES, reflections and NUMBERED versions of the essay to hand in with the final DRAFT of the essay. REMEMBER, NO PROCESS, NO GRADE.
Final Draft, evaluated on the following criteria:
Total Possible Points: 100/
Focus (26 points): Does essay have a clear purpose? Focus on a main idea and clearly identifiable thesis? Are reader’s expectations set and then met? Does the introducution properly preview the entire content of the paper? Does the conclusion properly close the essay? When read together do the intro and conclusion form one idea? Ideas, examples, and reasons developed in the body of the paper are clearly related to the main focus?
Development (26 points): Are supporting examples, showing details, and data rich and relevant to the main idea ? Are the writer’s assertions (their topic sentences) immediately followed by supporting evidence? Does appropriate research supports the writer’s topic sentnece and then in turn also support the main idea or thesis? Does the writer show how or why evidence is relevant to main idea or claim?
Organization (26 points): Do ideas and paragraphs proceed in logical and apparent sequence or pattern? Does writer use sufficient audience cues to let the reader know what has been discussed, what is being discussed, or what will be discussed? Does writer use attention-getting title and lead-in, essay map, summary and forecasting statements, paragraph hooks, transitional words and phrases? Do effective conclusions guide the reader from beginning to end?
Style (11 points): Is language clear direct and readable? Are sentences clear, concise, and easily read by intended audience? Is word choice appropriate for audience? Do sentences reveal and sustain appropriate voice and tone?
Mechanics (11 points): Are there obvious errors in spelling, punctuation, and grammar? Are there patterns of error? Citations formatted correctly? Source material handled properly?
NO 1ST DRAFT ON DUE DATE (-7 POINTS)
NO REFLECTION (-7 POINTS)
NO PROCESS OR PROPER CITATION OF SOURCES=NO GRADE
Grading scale:
A 72-80
B 64-71
C 56-63
D 48-55
F 0-47
PHASE II:
For phase II of the project, you will choose a photographer's work that is somehow related to your academic research and attempt to emulate their style in regard to subject matter, composition, lighting, etc..
For some of you, emulating subject matter may mean doing so in a thematic manner. For instance, if your topic was Civil War photography, obviously you can't photograph the same subject matter. You can, however, identify a theme (i.e., suffering, rebellion, etc.) and capture this idea in the content of your own photos.
Using a digital camera (NOT A CAMERA PHONE), You will create a series of ten photographs (or more) and present these to the class in a Powerpoint slideshow. You must use a minimum of ten images. You should time these and apply a musical track to the background as well. Your slide show should last no more than 2 minutes. In your slideshow, you may repeat a slide multiple times to create your desired effect.
Remember that your choice of music will be important in establishing a mood. You will need to think about the type of emotional mood that is appropriate for your content/theme and choose an audio track that will aide you in creating such a mood.
NOTE: If you do not have access to a digital camera or cannot borrow one from a friend, please see me to make other arrangements.
THE PRESENTATION
The final phase of this project is the presentation of your creative work. For this presentation, you must provide a brief overview of your research topic to the class, present your slidehow, and then explain how your research informed what you photographed and the artistic choices of those photographs. Your presenation must be between 10-12 minutes. You will be graded on the content of your presentation only, not on your quality of delivery.
Click this link to understand what I am looking for:
For other inspiration, see the following link:
Presentations will take place on Novemeber 10, 12, 15 & 17.
Slideshows and presentations will be graded based on the following criteria:
Speaker clearly presents overview of their research project's thesis (6 points)
Speaker makes clear connections from their research to the content of their photos in their slideshow ( 4 points)
Speaker's slideshow contains 10 photos of artistic quality and stays within time limit for both slideshow and overall time limit of presentation ( 10 points)
A 18-20
B 16-17
C 14-15
D 12-13
F 0-11
