Studio Tour 1
Projects are progressing. For this week, I'd like you to visit three projects and comment on what you see happening: studio tours. You'll post your comments for the writers of the projects you're visiting to a page on the wiki. When you've completed your tour, announce it on the Daybook with a link to your page.Print out this page and read it through before you start.
How to proceed
Create a new page on your WikiName page titled StudioTourYourLastName. You will post all three tours on the same page.Check the Current Projects section of the blog roll on the Daybook. Visit the three projects immediately following your own on the list. (So, Omann will visit Corson, Werstlein, and Bittner. Corson will visit Werstlein, Bittner, and Walton, &c). Those at the end of the list visit those at the top of the Project list.
If there's no activity - if the blog or wiki doesn't have anything on it - skip over it, and visit the next one instead. And everyone should skip mine!
Start by reading the writer's project proposal
to get a sense of what the project is about working. There's no virtue in going in blind. Some writers have a link to their project proposal on their blog, but you may have to look for it on their wiki page.Then read around the project, look closely, click through the links, make some notes. Yes, make some notes.
Did I mention: make some notes! This kind of writing work is not best done off the cuff and top of your head. It's best done reflectively, slowly, working from notes to draft to final version.
Read and Observe and Compile Notes
Look at not just the writing but at the blog as a whole, or the structure of the wiki. People have selected templates and are adding add-ons to their blogs, adding commenting features, images, animated gifs. Some of the blogs and wiki projects involve teams. Look at how the partcipants are interacting, at who's doing what. Make some notes on how these fit into their project proposal. On wikis, notice how the wiki is structured, what links to what, and how that fits into the project.Commenting
For the writer, your purpose for the visit is to bring new eyes to the project and say what you see. For you, the visitor, the purpose of the visit is to see what others are doing. The purpose for writing is to get those thoughts in order.So, fashion your comments from your notes
- to remark on what the writer is doing
- to let the writer in on another way of seeing what's happening
- to highlight things the writer might miss
- to raise questions that can open into more development
by pointing out
- what's interesting
- what's strong
- whatever else you notice
Your comments will also let the writer in on how the project is being understood from the outside. So,
- Try stepping back to see - and describe for the writer - the project as a whole.
- Connect your response to specifics: ground your comments in words, sentences, paragraphs, entries.
I'll let you decide whether you're writing FOR the writer, TO the writer, or ABOUT the writer's work to others.
Link link link! You're on a wiki where the linking is easy, so use links to ground your observations so the writer can see what you're seeing.
This is not a critique session, so you don't have to evaluate. Advice might be nice. Describe and comment.
Length
As a rough guide, I'm thinking 300 - 400 well-wrought words or so for each studio: a few of paragraphs or so, long enough to get to the meat, but concise enough to provide a clear vision of what you see. Think sonnets rather than book jacket blurbs.Posting
Post your comments on all three projects to a single page on your WikiHome page. When you're done with all three tours, post a note on the Daybook, mentioning who you visited, and linking to your tour page. Your tourees will be looking forward to your comments.Due 6:00 pm Mon, 9 April, 2012 . When you've completed your tour, announce it on the Daybook with a link to the page. Feel free to finish early.
Evaluation and points
The value of studio tour comments is determined by the person whose work you're responding to. Something quick and superficial won't be as valuable to others as something close and studied. I'll let you be the judge of how much energy you're going to put into these.At the bottom of your studio tour page, tell me the number of points you're writing to earn. I will record the points you request: 50, 75, 150, or 200.
- 50 - drive thru: quick fly by, burger and fries, way too busy to stop and think...
- 75 - deli lunch: had an hour to kill so I had a quick look round, knocked off these observations and did a quick edit. Thanks very much.
- 150 - long lunch: I started as a deli lunch, but as I worked it got interesting, and I got serious about it - and it shows in the writing.
- 200 - dinner: This is the closest and most insightful I can get in the 2 - 3 hours I put into this. Couldn't add another thing.
Questions? Post them to Daybook and I'll respond there. Or email me. Or or stop by my office during office hours.
CategoryExercise
