Speechifying, #1: “Kid Gives Speech After Learning to Ride a Bike”
A few things before our last class (sniff, sniff!) tomorrow:
1. The gender entries are up at the Archive of Childhood! Check it out. I’m proud of the work you guys did for this set of posts.
2. Tomorrow we’re viewing our Child Sensations of YouTube film fest, plus evaluations and goodbyes. Please send me your favorite viral kids from YouTube! I’ve got a bunch of ideas already, but surely you must have some I’ve never seen.
3. There will also be brownies.
Annie Leonard’s video about “where stuff comes from” (with subtitles, because that’s the version available on YouTube).
Their website has a bunch of other similar videos, including “The Story of Bottled Water” and “The Story of Broke.”
Anti-slavery iPhone app (also available for Android!).
Katie just sent me a link to this video blog installment (vlog post? I guess?) that’s a riff on the premise of Feed. Just a bit of light to sweeten up the extremely dark end to the book.
Per our discussion yesterday, here’s that link to the Mashable post about augmented reality iPhone apps. Get ready to lose even more of your brain function.
Also, if you’re interested in Ray Kurzweil and the idea of the Singularity, here’s a 2008 Wired profile of him that also gives a history of the term and its origins.
Here is an article from the Washington Post, from 2005, following up with the “Hoop Dreams” kids.
Wow, this is a very long and interesting piece on the Awl about playing video games as a child. The author intersperses his memories with scenes from “The Wizard” and musings about autism and gaming financial markets. It’s ambitious and interesting, to say the least. Read in your copious free time…
As promised. Also reflected on the Syllabus page. Let me know if you have questions.
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Weds 9 – Class Release Day – Watch “Hoop Dreams” on your own (available on Netflix Streaming or Hulu Plus, at the Fine Arts Library, or at I Love Video)
Fri 11 – Discussion: Sports and Mobility. Read (well, watch) “Hoop Dreams.” Read *Robin D.G. Kelley, Chapter 2, “Looking to Get Paid: How Some Black Youth Put Culture to Work,” from Yo’ Mama’s Disfunktional!: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America (1997). We’ll also talk on this day about requirements for paper proposals and final papers.
Mon 14 – Discussion: The Future. Read Anderson, Feed, pp 1-94; Nicholas Carr, The Atlantic, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”
Weds 16 – Discussion: The Future, Cont. Read Anderson, Feed, pp 95-207; Jim Jensen, Pew Research Center, The Better-Off Online. We’ll also sign up for paper conferences on this day.
Fri 18 – Discussion: The Future, The End. Read Anderson, Feed, pp 207-end.
Mon 21 – Paper Proposal Due by Email, 5 pm.
Peer Review – Bring Unit 3 Website Entry, Draft 1, to class.
Weds 23 – No Class – Thanksgiving
Fri 25 – No Class – Thanksgiving
Mon 28 – Unit 3 Website Entry Due (Draft 2), by Email, 5 pm. Conferences about final paper – class is cancelled, but conferences will be held during class time/office hours, so don’t plan to skip town
Weds 30 – Conferences about final paper (see above)
December
Fri 2 – Last Day of Classes – Some fun/educational activity TBA.
Weds 7 – Final Paper Due, by Email, 5 pm.
We’re talking about Ray Bradbury’s short story “The Veldt” in class today. If you haven’t read it yet (or even if you have!), check out this recording of Colbert reading the story for an NPR show. Good listening while you’re cleaning your room, doing your pull-ups like Batman, whatever.
Comes in three parts, which I believe I’ve embedded in order.
There’s a glitch in Wednesday’s reading; somehow Jenn’s inserted pages 108 and 109 of Louv’s book right where pages 108 and 109 of the Griffin essay should appear. Here’s a PDF of those missing pages.
