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12 Daily Response Essays (All Due June 29)

Write 12 separate 1-2 page response essays (each no shorter than one page, no longer than two pages, single-spaced). Write one essay per day, excluding June 6 (train day to Paris), June 11 (train day to Berlin), and June 15 (final departure day). In each short essay, you will relate an aspect from the assigned readings (and/or online viewings) for that day to some aspect of your on-site experience for that day. You may choose which aspect(s) from the assigned media you want to related to which work(s) we saw on site. The details are up to you. Probably best to focus on one or two pieces of work that stood out (rather than try and talk about ten things we saw).

Check the class web page to see which activities and which readings go with which days. The assigned readings appear directly after the events to which they relate. The daily questions that I ask and that we discuss as a group while we are in Europe will also be linked from the web site a few days after the trip. Hopefully those questions will jog your memory and give you possible points of departure for your daily response essays. Your short response essays will make connections between the art we saw that day and the assigned readings for that day.

Best to focus on a single artwork or concept per daily response essay. It would be impossible, for instance, to talk about every single artwork we see at the Tate Modern in two pages. Also, best to focus on a single daily reading per response essay. If there are two readings assigned on the same day, focus on the reading that is related to the artwork you primarily want to discuss.

Don't waste time summarizing the whole assigned reading or describing the entirety of the artwork. (Remember, I have already read the readings and seen the artworks.) Instead, focus immediately on some single, related aspect of the assigned reading and the artwork.

Including a figure (an image) of the artwork your are discussing is always a good idea, but you still have to have 1-2 pages of writing. The space which the figure takes up doesn't count toward the 1-2 pages of writing.

Don't just tell me what you like or dislike. Instead, focus on applying the ideas in the readings to some aspect of your experience with the artworks.

Number each essay "1_lastname" through "12_lastname" in chronological order with first days first (so, for instance, 1_cloninger.doc, 2_cloninger.doc, etc.) Save the essays as either word files or pdf files. Go to the moodle folder called "12 daily response essays." Craete a folder in moodle called "yourlastname", and upload your 12 files to that folder.

Grading criteria:
1. meets above requirements (addresses readings/viewings AND daily experience)
2. original, insightful application of theoretical ideas to specific daily experience
3. well written



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