Month: October 2017

Upcoming Events and Things and Stuff

I know, lovely lurkers, you’re just plain tired of listening to me apologize for being an infrequent blogger. So I’ll stop doing that. Instead, I’ll be more pro-active and tell you about the things going on in my world.

The three Regis grad students I’m advising, facilitating, and otherwise guiding through various reading and writing projects are about to conclude their sessions. They had some lovely things, including magical realism romance, and analyzing novels in YA literature.

I was movement coordinator for MSU’s The Country Wife, which was a super-enjoyable comedy of manners that the young actors tackled quite well, movement-wise especially, if I do say so myself. I was just chatting with one of the actors the other day, relaying some compliments the SO had given them. I told this student that it’s a pretty impressive feat, to move in that stylized, elegant way (think 1675: wigs, fans, calves, snuff…) when he no doubt just got to his height, what, a couple minutes ago (he had just turned 21)?

I was also, even more recently, brought in to advise the scuffles in Local Theatre Company’s production of The Rape of the Sabine Women by Grace B. Matthias. This is a high quality, tight, and of course timely play that I am delighted to be a part of. The challenge of this one is the thrust stage (audience on 3 sides), and though it’s not exactly realism (there are dreamlike aspects to it), it still needs to have a level of verisimilitude that will insure the audience won’t be jerked out of the story. They open this weekend, here in Boulder at the Dairy Center, so if you’re local, lurkers, go see it!

Finally, it’s burlesque time again in Jenn’s world. That’s right, Bronze Fox Burlesque is taking over one of the little nooks at License no. 1 bar in Boulder on a Wednesday night, this time in a Clue movie theme, in anticipation of Halloween. I’m dancing a solo, a duet, and I get to do one of my favorite Madeline Kahn moments in cinema. Again, if you’re local, come down to see us on the 25th at 9. But these events always get packed, so if you do come to this, get there early.

Video Killed the Paper Star (Part II)

In the first of these VKPS posts, I discussed and showed the Grammar Video Lesson assignment. Of course, you can surely see, lovely lurkers, how this assignment could work quite well in any class subject, any field.

The second way I encourage video projects instead of writing is in the Reading Response. Now, as a prof of the humanities, I perforce assign lots of reading to my students. I curate the reading carefully, and I always ask for a Reading Response (with a few specific guidelines as far as what I’d like to see in their responses). Basically, I want to see that they’ve done the reading, and I want to know what they think about it. More: I want them to connect the readings to other stuff they’re doing, and synthesize it within the rest of their scholarly (and other) experiences.

The Reading Responses (oh, and these are for ALL my courses, not just the ones on writing) usually end up being a few paragraphs of sloppy writing and an accompanying image up on a blog (my assigning blog creation for classes is a whole ‘nother post). But I always give the students the vlog option. Which is simply that they can record a video of their reading response in lieu of a written one, and they post it the same way they would a written response.

Surprisingly, not many students opt for the video version of this, but two students in particular found the option invaluable.

Nate’s writing skill wasn’t top notch, but his immersion in the stage combat class material was. He would ruminate on the readings into his phone while walking through campus, interspersing his thoughts with footage from class, making for an engaging, thoughtful, and thorough response. I wouldn’t have gotten nearly as much from a written response from him, and he also got interested in video composition, adding these skills to his technological knowledge in classes. There’s a technology requirement in all general ed courses (which this one wasn’t), which is another reason why assigning videos is a good thing in the comp courses. Here are two examples of Nate’s work from advanced stage combat at Metro. These were from a few years ago, so if you wonder at the video quality, that’s why.

the final over view from Nathan Taves on Vimeo.

Another interview with me and suported by the club. from Nathan Taves on Vimeo.

Jackson is a Composition student of mine. Now these classes are all about writing essays, and for him, writing is a major struggle. So when I gave him the vlog option for the reading responses, he jumped at the chance to have some assignments that didn’t involve writing. Thing is, when he shared his notes for his video responses with me, it was apparent that his understanding of the reading was complete, and when you see his videos, you can hear yourself how intelligent and on top of the material he is. If I had not given him the option to respond with video instead of writing, you better believe I wouldn’t have been able to tell this.

Reading Response Chapter 1 from Jackson Stallings on Vimeo.

Reading response ch 14 from Jackson Stallings on Vimeo.

So there you have it. Two instances of video assignments working well for higher education. That’s not to mention the read-aloud assignment for Children’s Literature…..

Video Killed the Paper Star (Part I)

Apologies for those of you that have been waiting on tenterhooks for these posts–like I said before, work has bullied its way in front of any creative/extracurricular work I’ve been wanting to do, particularly that with only internal deadlines. But now I am FINALLY getting my two cents’ worth on this subject down here, in lieu of pitching it over at PitchLX (sorry I can’t be there after all, folks: have fun without me). This concept is one I have catchily titled “Video Killed The Paper Star,” and it refers to replacing writing assignments with video projects.

Now please don’t misunderstand me–I don’t mean to say that papers shouldn’t be assigned ever (that ALL assignments should be multimedia), or that there’s no place in higher education for rhetoric and critical thinking. There sure as heck is, and every single student needs that particular type of rigor. Believe me. Of course I wouldn’t posit such things–I have a mouth to feed.

What I will aver, however, is that academic writing is obsolete (as much as the Ivory Tower folks still cling to it), and that the single most important lesson a student can possibly learn in college or university (after rhetoric) is collaboration. Sound a bit corporate-flavored, not academic? Well, yeah. And that’s a good thing. (I know, I know: who am I and what have I done with the real Jenn)…

I have taken to replacing written quizzes or papers with video projects in two major ways. The first is a fun project called the Video Grammar Lesson. I came up with this assignment for the following various reasons: 1) I hate teaching mechanics, I’m not particularly good at it, and it’s not my job. I’m a good teacher of writing, and reading (as well as interpretation of same), but the grammar stuff is irksome to me. 2) all of my comp students need grammar lessons. All of them. Every single one. Yes, Virginia, even the ones who are good writers already (and those are few enough). 3) teaching something to someone else is a great way to learn the thing better oneself. 4) there aren’t many group projects that truly teach collaboration, without the loopholes of the lazy (the one who does nothing and lets the group do all the work) or the control freak (the one who takes over everything because she can’t stand the quality of anyone’s stuff but hers).

So I thought, why teach them grammar when I can let them teach themselves grammar? The video lesson sprang out of all of this. They have 5 minutes or less to create a lesson on any bit of grammar or punctuation they want. They tend to choose their lessons based on what they find most interesting, easiest, or most inspired by, seeing the examples I show them and those on YouTube. What happens is usually a fun, creative sorbet before they plunge into the big research paper. Here are some notable examples:

ENG1020studentvidspr2013 from Jenn Zuko on Vimeo.

I am most interested in the first clip of this group’s work. These kids decided that each group member would do a solo video on a part of speech, and they’d stitch them together into one video. I am most interested in the first segment for two reasons: First, the Google search with narration is quietly funny and very engaging, as well as clear and informative. It’s a clever idea. Second, this student was a very quiet young man. I could tell he had a good brain in his head from reading his writing, but he was very very introverted. This is a lovely way of being able to enjoy his dry sense of humor without undue stress, like say what a classroom presentation would cause.


This fun-loving duo came up with a random yet highly entertaining premise for their video on interjections. It’s just delightful and fun, and it’s also cool that Grace’s brother composed the music.

I have a few other examples of grammar video lessons here on the blog. Do a search for Grammar Video and you’ll find them. Stay tuned for post 2/2 where I’ll talk about video reading responses.