TODAY IN CLASS1)Announcements2)Activity3)Recap of upcoming due dates

First…I apologize if some of my email responses were slow toward the end of the week. I had another series of bad days (being sick like this just sort of sucks, to use colorful language). I should be caught up on all the questions, but if I missed one, let me know.

That said, I noticed something that’s kind of alarming in the questions this week. Some of you aren’t reading the things I send out closely, because people have been asking me about due dates and where to put things/what an assignment is, and I can easily look at the PowerPoint for last week and see the answer.

Make sure you’re reading things carefully and closely. It’s important. I’m not going to continue to repeat things I’ve said already, not because I don’t value you enough to answer the questions but because you need to learn, as college students, to use the resources you have. If I look it up instead of making you look it up, you don’t learn to find the information you need.

ANNOUNCEMENTSObviously I wasn’t healthy enough to come back this week. At this point, I’m so demoralized I don’t want to say, “but I’ll make it next week!” but I am hopeful.

I haven’t been able to grade the mix CDs because I don’t have all of them yet. I’ll make sure to get them sometime this week regardless.

The rest of the grading should be upto date by class time Monday.

Class Activity…This week we’re going to look at the concepts of intellectual property law and ownership, specifically tied to remix.

What I want you to do as a class is this: form groups of 3 (or so– 2 is okay, 4 is okay, 5 might work… more than five is too many and less than two isn’t a group).

Pick a story: it can be a fairy tale, a TV show, a comic book, a movie, a fable… as long as it is at least partly fictional.

Now, then, there is a claim that there are only seven plots, only seven sorts of stories. Get ready, because on the next slide I’m going to propose some really, really fuzzy math. That’s what I do– I’m not a math guy.

Activity prompt1) Pick a recorder. You know the drill.2) Pick a story. Name it. Make sure your name is

accurate just incase I don’t know the story and have to go find it.

3) Tell me the historical moment and the culture from which the story was written and the audience (these are likely the same thing but could be two different things)

4) Then, trace the story back as much as you can. What influenced it? Whatis repeated from other sources?

I’m asking …That you play something like six degrees of Kevin Bacon, only with a story.

If the assertion is correct that there are only seven plots, the furthest any story can be from another is five plots (if they were somehow the most opposite types of stories possible). Again, it’s fuzzy magic math, but what this means, basically, is that you should be able to trace similarities in stories across time and medium.

This is what I described last week: intertextuality.

When you finish…As always, your recorder should send you finished response to me. It will be due by 11:59 pm on Tuesday.

DUE DATE REMINDERSProject 3 was due Friday. I should have those graded soon. If you didn’t turn it in, you might want to get on that.

Making Project 3 is due on November 5th. That is this coming Friday.

Project 2, the podcast/audio essay, is due on November 12th, which is the Friday after next.

Making Project 4 will be due on Sunday, November 14th with your work for that week.

Project 4 itself is due on the 19th of November, which is the Friday after the Friday after next.

Lots of stuff waiting…In the hybrid materials. I’ll see you there.