The Mackerel Wrapper

A weblog for Pete Ellertsen's mass communications students at Benedictine University Springfield.

Friday, November 21, 2008

COMM 386: Some thoughts about a final exam question ...

Notice how maddeningly vague that is?

No questions yet. Just thoughts:
  • We'll have class Monday. (This is for those of you who are also in COMM 337.) I'll have questions by then.
  • Not sure of the format. Maybe just one big essay question, with the "Q2a" stuff, the self-reflective stuff, posted to your blogs. Or mine. Whatever.
  • For the 50-point question, I'm thinking of framing it with the excerpt from the Peggy Noonan book about the terrorism scare at President Reagan's funeral and her observation that we ought to work together better because things are getting bad and we're going to need each other. (The exact quote is buried under a stack of books and newspapers and candy wrappers on my desk.) Then the question: Using coverage of the presidential campaign as evidence, do you think the tone of media coverage is going to allow us to do that?
We can talk about that in class today (Friday).
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About Me

Springfield (Ill.), United States
I'm a retired English, journalism and cultural studies teacher at Springfield College in Illinois (acquired by Benedictine University and subsequently closed). I coordinate jam sessions for the "Clayville Pioneer Academy of Music" at Clayville Historic Site and the Prairieland Strings dulcimer club, and I sing in the choir and the contemporary praise team at Peace Lutheran Church in Springfield. On Hogfiddle I post links and video clips for our sessions and workshops on the mountain dulcimer (a.k.a. "hog fiddle"), as well as research notes on folklore and cultural studies, hymnody and traditional Anglo-Celtic and Scandinavian music. I also posted assignments and readings in my interdisciplinary humanities classes. The Mackerel Wrapper (now on hiatus), carried assignments and readings for my mass comm. students. I started teaching b/log when I chaired SCI-Benedictine's assessment committee, and reopened it as the privatization of public schools grew increasingly troubling and closer to home.