DOCSLIB.ORG

This American Life Final Semester Project (50 Assessment Points)

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
This American Life Final Semester Project (50 Assessment Points) This American Life Final Semester Project (50 Assessment Points) This American Life is a staple of public radio. In three acts, Ira Glass and his contributors explicate upon a particular theme. The show has become so successful it added a television component on Showtime. Both on radio & on TV the conceit has remained the same: “Each episode has a theme. That's mostly because a theme makes it seem like there's a reason to sit and listen to a story about a contest where everyone stands around a truck for days until only one person is left on their feet...or a grown man trying to convince a skeptical friend that not only has he heard the world's greatest phone message, but that it's about the Little Mermaid...or a man who's obsessed with Niagara Falls, lives minutes from the Falls, writes and thinks about the Falls all the time, but can't bring himself to actually visit the Falls because, as he says, "they've ruined the Falls." If you're not doing stories about the news, or celebrities, or things people have ever heard of elsewhere, you have to give people a reason to keep listening. The themes make it seem like you should.”1 Each episode shares the specifics below: • A singular thematic topic • Two or Three acts (or segments that show the thematic topic in three different lights) • Each act can stand on its own as a report/story • A narrator that introduces each act • Each report/story is a narrative Your Project: To illustrate Brave New World’s continuing relevance in our society by creating your own episode of This American Life. You will work in groups of 4-5 and your episode should: • Isolate a theme within Brave New World, To Kill a Mockingbird or any of the poetry we have read • One act should be dedicated to showing how this theme makes itself apparent in the novel o Feel free to be as creative as you would like to bring this act to life—invoke Aldous Huxley or Harper Lee, bring the characters of Brave New World or To Kill a Mockingbird to life. Just remember, it all must be true to the novel and the people. You may have to do outside research to ensure accuracy. • Two other acts should show how this theme appears in our world today o You will have to interview others or describe examples or research resent history that illustrate the theme in our world, but remember one of the aspects that makes This American Life so appealing is that the reporting takes on a narrative structure • Reflect This America Life’s rhetorical conventions and strategies Project Requirements: • A completed Think Trees pre-thinking sheet (This will be turned in prior to you project and will count as an assignment, rather than an assessment. It will be worth 25 assignment points) • Episode presented in class via pod cast, live presentation or video • Works cited page in MLA format. This will include the book as well as all music you use and interviews you conduct • Individually, you will to write a one-page reflective group evaluation. Use the questions on the back of your rubric as a guide. Make sure you are thoughtful and reflective. • Your episode should be between 6-8 minutes • Your episode should demonstrate a deep understanding of the theme within your chosen text • Music that adds style and drama Due: On the day of your final exam. 3rd Period’s final is on Tuesday 12/11. 7th Period’s final is on Wednesday 12/12. • You will have at least two class periods to work with your group. However, if the majority of the class is not working during this time, you will loose it. • CA 9/10 Standards Reading • 3.0 Analyze the way in which the theme or meaning of a selection represents a view or comment on life, using textual evidence to support claim Writing • 2.3 Write reflective compositions • 2.1 Write fictional, autobiographical or biographical narratives Listening and Speaking • 1.4 Use rhetorical questions, parallel structure, concrete images, figurative language, characterization, irony, and dialogue to achieve clarity, force and aesthetic effect • 1.7 Use appropriate rehearsal strategies to pay attention to performance details, achieve command of the text, and create skillful artistic staging • 1.8 Use effective and interesting language • 2.3 Deliver oral responses to literature • 2.4 Deliver multimedia presentations 1 “About the Radio Show” This American Life: About. 2008. Chicago Public Radio and Ira Glass. 20 October 2008. <http://www.thisamericanlife.org/About_Radio.aspx> .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Looking for Podcast Suggestions? We’Ve Got You Covered
    Looking for podcast suggestions? We’ve got you covered. We asked Loomis faculty members to share their podcast playlists with us, and they offered a variety of suggestions as wide-ranging as their areas of personal interest and professional expertise. Here’s a collection of 85 of these free, downloadable audio shows for you to try, listed alphabetically with their “recommenders” listed below each entry: 30 for 30 You may be familiar with ESPN’s 30 for 30 series of award-winning sports documentaries on television. The podcasts of the same name are audio documentaries on similarly compelling subjects. Recent podcasts have looked at the man behind the Bikram Yoga fitness craze, racial activism by professional athletes, the origins of the hugely profitable Ultimate Fighting Championship, and the lasting legacy of the John Madden Football video game. Recommended by Elliott: “I love how it involves the culture of sports. You get an inner look on a sports story or event that you never really knew about. Brings real life and sports together in a fantastic way.” 99% Invisible From the podcast website: “Ever wonder how inflatable men came to be regular fixtures at used car lots? Curious about the origin of the fortune cookie? Want to know why Sigmund Freud opted for a couch over an armchair? 99% Invisible is about all the thought that goes into the things we don’t think about — the unnoticed architecture and design that shape our world.” Recommended by Scott ABCA Calls from the Clubhouse Interviews with coaches in the American Baseball Coaches Association Recommended by Donnie, who is head coach of varsity baseball and says the podcast covers “all aspects of baseball, culture, techniques, practices, strategy, etc.
    [Show full text]
  • TAL Distribution Press Release
    This American Life Moves to Self-Distribute Program Partners with PRX to Deliver Episodes to Public Radio Stations May 28, 2014 – Chicago. Starting July 1, 2014, Chicago Public Media and Ira Glass will start independently distributing the public radio show This American Life to over 500 public radio stations. Episodes will be delivered to radio stations by PRX, The Public Radio Exchange. Since 1997, the show has been distributed by Public Radio International. “We’re excited and proud to be partners now with PRX,” said Glass. “They’ve been a huge innovative force in public radio, inventing technologies and projects to get people on the air who’d have a much harder time without them. They’re mission- driven, they’re super-capable and apparently they’re pretty good with computers.” “We are huge fans of This American Life and are thrilled to support their move to self-distribution on our platform,” said Jake Shapiro, CEO of PRX. “We’ve had the privilege of working closely with Ira and team to develop This American Life’s successful mobile apps, and are honored to expand our partnership to the flagship broadcast.” This American Life will take over other operations that were previously handled by PRI, including selling underwriting and marketing the show to stations. The marketing and station relations work will return to Marge Ostroushko, who did the job back before This American Life began distribution with PRI. This American Life, produced by Chicago Public Media and hosted by Ira Glass, is heard weekly by 2.2 million people over the radio.
    [Show full text]
  • Harper High School: Episode 2 – This American Life Prologue. Ira Glass
    Harper High School: Episode 2 – This American Life Prologue. Ira Glass: Hey everybody. Ira here. This episode of our show contains words that were beeped when we broadcast this over the radio that are not beeped in this online version. Leonetta Sanders, the principal of Harper High School in Chicago, has a decision to make. And she has to make it right away. She has to decide whether to cancel the school's homecoming game and dance. Leonetta Sanders: Coach Reed, I need you in the Melon room at this time, Coach Reed. Coach Sales. Ira Glass: She calls her staff together for a meeting. The day before this, when everybody was at a pep rally in the gym for Homecoming, a 16-year-old who attended Harper last year and dropped out, who still had friends here, was shot just a few blocks from school. Immediately, the staff jumped into action. If you heard our radio program last week, you heard this part of the story, where it was the gang responsible for the shooting had members on the football team. So Principal Sanders was scared that there might be retaliation at the game or at the dance. They sent home a handful of kids they thought might be in danger. Here is what happens next. When the staff now assembles on Friday afternoon, Principal Sanders informs them that there's news. Another incident. Leonetta Sanders: OK, so I just got word that there was a shooting. But it was a shooting in the neighborhood. Anthony Harper's father picked him up.
    [Show full text]
  • This Version Has the Raw Data in an Appendix)
    Accepted for publication in 2020 by the International Journal of Communication, ijoc.org (this version has the raw data in an appendix) Podcasting as Public Media: The Future of U.S. News, Public Affairs and Educational Podcasts PATRICIA AUFDERHEIDE American University, USA DAVID LIEBERMAN The New School, USA ATIKA ALKHALLOUF American University, USA JIJI MAJIRI UGBOMA The New School, USA This article identifies a U.S.-based podcasting ecology as public media, and then examines the threats to its future. It first identifies characteristics of a set of podcasts in the U.S. that allow them to be usefully described as public podcasting. Second, it looks at current business trends in podcasting as platformization proceeds. Third, it identifies threats to public podcasting’s current business practices. Finally, it analyzes responses within public podcasting to the potential threats. It concludes that currently, the public podcast ecology in the U.S. maintains some immunity from the most immediate threats, but that as well there are underappreciated threats to it both internally and externally. Keywords: podcasting, public media, platformization, business trends, public podcasting ecology As U.S. podcasting becomes an increasingly commercially-viable part of the media landscape, are its public-service functions at risk? This article explores that question, in the process postulating that the concept of public podcasting has utility in describing, not only a range of podcasting practices, but an ecology within the larger podcasting ecology—one that permits analysis of both business methods and social practices, one that deserves attention and even protection. This analysis contributes to the burgeoning literature on podcasting by enabling focused research in this area, permitting analysis of the sector in ways that permit thinking about the relationship of mission and business practice sector-wide.
    [Show full text]
  • Truthiness: This American Life and the Monologist Epilogue Ira Glass
    CSJ- 12- 0046.2 • • Truthiness: This American Life and the Monologist Epilogue Ira Glass, host of This American Life (TAL), realized as soon as he spoke to Rob Schmitz of Marketplace that TAL would have to run an on-air correction of its January 6, 2012 show featuring Mike Daisey and his visit to Foxconn, an Apple supplier in Shenzhen, China. Glass was relieved to have some breathing space because Marketplace had contacted TAL rather than broadcasting the story on its news show first. “I’m not sure if other organizations would have done that,” says Glass.1 “They were reaching out to say, like, how should we handle this? Do you want to do something on your air?” Over multiple email and telephone exchanges beginning Monday, March 5, Schmitz and the TAL team of Glass, Senior Producer Julie Snyder and Producer Brian Reed decided to collaborate. , The group concluded that a simple on-air announcement at the start of a segment on another subject would be insufficient. The plan was that Schmitz would file a story for Marketplace that would include an interview with Daisey’s translator, Cathy Lee, and excerpts from the original broadcast of “Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory,” along with his own reporting. The Marketplace report would be broadcast (and posted to its website) on Friday, March 16. The same day, TAL would air a “retraction” show addressing Daisey’s fabrications. The show would include a longer version of Schmitz’s story, and—if he agreed to it—an interview with Daisey. Daisey agreed, and on Friday, March 9, Glass and Schmitz jointly interviewed Daisey for three hours.
    [Show full text]
  • Podcasting As Public Media: the Future of U.S
    International Journal of Communication 14(2020), 1683–1704 1932–8036/20200005 Podcasting as Public Media: The Future of U.S. News, Public Affairs, and Educational Podcasts PATRICIA AUFDERHEIDE American University, USA DAVID LIEBERMAN The New School, USA ATIKA ALKHALLOUF American University, USA JIJI MAJIRI UGBOMA The New School, USA This article identifies a U.S.-based podcasting ecology as public media and then examines the threats to its future. It first identifies characteristics of a set of podcasts in the United States that allow them to be usefully described as public podcasting. Second, it looks at current business trends in podcasting as platformization proceeds. Third, it identifies threats to public podcasting’s current business practices. Finally, it analyzes responses within public podcasting to the potential threats. The article concludes that currently, the public podcast ecology in the United States maintains some immunity from the most immediate threats, but there are also underappreciated threats to it, both internally and externally. Keywords: podcasting, public media, platformization, business trends, public podcasting ecology As U.S. podcasting becomes a commercially viable part of the media landscape, are its public service functions at risk? This article explores that question, in the process postulating that the concept of public podcasting has utility in describing not only a range of podcasting practices, but also an ecology within the larger podcasting ecology—one that permits analysis of both business methods and social practices, and one that deserves attention and even protection. This analysis contributes to the burgeoning literature on Patricia Aufderheide: [email protected] David Lieberman: [email protected] Atika Alkhallouf: [email protected] Jiji Majiri Ugboma: [email protected] Date submitted: 2019‒09‒27 Copyright © 2020 (Patricia Aufderheide, David Lieberman, Atika Alkhallouf, and Jiji Majiri Ugboma).
    [Show full text]
  • The Global Financial Crisis of 2008: the Role of Greed, Fear, and Oligarchs Cate Reavis
    09-093 Rev. March 16, 2012 The Global Financial Crisis of 2008: The Role of Greed, Fear, and Oligarchs Cate Reavis Free enterprise is always the right answer. The problem with it is that it ignores the human element. It does not take into account the complexities of human behavior.1 – Andrew W. Lo, Professor of Finance, MIT Sloan School of Management; Director, MIT Laboratory of Financial Engineering The problem in the financial sector today is not that a given firm might have enough market share to influence prices; it is that one firm or a small set of interconnected firms, by failing, can bring down the economy.2 – Simon Johnson, Professor of Entrepreneurship, MIT Sloan School of Management; Former Chief Economist, International Monetary Fund On October 9, 2007, the Dow Jones Industrial Average set a record by closing at 14,047. One year later, the Dow was just above 8,000, after dropping 21% in the first nine days of October 2008. Major stock markets in other countries had plunged alongside the Dow. Credit markets were nearing paralysis. Companies began to lay off workers in droves and were forced to put off capital investments. Individual consumers were being denied loans for mortgages and college tuition. After the nine-day U.S. stock market plunge, the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had some sobering words: “Intensifying solvency concerns about a number of the largest U.S.-based and European financial institutions have pushed the global financial system to the brink of systemic meltdown.”3 1 Interview with the case writer, April 10, 2009.
    [Show full text]
  • Savage, Dan (B
    Savage, Dan (b. 1964) by Linda Rapp Encyclopedia Copyright © 2015, glbtq, Inc. Entry Copyright © 2006 glbtq, Inc. Reprinted from http://www.glbtq.com Dan Savage speaking at Best known for his internationally syndicated sex-advice column, Dan Savage is also Bradley University in the author of books chronicling his and his partner's experiences in adopting a child Peoria, Illinois (2004). and dealing with the issue of same-sex marriage. Photograph by Wikimedia Commons contributor blahedo. Dan Savage, born October 7, 1964, was the third of the four children of William and Image appears under the Judy Savage. While he was a boy, the family lived on the upper floor of a two-flat Creative Commons house in Chicago. His maternal grandparents and several aunts and uncles occupied Attribution ShareAlike the downstairs apartment. So many other relatives lived nearby, wrote Savage, that "I 2.5 license. couldn't go anywhere without running into someone I was related to by blood or marriage." This became problematic for Savage when, at fifteen, having realized that he was gay, he wanted to explore Chicago's gay areas but was apprehensive since he was not yet prepared to come out to his Catholic family. Nevertheless, he made occasional trips to a North Side bar, Berlin, where he could be "outrageously out." Adding to his stress at the time was the ending of his parents' marriage. They divorced when he was seventeen. At eighteen Savage disclosed his sexual orientation to his family, who, he stated, "became, after one rocky summer, aggressively supportive." Despite his family's eventual acceptance of his homosexuality, Savage wanted to get away from Chicago; so he decided to attend the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana for college.
    [Show full text]
  • The Giant Pool of Money
    This American Life Episode Transcript Program #355 The Giant Pool of Money [Ambient sound of piano playing and crowd murmur] Ira Glass: So Adam, where are we? Adam Davidson: I recorded this at the Ritz Carlton in lower Manhattan. It’s a black tie dinner, just a few weeks ago. Ira Glass: And you, by the way, are NPR’s International Business and Economics correspondent. Adam Davidson: That’s right. I was there for my job. They’re giving out awards for all these financial securities, including the one that nearly brought down the global financial system. You know, the whole sub prime mortgage crisis. Jim Finkel: This guy is a legend. He’s a granddaddy of our industry. Adam Davidson: I’m sitting at this dinner with Jim Finkel. He’s kind of nervous because he’s up for CDO of the Year for the CDO he created, Monterrey. Now, the CDO, that’s what we’re talking about, that’s the financial instrument that was central to this global credit crisis we’re in. Ira Glass: And they’re giving awards for this? These guys are giving each other awards for doing that? Adam Davidson: Let me just say, they’re aware that there’s a certain irony, giving awards to the instrument that almost destroyed the world’s economy. They did consider canceling this year but it’s been a really tough year, it’s been really gloomy for them. Jim Finkel: Honestly, I know this sounds...I was happy to see there were no major suicides, people weren’t jumping off bridges, there weren’t personal disasters.
    [Show full text]
  • Three Acts, Two Dancers, One Radio Host
    Three Acts, Two Dancers, One Radio Host Ira Glass, Monica Bill Barnes, Anna Bass Saturday, October 18, 2014 Englert Theatre Hancher University of Iowa THREE ACTS, TWO DANCERS, ONE RADIO HOST: IRA GLASS, MONICA BILL BARNES, ANNA BASS Performed by Ira Glass, Monica Bill Barnes, and Anna Bass Directed and Choreographed by Monica Bill Barnes Lighting Design by Jane Cox Set and Costume Design by Kelly Hanson Ira Glass is the host and creator of the public radio program This American Life. The show is heard on more than 500 public radio stations in the U.S., and also on public radio in Canada and Australia. Most weeks it’s the most popular podcast in America. Under Glass’s editorial direction, This American Life has won the highest honors for broadcasting and journalistic excellence. A television adaptation of the program ran on the Showtime network for two years, winning three Emmys. The radio show has put out its own comic book, greatest hits compilations, live stage shows, two feature films, a “radio decoder” toy, temporary tattoos, and a paint-by-numbers set. This is Glass’s professional dance show debut. Monica Bill Barnes (Director/Choreographer) is the artistic director of Monica Bill Barnes & Company Productions, a New York City based contemporary dance company founded in 1997. MBB&CO has performed in more than fifty cities throughout the United States; has been commissioned and presented by the American Dance Festival, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival; and has performed all over New York City in venues ranging from Upright Citizen’s Brigade to Lincoln Center.
    [Show full text]
  • Writer, Musician, Radio Commentator, Artist
    Name in English: Sandra Tsing Loh Name in Chinese: 陆赛静 [陸賽靜] Name in Pinyin: Lù Saì Jìng Gender: Female Birth Year: 1962 Birth Place: California Current location: Van Nuys, California Writer, Musician, Radio Commentator, Artist Profession(s): Writer, Performance-Artist, Radio Commentator, Musician & Composer Education: Bachelor of Science, Physics/Bachelor of Arts, Literature, 1983, California Institute of Technology; Master of Professional Writing, University of Southern California Awards: 2006, Finalist for the National Magazine Award, American Society of Magazine Editors & the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism; 2001 Distinguished Alumni Award, Caltech; 1997, Pushcart Prize for “My Father’s Chinese Wives” from Pushcart Press Contributions: Born and raised in Southern California to a Chinese father and German mother, Sandra Tsing Loh first gained notoriety with her performance art, such as playing a piano concert on an overpass of the Harbor Freeway running through Downtown Los Angeles in September 1987. Her piano and performance art have been featured in magazines such as People, GQ, Glamour, and on TV on CNN and NBC’s Tonight Show. By the 1990s she’d gained additional national fame as a respected radio commentator on NPR’s "Morning Edition" and on Ira Glass’ "This American Life." She has also been noted for writing several books including, A Year in Van Nuys, Aliens in America, Depth Takes a Holiday: Essays From Lesser Los Angeles, and a novel, If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home By Now, which was named by the Los Angeles Times as one of the 100 best fiction books of 1998. Her short stories and essays have been featured in the New York Times, Elle, Harper’s Bazaar, and Vogue.
    [Show full text]
  • Same Sex Couples: Equally Qualified to Parent
    Same sex couples: equally qualified to parent. We welcome gay and lesbian adoptive parents. Here’s why. Open Adoption & Family Services is on the cutting edge of offering progressive and inclusive open adoption services. • OA&FS has welcomed same sex prospective adoptive parents into our infant adoption What research tells us. program since we opened our doors in 1985. • Approximately 25% of the adoptive placements • 25 years of social science research concludes that at OA&FS are with same sex families. children raised by (same sex) parents fare well • Typically, our pool of prospective adoptive when compared to those raised by heterosexuals. parents is comprised of 35% same-sex families. (Donaldson Adoption Institute: Expanding These families come to OA&FS from throughout Resources for Waiting Children II.) the United States. • There are no systematic differences between gay or lesbian and non-gay or lesbian parents in Dan Savage, syndicated columnist, author, and emotional health, parenting skills, and attitudes regular contributor to NPR’s This American Life, toward parenting (Stacey & Biblarz, 2001) is an OA&FS adoptive father and active advocate • Evidence shows that children’s optimal of our agency. To get a firsthand account of same development is influenced more by the nature sex adoption through OA&FS, check out his book of the relationships and interactions within the The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I family unit than by its particular structural form Decided to Go Get Pregnant. (Perrin, 2002) Text “open” to 971-266-0924 or call 1-800-772-1115 any time. Pregnant? (Text answering available 9 am-5 pm PST M-F.) [email protected] | Para Español 1-800-985-6763 | www.openadopt.org Facts about gay parenting.
    [Show full text]