THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA
SCHOOL OF ART AND ART HISTORY 01J:115 (3 S.H.)/

FALL 2009• MONDAYS, 4:30 - 7:30 PM, 204 CEF

INSTRUCTOR

Steve McGuire Office Hours: 10:30 - 1:30 Mon.
15 North Hall
Office: 335-3011
E-mail: s-mcguire@uiowa.edu

OVERVIEW
This course aims to illuminate storytelling's importance in our lives and in human societies, and to help students develop their own philosophy of the role of storytelling in their own and others' acts of interpretation. On a personal level, our capacity to create pictures of how lives should be led and how our own lives intertwine with others' comes down to telling stories. To be sure, storytelling has an entertainment value, but stories are told for the purpose of explaining why something happened one way instead of another. On a broader social scale, it is through shared stories that we acquire common cultural understandings of our own communities—be they local, national or global—and the moral expectations and boundaries of those communities. Our discussions, readings, writings, presentations, and other individual and collective exercises and efforts are intended to advance several things simultaneously: your skills as an effective storyteller, your abilities to interpret stories that others tell, and your understanding of how storytelling connects moments of lived experience and ideas to suggest particular meanings.
A major part of the course entails developing stories based on personal experiences, be they mundane or exotic, and from insights gleaned from reflecting on those experiences and setting them up against others' experiences, and sharing these stories through performance. Our goal is to help you begin to recognize how storytelling underpins curiosity and inquiry, affirms relationships, and also carries implied challenges for both tellers and recipients. At a deep level, storytelling represents a commitment to understand better what something means. The complexity of knowledge you already possess in your personal stories, the rich store of culturally common stories you share with others, and your ability to imagine alternative versions of stories in a spirit of openness and tolerance—all these provide a basis for learning as well as for living.

COURSE FORMAT
The course revolves around discussion and storytelling performances. Each Monday meeting there will be discussion of course topics and readings, and, storytelling performances, which will take up the major portion of class time.

ASSIGNMENTS & OTHER OBLIGATIONS
Readings and responses. Additional materials will be provided on the course website. You are expected to keep up with assigned readings, and for completing all exercises and written summaries or analyses of the material (2 double-spaced typed pages, using 1-inch margins and 12-point font).

(1) Storytelling performance: Each student will perform at least Three 10-minute stories during the course of the semester. The storytelling component of this course is meant to provide you with experience before an audience. Emphasis is placed on your involvement with your storytelling, so that you will not be graded on “talent,” but rather on: (a) the expression of idiosyncratic meanings, (b) whether, in your involvement with your storytelling, you made discoveries about form and approach, (c) your reflection on your storytelling performance upon completion.
(2) Evaluating and enhancing your performance: Each student will compose a written critique of their performance using a guide presented on the course website (“Story Responses”). Periodic creative exercises, intended to help you construct and improve your stories, will also be assigned.
(3) Class participation and contributions are crucial, including active listening and constructive responses to classmates’ work.

Additional instructions for assignments will be provided in class and on the course website.

GRADING

Your course grade will incorporate the following components (we do assign plusses or minuses):
Storytelling performances: 40%
Written Homework: 25%
In-class contributions: 35%

OTHER COURSE POLICIES & INFORMATION

Attendance is not optional
Except in cases of death in the family, illness serious enough to keep you home, or other genuine emergencies or crises, you are expected to attend all meetings of lecture and section. More than one unexcused absence will result in a lowering of your course grade; multiple absences can result in a failing grade. If you must miss a class, notify the instructors in person or by e-mail in advance; if extenuating circumstances make advance notice impossible, you must provide a written explanation of your absence as soon as possible.
Arriving to class late/leaving class early. This is disruptive so please do not arrive late, and of course, don’t leave early.
Meeting deadlines
You will be marked down for failing to meet deadlines. If you anticipate a problem with a deadline, you must notify the instructors in advance.

Fall 2009
School of Art and Art History Syllabus Information
The University of Iowa
Course policies are governed by the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

Electronic Communication
University policy specifies that students are responsible for all official correspondences sent to their University of Iowa e-mail address (@uiowa.edu). Faculty and students should use this account for correspondences.

Homework Expectation
For each semester hour of credit that an Art and Art History course carries, students should expect to spend approximately two hours per week outside of class preparing for class sessions. That is, in a three-credit-hour course, instructors design course assignments on the assumption that students will spend six hours per week in out-of-class preparation.

Your Responsibilities
Your responsibilities to this class -- and to your education as a whole -- include attendance and participation. This syllabus details specific expectations the instructor may have about attendance and participation. You have a responsibility to help create a classroom environment where all may learn. At the most basic level, this means you will respect the other members of the class and the instructor and treat them with the courtesy you hope to receive in return.

Student Classroom Behavior
The ability to learn is lessened when students engage in inappropriate classroom behavior, distracting others; such behaviors are a violation of the Code of Student Life. When disruptive activity occurs, a University instructor has the authority to determine classroom seating patterns and to request that a student exit the classroom, laboratory, or other area used for instruction immediately for the remainder of the period. One-day suspensions are reported to appropriate departmental, collegiate, and Student Services personnel (Office of the Vice President for Student Services and Dean of Students).

Academic Fraud
Plagiarism and any other activities when students present work that is not their own are academic fraud. Academic fraud is a serious matter and is reported to the departmental DEO and to the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs and Curriculum. Instructors and DEOs decide on appropriate consequences at the departmental level while the Associate Dean enforces additional consequences at the collegiate level. See the CLAS Academic Fraud section of the Student Academic Handbook. www.clas.uiowa.edu/students/handbook/x/#2

Making a Suggestion or a Complaint
Students with a suggestion or complaint should first visit the instructor, then the course supervisor, and then the departmental DEO. Complaints must be made within six months of the incident. See the CLAS Student Academic Handbook.

Accommodations for Disabilities
A student seeking academic accommodations should first register with Student Disability Services and then meet privately with the course instructor to make particular arrangements. For more information see Student Disability Services at www.uiowa.edu/~sds/

Understanding Sexual Harassment
Sexual harassment subverts the mission of the University and threatens the well-being of students, faculty, and staff. All members of the UI community have a responsibility to uphold this mission and to contribute to a safe environment that enhances learning. Incidents of sexual harassment should be reported immediately. See the UI Comprehensive Guide on Sexual Harassment for assistance, definitions, and the full University policy.

Reacting Safely to Severe Weather
In severe weather, class members should seek appropriate shelter immediately, leaving the classroom if necessary. The class will continue if possible when the event is over. For more information on Hawk Alert and the siren warning system, visit the Public Safety web site.

Resources for Students
• Writing Center 110 English-Philosophy Building, 335-0188, www.uiowa.edu/~writingc
• Speaking Center 12 English-Philosophy Building, 335-0205, www.uiowa.edu/~rhetoric/centers/speaking
• Mathematics Tutorial Laboratory 314 MacLean Hall, 335-0810, www.uiowa.edu/mathlabTutor
• Referral Service Campus Information Center, Iowa Memorial Union, 335-3055, www.imu.uiowa.edu/cic/tutor_referral_service

CLAS Final Examination Policies
Final exams may be offered only during finals week. No exams of any kind are allowed during the last week of classes. Students should not ask their instructor to reschedule a final exam since the College does not permit rescheduling of a final exam once the semester has begun. Questions should be addressed to the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs and Curriculum.

Missed exam policy
University policy requires that students be permitted to make up examinations missed because of illness, mandatory religious obligations, certain University activities, or unavoidable circumstances. Excused absence forms are required and are available at the Registrar web site: www.registrar.uiowa.edu/forms/absence.pdf

University Examination Policy Final Examinations
An undergraduate student who has two final examinations scheduled for the same period or more than three examinations scheduled for the same day may file a request for a change of schedule before the published deadline at the Registrar's Service Center, 17 Calvin Hall, 8-4:30 M-F, (384- 4300).

Plus-Minus Grading
All the department's instructors can append plus or minus grades to the letter grades they assign for the course. If the instructor does not specifically indicate in the syllabus that he or she will not assign plusses or minuses, students should assume that this form of grading will be used.

COURSE CALENDAR

Week 1 (August 24): Introduction to Story #1: “‘What Was I thinking?!’: An Educational Experience”
Week 2 (August 31): Begin Story 1 and:
Exercise #1 due: “Details”; and Story Map 1 due.
Exercise #2 (2 questions per Discuss Schacter article).
Reading materials: For Week 4, read and prepare to discuss Daniel Schacter, “On remembering: ‘A telescope pointed at time’” in Searching for Memory: The Brain, the Mind and the Past (Basic Books, 1997).

Week 3 (September 7): Labor Day Holiday: No class.
Week 4 (September 14): Continue/responses: Story 1;
Week 5 (September 21): Continue/responses: Story 1.
Week 6 (September 28): Continue/responses: Story 1; Introduction to Story 2: “Ethical Dilemma”
Week 7 (October 5): No Class Week 8 (October 12): Story 2 continues.
Week 9 (October 12): Begin Story 2;
Exercise #3: “Chronology”; and Story Map 2 due.
Week 10 (October 19): Continue/responses: Story 2.
Week 11 (October 26): Continue/responses: Story 2.
Week 12 (November 2): Continue/responses: Story 2; Introduction to Story 3: “Proverb”.
Week 13 (November 9): Begin Story 3. Exercise #4: “Braiding” and Story Map 3 due.
Week 14 (November 16): Continue/responses: Story 3.
Week 15 (November 23): Thanksgiving Break: No class.
Week 16. (November 30): Continue/responses: Story 3.
Week 17. (December 7):Finish: Story 3.
Week 18. Final Exam Week: we will not meet, but Story Response #3 (Response to another person’s story) due Friday December 18.
.

Methods For Learning a Story

Don’t try to memorize your story; in front of an audience you will discover that if you are trying to tell what you have memorized you will be distracted by doing so. This is not to say that you should not carefully plan your story.

It is much easier to tell a story as a series of images than as a set of memorized words.

Story map
• At the core of your performance, you want to be able to see the story in your mind as you tell it, just as you would watch a movie and tell what is happening. Describe, in phrases and short sentences, the images of the story as they will appear in your mind, in the order as you will tell the story. Use the example from the course outline. Tell your story map out loud several times and ask someone to read it to you.

• Beginning
What is the kicker (see below as well) you open with (Decide how will you begin and end the story. These are the only parts of the story you might want to memorize.)? “I feel most creative very early in the morning. But I’m never awake then.” --Elliot Goldenthal, composer of “Interview with the Vampire.” The kicker is a short sentence that comes at the end of a series of longer sentences or at the conclusion of a full paragraph. Its effect depends on context, of course: it might be the kind of searing insight that serves to deepen what comes before, a jolt of surprise.

• Ending
How does the story end; how is the meaning punctuated (Think about particular phrases you want to include) ?

• Characters
Describe the main characters.

• Meaning
In one sentence, write down the meaning of the story.

“What was I thinking?”
• I was 12 years old, “Steve, what do you want to paint?”
• My grandfather became an artist in an ordinary but roundabout way.
• Demon Hot Wheel.
• Gateway Sporting Goods on the Plaza
• I hung the painting to dry in my room on a white brick chimney.
• . Later in that summer, two new Hot wheels were issued,
• Some years later, August, 1994, The caption says,
• “Twenty-five below zero,
• It was an image that was demanding.
• Wouldn’t you know, several weeks later, February 19th, 1995, “What were you thinking? What was in your head”
• “Thump!” up against a tree…….I was eighteen years old,
• As I laid on the trail that night, the Northern Lights cascaded green above me,
• and I thought, “Isn’t that a magnificent image? ….Martin Buser
• In a heart-beat I was torn from my bicycle
• Twenty hours later, fifty-one hours after the race began,
• I showed my father that photograph Later that summer in 1970,
• Fate should have it so wonderful.
• I handed Don Prudhomme my grandpa's camera
• Now, I tell you this because as I stood at the finish line of the Idita-Bike, I realized that a long time ago I had learned a lesson from a hidden teacher: If you pay attention to the images in your head and follow them all the way through, you will always be heading in the right direction.

Tell the story in the your own words. (However, as mentioned, it is often helpful to memorize the first and last lines of the story. This way the story will start and end smoothly.)

Tell the story to anyone (or anything) that will listen, such as dogs, cats, friends, and family. Tell the story to yourself whenever you have a chance - when walking the dog, washing the dishes, waiting for a ride. The more the story is told, the more firmly it will be planted in your voice.

Performance Presence

Tell the story in the your own words (However, it is often helpful to memorize the first and last lines of the story. This way the story will start and end smoothly.)
Acting a story can be a problem. Sometimes exaggerated movements are overplayed in storytelling.
Look at people in the audience before you begin and find a few faces that you imagine will support your telling. But don't scan the audience in a forced, artificial way. Keep in mind that meeting the eyes of people in the audience happens because you're trying to explain something better to someone; not being an actor matters in the eye contact of storytelling.
The beginning of the story is often the hardest part of telling it. You have to let go of things and enter the story -- "Use the 'Fork' Luke."
While listening to others, model the kind of listening you expect while telling. Doing this, you hear better and in turn learn more about how to tell better.

Projection You should project your voice so that all can hear.

Diction You should enunciate carefully and use your voice effectively.

Poise You should be relaxed (as much as you can be) in you story performance. Store away a story you seem to be resisting-- it's like not telling a story you're not sure you should tell to a particular person -- for now. There are millions of stories. You may grow into telling it later.

Personality The flavor of the story should be brought out by your performance, i.e., humorous story, scary story.

Time The story must approximately 15 minutes.

The Kicker

I feel most creative very early in the morning. But I’m never awake then.
--Elliot Goldenthal, composer of “Interview with the Vampire”

The kicker is a short sentence that comes at the end of a series of longer sentences or at the conclusion of a full paragraph. Its effect depends on context, of course: it might be the kind of searing insight that serves to deepen what comes before, a jolt of surprise. Chris Anderson, author of Free Style, says what gives short sentences their power is their rareness. “We live in a world of empty promises, everything inflated for salesmanship or status. People just don’t expect writers to come out and say what they mean. When you do, you catch them by surprise, making them sit up and notice.” Often the kicker operates the same way a punch line to a joke does, illustrating Shakespeare’s belief: “Brevity is the soul of wit.”

Two examples:

From Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott:

I believed, before I sold my first book, that publication would be instantly and automatically gratifying, an affirming and romantic experience, a Hallmark commercial where one runs and leaps in slow motion across a meadow filled with wildflowers into the arms of acclaim and self-esteem.
This did not happen for me.

From Jo Ann Beard’s Boys of My Youth:

I feel like a rabid dog, but I smile placidly and make idle chat with the wife of his best friend, the future chiseler. In the car on the way home I say to him in the most dangerous tone I can come up with, “You have got to treat me like an equal.” The wiper blades clock back and forth, car lights bear down and then pass. He says, looking straight ahead through tte glistening windshield, simply and sadly, “I can’t.”

Be aware of the power of kickers: Do you use one or more of them? Is your kicker a true kicker? Is it in danger of falling flat? Why or why not? Distinguish carefully between a kicker and a moral-of-the-story.

Story response format/questions

Questions to consider regarding your stories, pre-storytelling and “Response” to your story, post-storytelling
For your response to your story (2 double-spaced typed pages, using 1-inch margins and 12-point font) answer questions 1 through 5 below and five questions from6 through 10.
1. What new idea or truth stemming from your story occurred to you while or after telling your story to the audience?

2. Does the beginning draw the audience in, or could it be improved upon (consider and memorize the opening sentence, in particular…)?

3. Where do you sense rhythm in your story? Is there a refrain? How does the language flow/sound? Are you using repetition or parallelism in interesting ways? What images or words are repeated and to what effect?

4. What does the ending do to your audience? How will it make your listeners feel? How could the ending be more effective at creating some sense of movement or resolution in the piece?

5. How would you answer the question “What is this about” in a single sentence? Trace indices of this sentence back through the course of your story.

6. Is the middle section organized in a manner that keeps your audience attentive, or are there spots that are still muddled? What strategies are available to vary the pace? More dialogue? More action? More detail? What details are required by an audience, and when is it appropriate to provide those details? Are there sufficient details about the setting? Details to convey character? Details to create a mood?

7. Are there moments in which you linger longer? Where/why? Does the “where/why” have an emotional/personal motivation or a communicative/narrative motivation? (And how do the two different motivations lead to different effects?)

8. What metaphors or details are distracting, and which might be helpful to serve the main themes/character descriptions/settings, etc.?

9. Is your “voice” distinctive? How would you describe it? Formal? Funny? Wistful? Sarcastic? Straightforward? Analytical? Critical? Poetic? Etc.? Two voices at once (irony)? If so, are they in conflict, or supportive of each other?

10. How would you describe the change that occurs in a main character in your story? What clues prepare the audience for the credibility of that change?

11. How would you characterize the balance between narrative (showing) and exposition (telling) in your story? The rule tends to be “more show, less tell”: do you think you have hit a balance between the two in your story?

12. What kind of sentences and lexicon are you utilizing?

13. Is there a clear conflict in this piece? Do you as the narrator have a clear stake in what happens? How does that stake influence your story?

14. Is the nominal subject—or story of action—clear or are there places where you are unclear about real time and place?

Storytelling responses

Answer questions 2., 4., 6., and 8. Responses to stories, and exercises are to be double-spaced typed pages, using 1-inch margins and 12-point font.

Details, Exercise 1
Preparing for Story 1, “What were you thinking? or “It seemed like a good idea at the time…””

Generic vs. Specific: The Importance of Detail.

Consider this excerpt:

The memories of my family outings are still a source of strength to me.

I remember we’d all pile into the car—I forget what kind it was—and drive and drive. I’m not sure where we’d go, but I think there were some trees there. The smell of something was strong in the air as we played whatever sport we played. I remember a bigger, older guy we called “Dad.” We’d eat some stuff, or not, and then I think we went home. I guess some things never leave you.

--Saturday Night Live, “Deep Thoughts”

Then consider the following:

When I was young enough to still spend a long time buttoning my shoes in the morning, I’d listen toward the hall: Daddy upstairs was shaving in the bathroom and Mother downstairs was frying the bacon. They would begin whistling back and forth to each other up and down the stairwell. My father would whistle his phrase, my mother would try to whistle, then hum hers back. It was their duet. I drew my buttonhook in and out and listened to it—I knew it was “The Merry Widow.” The difference was, their song almost floated with laughter: how different from the record, which growled from the beginning, as if the Victrola were only slowly being wound up. They kept it running between them, up and down the stairs where I was now just about ready to run clattering down and show them my shoes.

--Eudora Welty, One Writer’s Beginnings

Now write a paragraph for your first story using each of the previous strategies (i.e., type up and hand in both versions). Then comment in a paragraph or two on the comparative effects of both versions—for example, although the use of detail tends to be better than the lack of detail in most storytelling experiences, the addition of unnecessary or random detail can also damage your performance. For example, sometimes a lack of detail can provide a ‘punchier’ tempo, giving a desired ironic or humorous effect, and sometimes you will find that the addition of certain details may run counter to the development of a particular character; likewise, an object included in the narrative may have connotations that are (un) supportive of your overall purpose. Use this exercise to consciously choose details that will help mindfully sculpt the first story you tell to the class.

Exercise #2 (2 questions per Schacter article).
Reading materials: For Week 3, write two questions generated from Daniel Schacter’s chapter, “On remembering: ‘A telescope pointed at time’” in Searching for Memory: The Brain, the Mind and the Past (Basic Books, 1997).

Exercise #3: “Chronology”
Create your story 2 map as a chronology of events unfolding in the temporal order in which they happened. Then, scramble the order in which you tell these same events, producing a different beginning, middle and end.

Braiding, Exercise #4

In “Notes of a Native Son,” James Baldwin begins by braiding public and private narrative threads:

On the twenty-ninth of July, in 1943, my father died. On the same day, a few hours later, his last child was born. Over a month before this, while all our energies were concentrated in waiting for these events, there had been, in Detroit, one of the bloodiest race riots of the century. A few hours after my father’s funeral, while he lay in state in the undertaker’s chapel, a race riot broke out in Harlem. On the morning of the third of August, we drove my father to the graveyard through a wilderness of smashed plate glass.

This technique of braiding is something other writers have used. Sylvia Plath began her novel, The Bell Jar, like this:

It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn’t know what I was doing in New York. I’m stupid about executions. The idea of being electrocuted makes me sick, and that’s all there was to read about in the papers—goggle-eyed headlines staring up at me on every street corner and at the fusty, peanut-smelling mouth of the very subway. It had nothing to do with me, but I couldn’t help wondering what it would be like, being burned alive all along your nerves.

I thought it must be the worst thing in the world.

New York was bad enough.

Using Baldwin and Plath as a guide, write a paragraph about an event in your next story by placing that incident into the context of a larger public scene. Braid together private and public threads, allowing something intensely personal to assume a spot next to something public or allow something trivial to be placed next to something serious. You decide, of course, what’s serious and what’s trivial. Consider whether or not this juxtaposition offers a glimpse into a concept you might not have otherwise thought about. In a few separate concluding remarks, describe what your intent had been with this example, and what effect you think was in fact achieved.