Friday, May 26, 2023

BEING THERE--Week One, Remote Learning--U NEVADA, RENO, FALL 2020

27 August 2020     

"...When the legend becomes fact, print the legend..."
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     Incline Village, Nev. (EOC) -- Having worked out most of the information tech glitches to put thousands of students on the virtual campus instead in the classrooms at the University of Nevada in Reno this week, expectations were high and results mixed.  Those classes included Anthropology and three English classes, one of which was a late entry when the Journalism lecture and lab was dropped. One English class mysteriously disappeared from the schedule today, possibly given the boot from the professor. However, a CO14 class opened at the last minute in Museum Studies, a History class that meets the last tough-to-secure CO requirement . 
     The Screenwriting class was also dropped as it required reading some stale screenplays, most of which were from produced films that made hundreds of millions at the box office. But they still couldn't pay me enough to read them. Most of the first week's lectures related to reading of the sacred syllabus from the professors and followed up by discussions that centered on student introductions and responses. Some of those are included below:


     ANTH281.1003:  "Janessa" wrote "When I am around relatives or people of the same culture I tend to use more slang (ebonics). Most ebonics have a negative connotation attached to them, and people commonly associate the use of this language as 'ghetto' or 'illiterate'." Response to this post was;
     "Your discussion post brings up the duality in the culture that needs to be embraced more often instead of shamed. Not everyone understands the complex history behind African American Vernacular, its roots in Caribbean and African folklore as well as its use today in literature. As an example of the latter, Percival Everett, in his novel "Erasure" utilizes the vernacular in the (metatextual) story-within-a-story written by the author Stagg R. Leigh, with his main character, Van Go Jenkins, speaking in street dialect throughout "My Pafology." (Erasure, Everett, 2001)
     ENG301.1002: "Hello Natalie, Good to see your lack of focus is a concern as it truly is with this somewhat different way of learning. Online campus has been around for awhile but it always seemed associated with those so-called "Trump Universities" that eventually went belly-up and hit with hundreds of lawsuits. There is indeed a certain amount of stigma attached to online classrooms. Whether or not students at UNR will get fed up with the scenario and demand to be back in the classroom remains to be seen. As for organizing time and schedule, the best suggestion is get a dartboard as lately it seems a better option than the demands placed on Web Campus, no matter how straightforward they may seem." 
      Hello Delaney, " cultural reinforcement of American mythology,..." 
     "Sounds impressive. It is pervasive and when Googled, turned up a 450 page book with that title by Heike Paul. Chapter One is a no brainer: 'Christopher Columbus and the Myth of ‘Discovery’ ' and it is difficult, as a believer in tradition that changing history, making it 'true' or even 'bigger than life' itself, somehow removes part of that mysticism that surrounds the myth. 


     Take for instance the film, 'The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.' (1962, dir: Ford). A particular line at the end of the film; 'When the legend becomes fact, print the legend,' is 'one of the most resonant lines in movie history.' (Old Hollywood Films) There are any number of takes on what the line was supposed to mean, from the actual events in the film, even alluding to the life of the director, John Ford, himself. My own personal opinion is that some things are better left alone, and the Columbus myth, currently under a great deal of pressure, may be one of them. That doesn't mean that 'hands-off' is approval of the myth. If there is an historical data-void that contributes not just to the myth, but to the truth uncovered, the line between fact and legend becomes subjective. Good Luck in graduating! " 
     ENG407B.1001: "Thus far, in the first week, a great deal has already been accomplished possibly beyond expectations. Most of the class has already been exposed to online learning and being from a newer generation, has adapted quickly to just one more technological challenge. Those unfamiliar with the rapid pace of tech development would experience some hesitation with the new method and possibly add trauma to that experience. That said, the best solution is to get out of the remote environment and back into the classroom. Certainly, the breakout rooms make it easier to discuss the assignments but there's nothing like classroom chatter to get a better understanding of the material, and a sense of "Being There" (1979, dir: Hal Ashby),  unlike Chance (Peter Sellers) , "with no knowledge of the world except what he has learned from television." (IMDB)

Late Entry: 28 Aug 2020, 2200PDT--The museum study class was dropped and the English class that mysteriously disappeared has reappeared. In addition, the English technical writing class was dropped as well, traded for another rhetoric class..
   
Cited:
Everett, P., My Pafology, Erasure, https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/erasure
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