For extra credit (10 extra points): Look at the word cloud in my previous blog post, where I explain what a word cloud is, and a little about how to interpret one.
Try using a word cloud generator such as worditout.com or wordle.net to make a word cloud from your QRG. You enter the block of text you want to analyze, usually through copying from your document, and pasting the text into the program. Then you can play around with the settings until you get a word cloud that seems useful. Be aware of the stoplist, and play with different thresholds for inclusion. You might discover some unexpected insights, such as words you tend to overuse. Once you get a word cloud you like, save it, and post it to your blog for the rest of us to enjoy!
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
For Fun: Word Cloud from your Unit One Reflections
I made this word cloud last night from several of your posted reflections on Unit One. I used worditout.com to produce it.
Word Clouds can be a useful way to see what the most frequently-used words are in a text or group of texts. The program counts the frequencies of each word in a group of texts, usually skipping over common words such as prepositions (you can give it a "stoplist" to tell it what words to skip). The program then sorts the resulting words from most to least frequent. You can give the program a threshold over which you consider the frequency significant (in this example, freq >= 3), and then choose the number of words over that threshold to display (in this example, 30). The program displays the word frequencies in a cloud, with bigger words being the most frequent, and smaller words being less frequent. Usually the colors are used to help set the sizes apart as well. Notice that Green is the color for the largest font, and only one word, "writing," is in that size font. The next most frequent words are in teal, then the next in navy blue, then dark purple, then light purple.
Don't make the mistake of assuming that the most frequent words are the most important, although there are more sophisticated algorithms for word cloud computation that can provide more nuanced results. But even a simple word frequency count can provide some interesting insights, and I think it can be a useful visualization tool for exploring texts.
 |
| Word cloud of Unit One reflections by ENG 109H students. Created in worditout.com. |
Word Clouds can be a useful way to see what the most frequently-used words are in a text or group of texts. The program counts the frequencies of each word in a group of texts, usually skipping over common words such as prepositions (you can give it a "stoplist" to tell it what words to skip). The program then sorts the resulting words from most to least frequent. You can give the program a threshold over which you consider the frequency significant (in this example, freq >= 3), and then choose the number of words over that threshold to display (in this example, 30). The program displays the word frequencies in a cloud, with bigger words being the most frequent, and smaller words being less frequent. Usually the colors are used to help set the sizes apart as well. Notice that Green is the color for the largest font, and only one word, "writing," is in that size font. The next most frequent words are in teal, then the next in navy blue, then dark purple, then light purple.
Don't make the mistake of assuming that the most frequent words are the most important, although there are more sophisticated algorithms for word cloud computation that can provide more nuanced results. But even a simple word frequency count can provide some interesting insights, and I think it can be a useful visualization tool for exploring texts.
Monday, September 28, 2015
Dropbox re-opened for late submissions
The d2l dropbox is open again, if you still need to upload your paper.
Blog Post 19: Visual analysis of a photo
- Carefully read "Visual Analysis" (Student's Guide 123-125; pay close attention to the visual strategies and the craft box on how to analyze a photograph on page 125).
- Pick a photo from Lauren Greenfield's Girl Culture collection [see the weekly overview for links] and use the questions in the craft box on p.125 to write a visual analysis of your chosen photo. Describe how the visual strategies on pp. 123-4 contribute to your interpretation.
NOTE: You are doing a visual analysis here, not a rhetorical analysis (that comes later). Right now you are mainly describing the strategies Greenfield uses in the photo to guide your viewing of the photo.
Blog Post 18: A Reflection on Unit One
Monday in class, you were asked to free-write some reflections about your learning in Unit One, and your experience of crafting the QRG. For your blog post, write a reflection that addresses these prompts, but don't just list answers to the questions. Craft a thoughtful narrative about your learning through the unit. One way to remind yourself of your mental growth is to review your blog posts for unit one.
What did I learn from this unit?
- What new tools did I explore?
- What skills did I learn or improve?
- What did I learn about how communication happens (or doesn’t happen) in my field?
- What did I learn about my own writing process?
- What did I do well for this assignment? Why?
- What can I improve on for the next project? How and Why?
- If I could summarize the most important thing I learned in a sentence, what would it be?
Week Six Overview
Welcome to Unit Two!
Unit Two explores the rhetoric of visual texts, culminating in your writing a rhetorical analysis of a complex visual text (either a commercial, a photo essay, or film documentary).
Week's Reading:
Monday in class, we took some time to reflect upon what we learned through Unit One and writing the QRG. We began Unit Two by discussing an image in class from Lauren Greenfield's photo essay,Girl Culture.
For Wednesday: in class we will be analyzing the rhetoric of Girl Culture. I will have a copy of the book in class on Wednesday. Not all of the images in her book are online in one place, so to prepare, view at least three of these sites:
Unit Two explores the rhetoric of visual texts, culminating in your writing a rhetorical analysis of a complex visual text (either a commercial, a photo essay, or film documentary).
Week's Reading:
- Review Student's Guide 9.1 "Rhetorical Analysis: An Overview."
- "Visual Analysis" (Student's Guide 123-125; pay close attention to the visual strategies and the craft box on how to analyze a photograph on page 125).
- Students Guide 9.2 "Approaches to Rhetorical Analysis."
Monday in class, we took some time to reflect upon what we learned through Unit One and writing the QRG. We began Unit Two by discussing an image in class from Lauren Greenfield's photo essay,Girl Culture.
For Wednesday: in class we will be analyzing the rhetoric of Girl Culture. I will have a copy of the book in class on Wednesday. Not all of the images in her book are online in one place, so to prepare, view at least three of these sites:
First, view the images without reading captions (or watch the YouTube video with the sound off). Write a quick response to these questions: What strikes you about these images? What are these photos about, taken as a collection? Who is the audience? What is the purpose? Then review the images again with the captions on, and also click around the websites to listen to some of the interviews of the girls. Think about how Greenfield utilizes aspects of the genre "photo essay" to craft her message.
Friday in groups, your group will pick one of Greenfield's other projects to analyze rhetorically, and work on a group document together.
Blogs:
Friday in groups, your group will pick one of Greenfield's other projects to analyze rhetorically, and work on a group document together.
Blogs:
- Blog Post 18: A reflection on what you learned in unit one
- Blog Post 19: A visual analysis of a single photo from Girl Culture.
- Blog Post 20: A group-written rhetorical analysis of Girl Culture.
Sunday, September 27, 2015
QRG due today in d2l dropbox
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)