1st PERSONAL REFLECTION DISCUSSION – ART 100 

DISCUSSION PARAMETERS 

No links or attachments in discussion. Not ever. 

READ THE PARAMETERS FIRST BEFORE YOU POST A DISCUSSION. Invariably, a few students gloss the parameters, get it wrong, and then become very upset when the essay is rejected or downgraded for a failure to meet project requirements. 

Need help? Or just want to discuss the subject of your posting before you commit to it? Write to my inbox! That’s what I’m here for! 

Strict 400 WORD LIMIT on the initial post. Anything beyond that will not be graded. So edit. Be concise. 

OK kids, what do you think? That’s what I’ll be asking you every few weeks or so. Your job for this discussion, and for all the rest, is pretty open-ended, within the stated parameters. I’ll be doing this same assignment right along with you, since I never quit being a student of the subject. Please treat my postings as you would any other. 

1. Select ANY IMAGE from the first 7 lessons of this class that has some PERSONAL SIGNIFICANCE for you. Personal significance, that is strong emotional or critical reaction to the image you choose is the entire point of this discussion. Choose from the modules. You may also discuss a related Image that is not in the modules, but ask the professor first. Avoid the big, famous post-card stuff like “Leonardo’s last Supper” because it’s low-hanging fruit and previous students have done it to death. Show me that you’ve done a deeper dive into the material. By the same token, If you select an image not relevant to the parameters, it will be deleted for being OFF-TOPIC. Off-TOPIC posts just confuse the discussion. 

2. Do some research about the image and the artist and know a little bit about them. This need not be more than a few introductory words. Statements like ” I don’t know what that guy with the beard is holding but it looks like a stick maybe” just make you look foolish. Do a little work and find out who the guy is, what he’s doing and so on. 

3. Write a PERSONAL REFLECTION about what the image means to YOU, how it informs YOUR your life or YOUR experience. This is the most critical item. DO NOT just give the class a few dull, Generic facts cribbed out of wikipedia or worse, padded with AI generated rhetoric. That’s a rip-off, and it’s not what this assignment is about. Write with your own voice. Nobody in this class is a robot. Don’t sound like one.Don’t try to sound like an Art critic or a travelogue reporter either. Proof read for sense and spelling by all means but never undermine your own voice. 

Traditional testing tells me which facts about the course content you have have acquired, but discussions tell me how you’re applying that knowledge. Both are vital, and weigh equally in your grade assessment. In fact, no student may pass this course without the ability to put thoughts into written English. Make no mistake, literacy is a big deal. It’s also a project requirement. A few Students have tried to pass this course without doing any written assignments.