Cultural Experience Report #1

Cultural Experience Field Report #1

For this assignment, you will visit a cultural venue from the instructions below, talk with someone at the venue, and write a short 500-800 word report about your visit.

Purpose

The purpose of this assignment is to introduce you to the process of engaging with the cultural venues and communities in your locality. This will inform you personally of art in your area and groups that support it.

Skills

This assignment will help you practice the following skills that will be useful to you in your professional and personal life beyond school.

1. Identify local cultural venues and inform you with deeper knowledge about the art form chosen.
2. Organize reflections about engaging with a cultural experience and community
3. Use concepts and skills learned in class to describe and interpret cultural experiences and communities
4. Use appropriate and proper grammar, organization, and academic-style formatting in order to communicate

Knowledge

This assignment will help you become familiar with the following important content knowledge in the Humanities.

1. Available local cultural venues and communities
2. Methods of interpretation within the Humanities

Instructions

For your report, attend one venue from this list.

• art museum or sculpture garden
• significant or notable architectural site (if there is explanatory material there to help you understand it)
• music concert
• dance performance
• other displays, museums, or performances may be acceptable. Check with your instructor for approval beforehand.

Restrictions: The experience should be done in person during the current semester. If this is impossible, contact the instructor to arrange for alternatives. You may not report on a cultural experience from prior to this class.

Write a report after your attendance at the event or visit to a site.

Your report should include the following information. Include photos or links that help convey the information. As always, be sure to document all sources you consult in preparing your work. This includes brochures from the site or websites that informed you about the particular venue you visited.

• Name and location of the museum, site, or performance event. If there is on-line information about the site or performance, be sure to include a link to it within the text of your essay in an appropriate place.
• Type of museum, site or event. For example is it a portrait or sculpture museum, a music concert, or dance performance? If you attended a performance, name the performer or the piece. Be specific about what you attended, when, and where.
• Name and/or general description of the person you spoke with at the venue, and their answer to this specific question, “How did you become involved with this place/event/organization etc.?”
• Briefly describe the general setting by talking a bit about the location, the number of people there, the general overall “vibe” of the place.
• Describe at least one aspect of the experience that you found especially interesting. For example, you might write about a particular work of art, cultural artifact, song, dance section, costumes or lighting, a particular vocalist, etc. Explain what impressed or affected you, and why. Your reaction can be positive or negative, as long as you offer an explanation.
• Identify and use at least two tools that you have learned about in this class to talk about your visit. For example, if you visit a museum, you might point out how color works in one of the paintings, or if you go to a concert, how rhythm works in one of the songs. Make sure you are explicit in identifying the tools you are using and the learning resources your tools come from. Make sure to inform the reader about the tool through a quote or paraphrase from the learning resource. Then, make sure to tell the reader how you interpret some elements of your visit with the tools.
• Be sure to cite the learning resources you have used in MLA format. Please see http://sites.umuc.edu/library/libhow/mla_examples.cfm
• Reflect on the relevance--if any–of your experience to your everyday life. How did the experience engage your feelings or emotions, if at all? What does this tell you about human culture, and/or about yourself?

STOP: Before you hand in your assignment, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Have I provided the name and location of the museum, site, or performance event and URL, if available, identified the type of museum, site or event, and provided a general description of the setting?
2. Have I identified and explained an especially interesting aspect of the experience and used examples to illustrate reflections and to explain why this aspect was interesting?
3. Have I identified the person I spoke with and provided their answer to the required question?
4. Have I identified and applied two tools of interpretation from learning resources to two different examples from visit?
5. Have I used examples to clearly explain the relevance of my visit to at least one of the following: 1) emotion 2) human culture 3) self-identity 4) cultural identity?
6. Have I provided a list of resources and do all of my citations conform to MLA 8th edition guidelines?
7. Have I proofread this assignment for grammatical, structural, and spelling errors?

This assignment is due by the end of the fourth week of class on Sunday by 11:30PM ET.

Cultural Experience Field Report #2

For this assignment, you will visit a cultural venue from the instructions below, talk with someone at the venue, and write a short 500-800 word report about your visit.

Purpose

The purpose of this assignment is to introduce you to the process of engaging with the cultural venues and communities in your locality.

Skills

This assignment will help you practice the following skills that will be useful to you in your professional and personal life beyond school.

1. Identify local cultural venues
2. Organize reflections about engaging with a cultural experience and community
3. Use concepts and skills learned in class to describe and interpret cultural experiences and communities
4. Use appropriate and proper grammar, organization, and academic-style formatting in order to communicate

Knowledge

This assignment will help you become familiar with the following important content knowledge in the Humanities.

1. Available local cultural venues and communities
2. Methods of interpretation within the Humanities

Instructions

For your report, attend one venue from this list.

• theater play
• poetry reading, author event, or spoken word performance
• Film festival or presentation of a film by an academic author or cinema expert
• religious service, ceremony or ritual for a religion very different from yours, if you practice (for instance, if you are Christian, you may not go to another Christian denomination’s service)
• other displays or performances may be acceptable. Check with your instructor for approval beforehand.

Restrictions: The experience should be done in person during the current semester. If this is impossible, contact the instructor to arrange for alternatives. You may not report on a cultural experience from prior to this class or be on the same type of experience that you wrote on in Cultural Experience One.

Your report should include the following information. Include photos or links that help convey the information. As always, be sure to document all sources you consult in preparing your work. This includes brochures from the site or websites that informed you about the particular venue you visited.

• Name and location of the museum, site, or performance event. If there is on-line information about the site or performance, be sure to include a link to it within the text of your essay in an appropriate place.
• Type of museum, site or event. For example, is it a film festival, a poetry slam, an outdoor Shakespeare festival performance? If you attended a performance, name the performer or the piece. Be specific about what you attended, when, and where.
• Name and/or general description of the person you spoke with at the venue, and their answer to this specific question, “How did you become involved with this place/event/organization etc.?”
• Briefly (2-4 sentences) describe the general setting by talking a bit about the location, the number of people there, the general overall “vibe” of the place.
• Describe at least one aspect of the experience that you found especially interesting. For example, you might write about a particular scene in a play, costumes or lighting, a particular character in a film or play, in a religious service you might note differences in the tone of the service or interactions between leaders and regular members, etc. Explain what impressed or affected you, and why. Your reaction can be positive or negative, as long as you offer an explanation.
• Identify and use at least two tools that you have learned about in this class to talk about your visit. For example, if you visit a museum, you might point out how color works in one of the paintings, or if you go to a concert, how rhythm works in one of the songs. Make sure you are explicit in identifying the tools you are using and the learning resources your tools come from. Make sure to inform the reader about the tool through a quote or paraphrase from the learning resource. Then, make sure to tell the reader how you interpret some elements of your visit with the tools.
• Speak to a person at the performance or religious service, etc. Ask them how they became to be involved in this cultural community and the thing about it they like the best. Identify them specifically by first name and what position they were fulfilling at the event/service.
• Be sure to cite the learning resources you have used in MLA format. Please see http://sites.umuc.edu/library/libhow/mla_examples.cfm
• Reflect on the relevance–if any–of your experience to your everyday life. How did the experience engage your feelings or emotions, if at all? What does this tell you about human culture, or about yourself?

STOP: Before you hand in your assignment, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Have I provided the name and location of the museum, site, or performance event and URL, if available, identified the type of museum, site or event, and provided a general description of the setting?
2. Have I identified and explained an especially interesting aspect of the experience and used examples to illustrate reflections and to explain why this aspect was interesting?
3. Have I identified the person I spoke with and their answer to the required question?
4. Have I identified and applied two tools of interpretation from learning resources to two different examples from visit?
5. Have I used examples to clearly explain the relevance of my visit to at least one of the following: 1) emotion 2) human culture 3) self-identity 4) cultural identity?
6. Have I provided a list of resources and do all of my citations conform to MLA 8th edition guidelines?
7. Have I proofread this assignment for grammatical, structural, and spelling errors?

This assignment is due by the end of the seventh week of class on Sunday by 11:30PM ET.