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| Module 12 | | Judging Quality of Literary
and Media Texts |
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Another strategy involves the ability to judge the quality of literary and media texts in terms of specific criteria. This entails going beyond simply assessing a text in terms of one’s subjective reaction — as in “I really liked the acting,” to assessing the specific aspects of a text based on some pre-determined criteria. There is considerable debate in the field of aesthetics between those who argue that texts should be judged based on criteria and those who argue that one should consider the creator’s intentions in judging whether a text is successful. The latter group posits that it is difficult to formulate criteria in ways that are not artificial or based on traditional notions of what is “good art,” particularly in the case of contemporary art for which there is no clear understanding of the conventions constituting that art.
| Rather than adopt this either/or perspective, students could rely on both predetermined criteria and their sense of imputed intentions of a text creator. To inductively derive some criteria for judging, for example, film quality, students could go on-line to some of the leading film review sites:
| Rotten Tomatoes
| Movie Review Query Engine
| Internet Movie Date Base
| Check the Grid
| All Watchers
| MetaCritic
| They could the compare films that receive a high versus low ratings and attempt to discern the criteria reviewers are employing. They could also examine different reviews of the same film and note the underlying criteria. In some cases, the criteria may be somewhat subjective, but in other cases, reviewers may refer to the quality of the cinematography/editing, acting, directing, story development, setting authenticity, and portrayals of themes.
| And, students could formulate criteria for judging “literary quality,” based on the works of literature they have read to date.
| Click here for Tim McCormick’s Literary Critic, a collaborative exchange site to engage in on-line critical analysis.
| They could then compare their judgments of a literary text with a film adaptation, recognizing the differences between the two forms. Rather than judging the film as “better” or “worse” than the book, they could then consider reasons why the film succeeds or fails in terms of the cinematography.
| Students could also examine the ways in which judgments of quality are often reflect institutional biases or attitudes. For example, the Oscar awards tend to reflect the interests of the Hollywood film industry as opposed to the independent film industry. Students could review those films that have won Oscars and note what aspects of those films may have contributed to them being winners.
| Oscar winners: organized by multiple categories
| Oscar.com
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
IMDB site [ past best movie winners ]
| “And the Winner Is . . . Exploring the Role of the Academy Awards and Film in American Society” [ New York Times Lesson Plan ]
| Judging television programs. In addition to judging film quality, students could formulate those criteria they might apply in judging the quality of television programs, which leads them to contrast film and television production techniques. For example, television is often highly effective in focusing on the “talking head” in on-screen interviews, particularly when using close-ups of people’s faces on programs such as Sixty Minutes. As with film reviews, students could examine on-line television reviews to inductively discern the criteria employed by reviewers.
| Pop Matters
| Students could formulate criteria for judging the quality of television journalism in terms of objectivity, accuracy, fairness, and balance. For criteria employed in judging student television productions:
| National Student Television Award of Excellence
| They could also formulate criteria for judging prime-time television drama programs:
Helena Sheehan, “Criteria for Criticising TV Drama.”
| Web-page quality. Students could also judge the quality of Web sites both in terms of design and the objectivity of a site’s content. In doing so, they need to first formulate some criteria that will serve as the basis for judging web sites.
| The Cornell University Library site identifies the following five criteria as relevant:
| Accuracy of Web documents
Who wrote the page and can you contact him or her?
What is the purpose of the document and why was it produced?
Is this person qualified to write this document?
Authority of Web documents
Who published the document and is it separate from the “Webmaster?”
Check the domain of the document, what institution publishes this document?
Does the publisher list his or her qualifications?
Objectivity of Web documents
What goals/objectives does this page meet?
How detailed is the information?
What opinions (if any) are expressed by the author?
Currency of Web documents
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Coverage of the Web documents
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Are the links (if any) evaluated and do they complement
the documents’ theme?
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Is it all images or a balance of text and images?
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Is the information presented cited correctly?
American
Library Association [ Great Web Sites for Kids ]
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Kathy
Schrock’s educator sites [ lots of links on evaluating
web sites ]
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Yahooligans
Teachers’ Guide [ accessibility, accuracy,
appropriate, and appealing ]
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University
of California, Berkeley Library
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Students could also judge the content on Web sites
in terms of issues of free speech and access. Sean
Williams (2003) developed a writing assignment in
which he had students make the case for or against
the presence of hate sites on the Internet as well
as the objectivity of these sites.
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Students could also analyze the quality of the
rhetorical appeals to audiences, judging the effectiveness
of a site to gain an audience’s identification.
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Rhetoric
of Mass Media
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Students could also judge a totally new form of
art, “Web art,” by going to the Museum
of Web Art and assessing examples of Web art at
that site. While this may be a difficult challenge,
simply attempting to formulate some possible criteria
may lend itself to some interesting discussions about
new forms of digital art.
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Aesthetics,
Design, and Criticism of the World Wide Web [
Mike Morgan, Regent University ]
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Webquest:
Evaluating Webbed Sources for Research [ Michael
Day ]
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Webquest:
Art criticism [ judging based on groups making
presentations related to description, analysis, interpretation,
and judgments ]
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Webquest:
Art criticism [ judging based on an art history
approach ] |
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