Poetry Video "A Valentine for Earnest Mann"

This exuberant video, "A Valentine for Earnest Mann," celebrates poetry as an act of love, and showcases the photographic talents of its gifted student creators. It is based on a poem by San Antonio writer Naomi Shihab Nye.

Poetry Video "Halley's Comet"

"Halley's Comet" is based on a poem by Stanley Kunitz. Sadly, it was finished shortly before Kunitz passed away at the age of 100. I particularly like the use of stop motion animation at the begininning of the piece, which sets a whimsical tone.

Poetry Video "The Dead"

"The Dead" is based on a surprisingly cheerful poem by Billy Collins. Several of the students who created this beautiful video have gone on to major in Film at the University of Texas at Austin. When they become famous some day, we can look back on this video and see why.

Poetry Video "i am the one"

"i am the one" is based on an original poem by CommArts student Anthony Michael Cooremans. Anthony is not only a gifted poet, but a brilliant poetry slammer, as you can tell by his relentless delivery of the poem on the video's soundtrack.

PSA "Drive Now, Text Later"

This is a public service announcement produced by CommArts students for the Teens in the Drivers Seat campaign in May 2008. We won Second Place with this entry, and used the prize money to help purchase a new video camera!

Mass Media Effects Journal Entries

Here is an example entry for your Mass Media Effects Journal assignment:

Sunday, August 17

Yesterday while I painted my bedroom I listened to podcasts on my iPod: All Songs Considered, This American Life, The Moth and The Sound of Young America are some of my favorites. I also listened to a story on Fresh Air about the conflict in Georgia because I wanted to understand that situation better. I have been trying to get information from as many different sources as possible on this, because I don't think the MSM (mainstream media) is giving us the whole story, just spouting the rhetoric of the administration.

I woke up to the sound of my alarm clock blasting the latest Missy Eliot song; I heard on a podcast yesterday that her new album is coming out soon. It's supposed to have a lot of D.C. hip-hop influence, which I can't get enough of. To me it sounds like Queen Latifah from 20 years ago (it even samples "Smoke This One," one of my favorite songs of all time).

When I came downstairs, my 12-year-old daughter quickly closed her MySpace page so I wouldn't read over her shoulder (we have an agreement that she is allowed to have one as long as I know about it). My 5-year-old son was watching an Olympic bicycle race on TV. My kids are sort of limited in their TV watching, especially since we don't have cable, but I let them watch in the mornings because it gives us a chance to sleep in a little. Both of my kids learned how to use electronics at a very early age, just to extend my weekend sleeping hours. I prefer that they watch movies on DVD or VHS rather than TV shows, because I hate the commercialism of regular TV. Also, most of the current programming is crap.

Later in the morning I spent a few hours compiling a list of the films I'll be showing in one of my high school classes this year. I used "imdb" and a few other online resources to remind myself of the best films of different genres, and to make sure that the films I am listing are not rated R (can't show those to high school students!) Then I used blogspot to create this test blog for my Intro to Mass Comm class.

In the afternoon I laid around reading the Sunday New York Times; even though I left NYC in 1992 (!) I still love to read the Times on Sundays. I could get the same information online, but there is something about having all the sections of the paper spread out on the living room floor that reminds me of my childhood. I don't get the San Antonio Express-News (partly because I think it is a horrible paper), but I do read articles from it online every day. I also use Google News a lot to keep up on current events. And I am an NPR addict, partly because I have a long drive to my day job. I ruined my car radio in June, but I finally located a replacement on ebay. Unfortunately, the seller did not provide the right unlock code, so I am still avidly checking my ebay messages to see if he has sent the correct code yet.

Friends are coming over for dinner, so I look online for a recipe for an interesting salad. I could use my print cookbooks, but it's so much easier to look online, and I can compare different recipes for the same thing. I like to cook by trial and error. My husband does not, however, always like to eat what I cook this way.

During dinner we have CDs playing on the living room stereo. I realized that almost every room in our house except the bathrooms have some kind of media. After dinner we watch "Alien," a great movie I haven't seen in a long time. I borrowed it from the public library; all summer I have been getting movies for free from the library, even though we have a Hollywood Video account. The video store is so far away and we are being careful about gas now. I had Netflix but cancelled it because I always forgot to return the movies, but I think I might reactivate it because there's no driving involved.