Peer Critique Assignment

Peer Critique Essay (100 points) - write an approximately 500-word essay delivering a fair, sensitive and honest critique to your partner regarding his or her Cut-Up performance (see Pelias & Shaffer p. 183 for more on fair, sensitive and honest). Your essay should have 5 sections:

1. Write an introductory paragraph explaining your subjective, interpretive and emotional responses to your partner's initial performance (this means you must write this section BEFORE reviewing the video of your partner's performance. This section is for first impressions only.
2. View the video of your partner's performance as many times as you need. Go to https://videomanager.du.edu and log in with your PioneerWeb credentials. You should be automatically included in a group called Comm Thru Lit 2016 - Winter. You will find everyone's videos in this folder. The following three sections should choose 3 of the 5 Evaluative Models that Pelias & Shaffer outline on pp. 184-186. Some questions to consider:
• Performance as a textual study: to what degree was the text itself performative? To what degree did the performer present a faithful rendering of the text through his/her performance? To what degree did the text reflect effort, artistic investment, evocative imagery/characters/setting? To what degree did your partner's performance bring new meaning to the text?
• Performance as an artistic event: To what degree did the performance render you emotionally invested as an audience member? Did the performance move you? To what degree did the text/performance leave you with a new understanding of the performer's lived experience?
• Performance as a communicative act: To what degree did the text/performance give you a clear understanding of the performer's positionality and subjectivity? To what extent do you feel the performance delivered a clear message that was intended by the performer? To what extent do you feel like your interpretation of the performance synced up with that of the performer?
• Performance as a cultural process: To what extent could this text tell researchers something about the culture in which we live/the performer lives? To what degree did the performance relay something significant about the rules, conventions and principles that guide and legitimize lived experience? To what extent did this performance cause you to reflect differently upon either shared or different cultural practices, values and beliefs?
• Performance as an ethical practice: To what extent did the text/performance do justice to the experiences of others outside of the author/performer? To what extent was the text/performance "fair" to the figures involved in the story and the experience described? How does the text reflect a certain political or moral point of view?
3. Conclude by offering at least three tangible suggestions for either improvement or for a new interpretive direction in which to take the performance. This can pertain to either the text itself or to the "staging" of the text (i.e. the performance).

Due Thursday, Jan 28 in class - rubric to be generated as a group in class on Tuesday Jan 26, and will appear here: https://canvas.du.edu/courses/24200/assignments/160608