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Expository Writing: Analyzing Mass Media >> Content Detail



Study Materials



Readings

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Required Readings


Amazon logo Dines, Gail, and Jean Humez, eds. Gender, Race, and Class In Media. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1994. ISBN: 9780803951648.

Amazon logo Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death. New York, NY: Viking, 1985. ISBN: 9780670804542.

Amazon logo Kaysen, Susanna. Girl, Interrupted. New York, NY: Vintage, 1994. ISBN: 9780679746041.

Mangold, James. Girl, Interrupted. Film, 1999.

Perelman, Leslie, James Paradis, and Edward Barrett. The Mayfield Handbook of Technical and Scientific Writing.

You should also have on hand a college dictionary and thesaurus such as Amazon logo The Oxford English Dictionary. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1991. ISBN: 9780198612582.


Lec #Topicsreadings
Unit One: First Essay - Writing Focus: Living In the Age of the Image; Close Textual Reading
1Introduction to the Class as a Writing Community And to the Academic Study of Mass MediaAmazon logo Caughey, John. Excerpt in Imaginary Social Worlds: A Cultural Approach. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1984. ISBN: 9780803214217.

Amazon logo Jhally, Sut. "Image-Based Culture: advertising and popular culture." Excerpt in Gender, Race, and Class in Media. Edited by Gail Dines, and Jean Humez. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1994. ISBN: 9780803951648.
2Image Culture and Media Artifacts

Advertising, Media Literacy and Close Reading

Discussion: Notebook Assignment
Kellner, Douglas. "Cultural Studies, Multiculturalism and Media Culture." In Gender, Race, and Class in Media. pp. 5-17.

"Advertising." Introduction in Gender, Race, and Class in Media. pp. 71-75.

Jhally, Sut. "Image-Based Culture: advertising and popular culture." In Gender, Race, and Class in Media. pp. 77-87.
3Writing as Process: Prewriting, Drafting, Revising Advertising: A Case Study of Mass MediaGoldman, Robert. "Constructing and Addressing the Audience as Commodity." In Gender, Race, and Class in Media. pp. 88-92.

Kellner, Douglas."Reading Images Critically: Toward A Postmodern Pedagogy." In Gender, Race, and Class in Media. pp. 126-132.
4Strategies of Close Reading: Ads as Representative Texts: Finding PatternsSeiter, Ellen. "Different Children, Different Dreams." In Gender, Race, and Class in Media. pp. 99-108.

Steinem, Gloria. "Sex, Lies and Advertising." In Gender, Race, and Class in Media. pp. 112-120.

Kilbourne, Jean. "Beauty and the Beast of Advertising." In Gender, Race, and Class in Media. pp. 121-125.

Documentary Film: Killing Us Softly 3. Media Education Foundation, 2000.
5Strategies of Close Reading: Constructing Arguments About Advertising Texts

Living in Consumer Culture Theories of Social Control and Social Reflection
Amazon logo Ewen, Stuart. Excerpts in Captains of Consciousness. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1977. ISBN: 9780070198463.

Amazon logo Schudson, Michael. Advertising: the Uneasy Persuasion. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1986. ISBN: 9780465000807.
6Writing Workshop: Peer Review of DraftsAmazon logo Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death. New York, NY: Viking, 1985. ISBN: 9780670804542.
7Using Secondary Sources: Library Workshop
Unit Two: Second Essay - Writing Focus: Working with Primary and Secondary Sources; Crafting Individual and Group Identities in the Age of Mass Media and Consumer Culture
8The Individual in the TV Age: Working With Primary Source Data: Interviews, Letters, etc.

The Art of Interviewing
Amazon logo Caughey, John. Imaginary Social Worlds: A Cultural Approach. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1984. ISBN: 9780803214217.
9The Individual in the Media Age: Growing Up on TV (cont.)Amazon logo Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death. New York, NY: Viking, 1985. ISBN: 9780670804542.
10The Individual in the Media Age: The Interview Transcript as Primary Source

Identifying Key Passages
Fiske, John. "Gendered Television: Femininity." In Gender, Race, and Class in Media. pp. 340-347.

Rapping, Elaine. "Movie of the Week." In Gender, Race, and Class in Media. pp. 445-453.

Pettegrew, John. "A Post-modernist moment: 1980s Commercial Culture and the Founding of MTV." In Gender, Race, and Class in Media. pp. 488-498.
11The Individual in the Age of Television and Mass Media: Interpreting Interview Material Within the Context of Secondary SourcesGerbner, George. "Television Violence: The Power and The Peril." In Gender, Race, and Class in Media. pp. 547-557.

Gray, Herman. "Television, Black Americans and the American Dream." In Gender, Race, and Class in Media. pp. 430-437.

Butsch, Richard. "Ralph, Fred, Archie and Homer: Why Television Keeps Recreating the White Male Working-Class Buffoon." In Gender, Race, and Class in Media. pp. 403-412.
12The Individual in the "Digital Revolution"

Discuss: Assigned Readings

Managing and Citing Sources

Issues of Structure

Bookending: Intros and Conclusion
13Generating Hypotheses from Case Studies: From Individual Lives to Social Patterns

Hypothesis Exercise

Television Analyses
14Workshop, Draft, Essay 2
Unit Three: Writing Focus: Comparative Analysis: Print Into Film
15From Print to Film: Thinking Critically About the Potentialities of Different Media for Storytelling

Literature, Film and the Depiction of Madness
Amazon logo Kaysen, Susanna. Girl, Interrupted. New York, NY: Vintage, 1994. ISBN: 9780679746041.
16From Print to Film: Questions of Comparative Analysis

Discuss: Susanna Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted
17Film Showing: Girl, Interrupted (James Mangold,1999)
18From Print to Film

Discuss: Novel and Film, Girl, Interrupted
19Writing About Film

Film as Language

Discuss: "Reading Films Critically"
20Incorporating Secondary Sources on Film and Print-to-film Adaptation

Types of Writing About Film

Small Groups: Scene Analysis Exercise
21Workshop: Draft, Essay 3

Revision Strategies
22Advanced Revision: The Potential of Publication

Discuss: Assigned Readings
23Course Evaluations

Portfolio Preparation
24Advanced Revision Workshop: Essay 1, Essay 2
25Student Readings

Course Overview
26Final Class

Student Readings

Submission of Portfolios

 








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