Week 5 Keywords, Readings & More

The first four weeks of the course went by relatively quickly, particularly with our covering many complex topics.  I am impressed with how our class discussions have evolved: many of you are learning how to read critically and even integrate such analyses into your topics for last week's post.  I will have all posts read, commented on, and graded by tomorrow morning. Please be sure to read carefully the comments on your post, as well as my comments for other members of your group.

For this week, read "A Soldier's Legacy" and this article from The Onion.  To accompany these articles, you also need to read the following keywords:

Representation

Queer  

Make sure you have all of this read by class on Tuesday.  As you work through these two very different readings, particularly with "representation" and "queer" in mind, examine the different media from which the articles come.  Think back to your posts for last week and be ready to discuss how The New Yorker is different from The Onion.  A more difficult question might be, how are they similar?  Recall our discussion of parody last week and think about how this technique is employed by The Onion.  Think also about the ways in which each article is concerned with other media, such as Wikipedia and the comment features on countless Internet sites.  The second article may be particularly useful for the group working on Flickr, YouTube, and Facebook.

For this week's assignment to write a semiotic analysis, I want you choose something you encounter everyday, take a photo of it to include in your post, and write.  If you are not able to take a photo, then find a similar image online, but make sure you cite your source and even write about the difference between taking a photo of something you "really" encounter, versus writing about an image captured by someone else.  As you write, keep in mind the work we did in class, particularly how we separate form from content.  We will talk more about strategies for writing this post in class on Tuesday, but you should choose your subject as soon as possible and begin writing before Tuesday.  When grading this post, I am going to pay close attention to your argument.  I have noticed that for last week's post, many of you fell into a trap of describing your group's method without setting up a clear argument about the relationship between medium and audience.  The key for this next post will be to craft a coherent argument about your object of analysis.  Do not write a description of the object--with the photo you include, the reader could do this on his or her own.  Rather, give the reader an analysis, using the critical reading strategies we have employed in class.  You should also incorporate keywords from our book to help you develop your argument.