From UMassWiki

If anyone is foolish enough to arrive late (ahem), please

help us all out by making sure they
get the handout detailing the
homework assignment due at the beginning of class on Thursday.

Thanks.

Contents 1 Overview and Babel (Day 1, September 4) 2 Homework due 6 September 3 Introductions and Blogs (Day 2, September 6) 4 Homework due 11 September

Overview and Babel (Day 1, September 4)

Note: Course requirements and syllabus, grading, policies, will be discussed on Day 2 or 3 (time permitting).

• Roster stuff...
• Intro “lecture”:
  • Writing as Communication
  • Communication = processes of making meaning
  • Sender-Receiver (transmission) vs Ritual (Carey, Cultural Codes, CMM)
  • Presentation and representation of self through written text (words)
  • Intention (writer’s goal) and effect (audience interpretation)
• Watch Babel (take notes)

Homework due 6 September

Set up individual Wordpress weblogs. Create an anonymous identity for yourself! You’ll have to tell the teacher your identity at some point in order to receive credit for the assignments you do here. Make your first entry – what does watching Babel have to do with the subject matter of this course? Hint: page vii in the textbook, The Critical Method: Semiotics'. Create a category for this post: Babel for COM375. Be sure this category is selected when you publish.

If you do not categorize your entries, you will not receive credit because your post will not appear in 'the grading zone' - and, no, I am not going to go hunting!

Introductions and Blogs (Day 2, September 6)

• Activity: trios. Introduce yourselves. Debrief the homework assignment. Do not reveal your anonymous Wordpress username! Be prepared to report:

a. Which of the five items in the Table of Contents seems most urgent to you?

b. Any problems with setting up your Wordpress weblog?

c. Did you create a unique title for your entry? Why or why not?

d. Did you read the page in the text given as a hint? If so, what terminology is new or not completely clear?

e. How long did it take to do all of the homework?

f. Did you spend any extra time snooping around the Wiki? If so, what did you find?

g. Did anyone see the article about UMassWiki in The Collegian? If so, what did you think about it?

• Share outs and Discussion

• Write your anonymous Wordpress username and today's date on the index card Steph will distribute. Do not write anything else!

• Syllabus: Do you really want one?

Homework due 11 September

Read the information on the Course Homepage from the Resource for Instructors.

Read the Introduction to the Course Textbook, pages 1-19. "Popular Signs: Or, Everything You Always Knew about American Culture (but Nobody Asked)"

Hint: read the last section (Getting Started) first. Find out what you are supposed to learn from this chapter, and then read in such a way that you actually do learn it.

Double Hint: read the rest of this assignment so you know what you are supposed to do with the knowledge you are supposed to glean from the reading.

Go to your Wordpress weblog. Find where the categorization hypertext shows up associated with your post, Babel for COM375. Click the hypertext. You should come to a page where the writing on this assignment from each student in this class is gathered.

Find the post written by the student whose anonymous user name you drew in the random lottery during class.

Read what your assigned author wrote for evidence of popular culture. Apply the kinds of questions provided by the assigned reading. This means you must have already identified at least some of the specific strategies and understood some of the analytical concepts that were explained in the assigned reading.

Write a semiotic analysis of whatever you find. Post it as a comment to that author.