Daily Schedule: Tue/Thur -- Introduction (Weeks 1-3)
Week 1
Tuesday, September 1Read syllabus & Course Purpose. Familiarize yourself with the course website.
To get at these larger questions, throughout the semester we will investigate these smaller, more targeted questions:
Lecture notes on connoisseurship and criticism for today's class. |
Thursday, September 3
Print, read, and notate:
McKee's "Structure and Meaning" from his book Story, which you will find in our Dropbox. Begin your annotated bibliography for the course by creating a citation of this chapter from McKee's book. Summarize McKee's argument in the first paragraph, and then speculate in the second paragraph:
|
Week 2
Tuesday, September 8Discuss register.
Print, read, and notate: Butler "Cinema of the Mind." David Mamet's "Countercultural Architecture and Dramatic Structure." On Directing. Write out the key terms each writer uses to evaluate good writing. Come up with your own examples to practice. Come to class with at least two different artifacts that you can evaluate using McKee's method, now assisted by the evaluative criteria Butler and Mamet introduce and explain. |
Thursday, September 10Presentations
For Tuesday's class you will need to draft your first mini-analysis using McKee's method (supplemented by Butler and Mamet), showing how the structure of the text produces aesthetic emotion in the audience. Also Read:
Strunk. The Elements of Style. 1918. (Please focus on "The Elementary Principles of Composition.") You need not print this text, just read through it. And Williams' Lessons 1 and 2 from the book Style. |
Week 3
Tuesday, September 15Workshop first draft of mini-analysis 1, employing McKee's method as primary, but with Butler and Mamet to assist.
Workshop guide for McKee mini-analysis Bring a clean rubric for your peers to evaluate your mini-analysis. Recommended reading:
Ed White's "Responding to and Grading Student Writing" from his book Assigning, Responding, Evaluating: A Writing Teacher's Guide. White provides us with some excellent advice for how to approach student writing. This will help you to evaluate your peers' efforts and to listen to and think about your peers' responses to your writing. |
Thursday, September 17You must print, read, and notate the following text to bring to class:
Jane Gallop’s “Ethics of Reading: Close Encounters.” Journal of Curriculum Theorizing. Fall 2000. 7-17. In many ways, Gallop's article will play a central role in this course because it introduces and distinguishes a method of close-reading I will be expecting you to practice throughout the semester. Hint: what shows up if you evaluate her text using the method she presents? |
Course Links |
Daily Schedule:
|