Readings | Expository Writing: Analyzing Mass Media | Comparative Media Studies/Writing

Required Readings

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

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

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 The Oxford English Dictionary. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1991. ISBN: 9780198612582.

Course Readings
Lec #	Topics	readings
Unit One: First Essay - Writing Focus: Living In the Age of the Image; Close Textual Reading
1	Introduction to the Class as a Writing Community And to the Academic Study of Mass Media	Caughey, John. Excerpt in Imaginary Social Worlds: A Cultural Approach. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1984. ISBN: 9780803214217. 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.
2	Image 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.
3	Writing as Process: Prewriting, Drafting, Revising Advertising: A Case Study of Mass Media	Goldman, 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.
4	Strategies of Close Reading: Ads as Representative Texts: Finding Patterns	Seiter, 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.
5	Strategies of Close Reading: Constructing Arguments About Advertising Texts Living in Consumer Culture Theories of Social Control and Social Reflection	Ewen, Stuart. Excerpts in Captains of Consciousness. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 1977. ISBN: 9780070198463. Schudson, Michael. Advertising: the Uneasy Persuasion. New York, NY: Basic Books, 1986. ISBN: 9780465000807.
6	Writing Workshop: Peer Review of Drafts	Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death. New York, NY: Viking, 1985. ISBN: 9780670804542.
7	Using 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
8	The Individual in the TV Age: Working With Primary Source Data: Interviews, Letters, etc. The Art of Interviewing	Caughey, John. Imaginary Social Worlds: A Cultural Approach. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1984. ISBN: 9780803214217.
9	The Individual in the Media Age: Growing Up on TV (cont.)	Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death. New York, NY: Viking, 1985. ISBN: 9780670804542.
10	The 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.
11	The Individual in the Age of Television and Mass Media: Interpreting Interview Material Within the Context of Secondary Sources	Gerbner, 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.
12	The Individual in the "Digital Revolution" Discuss: Assigned Readings Managing and Citing Sources Issues of Structure Bookending: Intros and Conclusion
13	Generating Hypotheses from Case Studies: From Individual Lives to Social Patterns Hypothesis Exercise Television Analyses
14	Workshop, Draft, Essay 2
Unit Three: Writing Focus: Comparative Analysis: Print Into Film
15	From Print to Film: Thinking Critically About the Potentialities of Different Media for Storytelling Literature, Film and the Depiction of Madness	Kaysen, Susanna. Girl, Interrupted. New York, NY: Vintage, 1994. ISBN: 9780679746041.
16	From Print to Film: Questions of Comparative Analysis Discuss: Susanna Kaysen, Girl, Interrupted
17	Film Showing: Girl, Interrupted (James Mangold,1999)
18	From Print to Film Discuss: Novel and Film, Girl, Interrupted
19	Writing About Film Film as Language Discuss: "Reading Films Critically"
20	Incorporating Secondary Sources on Film and Print-to-film Adaptation Types of Writing About Film Small Groups: Scene Analysis Exercise
21	Workshop: Draft, Essay 3 Revision Strategies
22	Advanced Revision: The Potential of Publication Discuss: Assigned Readings
23	Course Evaluations Portfolio Preparation
24	Advanced Revision Workshop: Essay 1, Essay 2
25	Student Readings Course Overview
26	Final Class Student Readings Submission of Portfolios