Coincidentally, we were covering Kenneth Burke in my teaching college writing class the same time I was reading him for this one. So, this journal is going to be me telling you an assignment idea I came up with using the pentad.
To get students familiar with evaluating/unpacking sources, they would be instructed on how to use the pentad with its five points (act, scene, agent, agency, and purpose). For the initial assignment, students would dissect a simple , familiar fairytale told in very simple prose (something between 200-500 words). Then, splitting the class into small groups (2-3 people), they would fill out the pentad. After giving students some time to work on this, each group would map out their respective pentads on the board with an indication as to which point has the most emphasis. Then, as a class, students would discuss the differences among the interpretations and why some students saw different points needing emphasis.
Ideally students would realize that texts can be interpreted multiple ways and that no text is entirely objective. They would transfer the skills learned using the pentad and apply them to more complex reading assignments, and perhaps even at some point their own writing. The pentad is a great way of teaching for many reasons. It's a flexible, widely applicable strategy, can involve the drawing of stars (with colored pencils if one prefers!), and can help students make mincemeat of complicated texts.
At least, I hope it will work.
19 February 2010
05 February 2010
Dear Mikhail
Main Idea:
Dialogic = intertextuality, ongoing dialogue, context, conversations are always conversing with conversations that came before them.
Dear Mikhail,
What I first noticed about your excerpts in my rhetoric book is your first name. Now, that may be strange to you, but I'll explain why. I have a rather unhealthy obsession with the television program Lost. Believe it or not, one of the tertiary characters in the series has your first name. And he's Russian! And he lives underground! Ha. Given this, it is no surprise that when I began reading these excerpts I paid less attention to what you were saying than I did trying to figure out how your philosophy folded into the Lost mythos. Because, you see, in drama studies all roads lead to Thebes, but in Sarah Morgan studies, all roads lead to Lost. So, there you have my academic framework for grappling with your language studies.
Ideology seems like a good place to start. You tell me that all language, all signs, in fact, are a reflection and/or refraction of an ideology. I get that: language is communicative, communication occurs in society, society's framework lies in ideology and those ideologies in society establish culture. Basically, you think that language is always subject to ideological boundaries (Sidebar: I also have a feeling that by "ideology" you sometimes mean "government"-- as in restrictive Russian government--so your very communication, this very writing that I'm reading right now, is subjected to the cultural and political power of government. Yes? Maybe?). So, ideological boundaries...you also explain that individual consciousness (IC) can only be found through ideology. Wow, I guess that's kind of true; we can't be self aware if that awareness occurs in a vacuum, but I wonder if the IC can break out of ideological restraints? Can it only leave one ideology for another, perhaps? There is no new ground only new navigation? That is disheartening, but in a way very true.
So how does this apply to Lost? Well, any avid fan (we're all avid fans, you have to be, really, to understand the show) can tell you that each episode, indeed each scene is in a larger conversation with the series as a whole. Meaning can only be made by considering the larger structure of the Lost-universe. I guess it kind of fits then, but I'm not sure that's exactly what the creators were going for when they named the Russian dude Mikhail, but that's what I'm taking from it; that's my utterance on that.
You also said some cool stuff about utterance, sentences, novels, and linguistics. I'm going to make a chart on poster board to sort it all out. I hope you'll like it. Let me know.
-S.
Dialogic = intertextuality, ongoing dialogue, context, conversations are always conversing with conversations that came before them.
Dear Mikhail,
What I first noticed about your excerpts in my rhetoric book is your first name. Now, that may be strange to you, but I'll explain why. I have a rather unhealthy obsession with the television program Lost. Believe it or not, one of the tertiary characters in the series has your first name. And he's Russian! And he lives underground! Ha. Given this, it is no surprise that when I began reading these excerpts I paid less attention to what you were saying than I did trying to figure out how your philosophy folded into the Lost mythos. Because, you see, in drama studies all roads lead to Thebes, but in Sarah Morgan studies, all roads lead to Lost. So, there you have my academic framework for grappling with your language studies.
Ideology seems like a good place to start. You tell me that all language, all signs, in fact, are a reflection and/or refraction of an ideology. I get that: language is communicative, communication occurs in society, society's framework lies in ideology and those ideologies in society establish culture. Basically, you think that language is always subject to ideological boundaries (Sidebar: I also have a feeling that by "ideology" you sometimes mean "government"-- as in restrictive Russian government--so your very communication, this very writing that I'm reading right now, is subjected to the cultural and political power of government. Yes? Maybe?). So, ideological boundaries...you also explain that individual consciousness (IC) can only be found through ideology. Wow, I guess that's kind of true; we can't be self aware if that awareness occurs in a vacuum, but I wonder if the IC can break out of ideological restraints? Can it only leave one ideology for another, perhaps? There is no new ground only new navigation? That is disheartening, but in a way very true.
So how does this apply to Lost? Well, any avid fan (we're all avid fans, you have to be, really, to understand the show) can tell you that each episode, indeed each scene is in a larger conversation with the series as a whole. Meaning can only be made by considering the larger structure of the Lost-universe. I guess it kind of fits then, but I'm not sure that's exactly what the creators were going for when they named the Russian dude Mikhail, but that's what I'm taking from it; that's my utterance on that.
You also said some cool stuff about utterance, sentences, novels, and linguistics. I'm going to make a chart on poster board to sort it all out. I hope you'll like it. Let me know.
-S.
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