Welcome to Language and Literature

 

 

Doyle   Kincaid   Walker   Silko   Bambara   Yamanaka

 

Syllabus

Student Profiles

Class Portfolio

Electronic Reserves

     pw: discourse

Ellie's email: eleanor.kutz@umb.edu

WebCT Login Page

Web CT Login Info

12/7.  Final business:

I distributed an accounting of your Unit 2 informal responses in class today.  8 are possible ( including two on WebCT), with 6 required.  If you're missing something from earlier in this unit and want to add something later, you can also work with worksheet 7.2, which we didn't use, and post your response as #18.  I won't take any more responses after our class time on Tuesday (12/12).

If you want to me to look at any portion of a draft of your Unit 2 paper, give it to me on Tuesday.  The full paper is due on Monday 12/18.  You may email it to me, but I do want your glossed texts and/or working notes as well.

In our last class, we'll look back at the literature we've read this semester, connecting what we've seen to characteristics of style in realist, modernist, and post-modernist literatue (drawing on Thornborrow and Waring)--a quick bridge from what we've been doing to the rest of your literature courses.

FYI.  Roddy Doyle has written a sequel to The Woman Who Walked Into Doors with the title Paula Spencer.  It's being released on December 28.   Too late for a Christmas present, but just in time for spending any gift money you might receive. 

I've posted the correct guidelines for the Unit 2 literature paper on the assignments page.  I really apologize for not getting these up earlier.  I don't know what happened when I revised and tried to post last week, but I lost my final version and had to rework it.  Whatever you might have done in response to the guidelines that were there will work out fine.

On 12/5, we'll work with Yamanaka's story from two perspectives, applying Chafe's (and Tannen's) ideas about involvement, and considering the effect of her use of  Hawai'i Pidgin (HCE).  And please post some brief ideas about your Unit 2 paper as #20.

On 11/21, we'll discuss L&L Chapter 6 and language variation in Doyle.

See updated assignments page, revised schedule, and Unit 2 final project info.

For Thursday 11/16, please use worksheet 5.6 with the grammar sites that appear on our resources page to complete and post #14 on a couple of grammatical features you want to know more about.  (There's a problem with the database right now--Wed. 2pm--that I'm trying to get fixed, so if you have trouble logging into the writing room, try again later, and bring a hard copy of what you were going to post to use to tell us about what you found in your grammar inquiry.)

If you missed our 11/14 lab session, you'll find the directions for the work on the WebCT site.  The posting to the discussion threads on that site counts as one assignment.

On Tuesday 11/14 we will meet in the Gold Lab, Healey UL 0041.

Unit 1 paper revisions are due Tuesday, 11/14.  (I may have originally said this Thursday, and I'll be happy to receive some of these before the weekend, if they're ready.)  Please be sure to give back your original paper with my comments, so I can read what you've done from there.  Thanks!

In class today (11/7) we worked on identifying major elements of narratives (as definedby Labov) to specific passages from Roddy Doyle. Please post as #12 your own understanding of what your group discovered.  (Be sure to point to page #'s in your selection from Doyle.)  If you missed class, you can select a passage and apply these concepts (see worksheet 5.2).   For 11/9, read the rest of Labov on the ways in which evaluation can be imbedded in narrative syntax.  You'll continue to work with your passages, looking closely at evaluative syntax, on Thursday and then report back to the class (and post as #13).

For 11/7.  Read Labov, "The Transformation of Narrative Syntax,"  to p. 370, focusing on the major elements of narrative structure.  We'll work apply the concepts wediscussed in class on 11/2 and Labov's naming of elements to some passages from Doyle. 

If you want a reminder of major parts of speech, Hacker "Basic Grammar" reviews these in school grammar terms. You might want to print this out for reference.  For a more detailed discussion of syntax and phrase structures (represented in tree diagrams) look at Fromkin. Both are on electronic reserves.

I've corrected the updated syllabus and the revised unit 2 schedule.

Some background on the UMB Sailing Team with Chris and Jake.

For 11/2.  Please read Chapter 5 of L&L.

Responses to the midterm course evaluation suggested that you're generally satisfied with the way the course is structured, so I won't make any major changes.  I've posted an updated syllabus that reflects our pushing the schedule back a little and that better anticipates the numbers we'll use for posting assignments.

For 10/31.  We'll begin Unit 2 by discussing the first part of The Woman Who Walked Into Doors (to p. 122).  For the moment, we're just bumping our schedule back a week.  I'll repost it after you give back your course evaluations and I see whether we need any changes.

Thanks for your presentations of interesting unit 1 projects. 

In a follow up to Karen's example of Cheney discourse, after class I happened across this article on a blog site, Discourse.net, about an encounter between Cheney and my sister's old boyfriend from many years ago, who was arrested for exercising his first amendment right of freedom of speech.

For 10/24. Unit 1 project is due!!  Post an excerpt that you'll use to show the class the kind of things you've discovered as #10.

For 10/19.  Pratt's chapter on "Literary Cooperation and Implicature" offers a detailed introduction to Grice's maxims, and then an application of these concepts to literary examples.  For our purposes,  I'm suggesting that you focus on pp., 163 to 178, in which Pratt applies these concepts to the openings of Sterne's Tristram Shandy and Austen's Pride and Prejudice.  The chapter continues with some other examples, which we may touch on, but it's a lengthy reading and I think these pages will give you a sense of what Pratt's saying about violations of maxims and the implicatures that might arise in the exchange between writer and reader.

10/17.   I passed out sheets with my scoring of your informal assignments for this unit.  If you missed class today, please be sure to ask for yours on Thursday. 

You may make up missed assignments for somewhat reduced credit by next Tuesday.  The Unit 1 Project is also due on Tuesday (10/24) along with a posting of 1 sample text which you'll present in class.  Detailed Unit I project guidelines and a scoring rubric are posted on the Assignments Page.

On Thursday 10/19 we'll continue our discussion of Silko, drawing on the Pratt reading (on electronic reserves) that's due that day. 

I've eliminated assignment #80 (a worksheet drawing on the discussion we'll have on Thursday), but you're welcome to post it as a make-up for an earlier assignment.  I've left #8, a framed version of your story, and you may want to complete your work for this unit with another creative recasting.

For 10/17--Read Leslie Marmon Silko, "Aunt Susie's Story" from Storyteller and bring a copy to class.  You can post #8, you're own frame for your story, after we discuss this one.  We'll also take a few minutes to draw on/add to the work you did in class on ways of representing discourse.

For 10/10--We'll continue our discussion of Walker on Tuesday, 10/10.  I'll introduce some of Toolan's ideas about representing speech and thought, but we'll do most of our work with those ideas on Thursday, 10/12.  In the meantime, keep on posting!

For 10/5--The reading for Thursday is Alice Walker's "Everyday Use."  (On E-reserves.) Please be sure to print out and bring a copy to class.

9/28--I've posted a link to some background information on Kincaid and her relationship with her mother on the resources page.  I think you'll find it interesting in thinking about the semantic fields of meanings and themes that the author might have brought to the story she wrote. 

For next class (10/3) Post both #6 and #9.  See assignments page.

9/26--Some of you who are or have been in courses that use this website have had problems with posting work that doesn't show up on the portfolio page for this course.  Apparently we can't use the same information to enter you in the database for two courses.  I'm changing the password for those affected by this to the first four digits of your student ID #.  (So far, I've done this for myself, Jake, and Karen Lidano.)  If others of you have this problem, please let me know.

You'll need to repost any assignments that have ended up elsewhere in the data base.

If the conflict is with another course this semester, please go into the writing room for that course and delete the postings intended for 443..

Sorry about the problem.

Please see the updated information about assignment postings and due dates on the assignment page, as well as project 1 guidelines, a scoring rubric for informal responses, and a grading rubric for the unit 1 project.

On Thursday, 9/21, we'll meet in the computer lab--the Purple Lab, Healey Upper Level, 0042

Please tape a conversation in any familiar setting, transcribe 5 minutes of it, and post the transcript as Assignment #2 (or email it to yourself or bring it in electronic form if you have trouble posting).  If you can't get to the group you're recording by Thursday, work with preliminary response to the questions on p. 279 and post that as #1. 

In the lab, I'll ask to you to post responses to each others' transcripts and, drawing on those responses, to post your own semantic analysis as #4, working with worksheet 3.1 on the assignments page.  Include the information about your community that's represented in the questions on p. 279.

Other changes to the syllabus for Weeks 3 and 4.  

We'll skip the Kutz, Groden Zamel reading and the Heath reading.

For 9/26, see follow-up assignment to computer lab work, posted on assignments page.

On 9/26, we'll read Jamaica Kincaid's "Girl" (please print up a copy).  We'll do a semantic analysis in class, working with worksheet 3.2.  I'll also talk about the unit 1 project.

For 9/28.  Rewrite the narrative of your conversation in the style of "Girl" and post it as #5.  Add a brief comment about the features you were particularly aware of in imitating this style.

On 9/28, we'll "Girl" aloud, look at some of your story postings, and discuss the features of the style of this story that you drew on.

I'll ask you to post a brief (1-2 paragraph) Unit 1 project proposal, in addition to the pragmatic analysis of your conversation, on 10/3.

We'll pick up the original schedule in Week 5.

For Tuesday, 9/19

Taking a class away for convocation has messed up our schedule a little, but we'll try to catch up.  I had said you should continue with the reading, Chapter 3 of  Language and Literacy.  We'll begin talking about that chapter tomorrow, in conjunction with your observations about Marshall's talk.

You should find your name listed under student profiles.

For Thursday, 9/14  

You can go to the writing room and enter your personal writing space.

Use the first part of your email address (before @, as listed in student profiles) to log in.

Your password is the last 4 digits of your student ID number.

Email me if you have difficulty.

Once you are in the writing room, you may post a picture and/or post something about yourself. 

Thursday, 9/14.  We will meet in the Campus Center Ballroom to hear the 2006 Convocation Day address of Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall.  Justice Marshall’s address is called To Be Educated and Instructed in the Principles of Freedom, and in our following class we will talk a little about the discourses of freedom. 

Before attending Marshall's address, read the Introduction to George Lakoff's book Whose Freedom?   Lakoff is a linguist who has focused in particular on the power of words and metaphors.  In this book he examines the uses of the word "Freedom" from a progressivist political perspective.  Note particularly what he says about how words can be used to evoke conceptual frames.  Then, as you listen to Marshall, consider the conceptual frames that she associates with the work "freedom."

Here's conservative blog, "Random Observations," that questions Lakoff's assertions about the meaning of the word.

Freedom entry from Wikipedia.

Freedom entry from Webster's Collegiate Dictionary