Supposedly, you're not laboring today -- that's the point. Nevertheless, we still have things to do for the week. Now that you have your diagnostic essays back, read through the comments/markings I've left on them, and consult packet pp.7 ("Nick's Proofreading Marks") and 9-17 (various pages of editing hints, etc) to see what I marked and why (see especially pp. 11-12, "Guerilla Editing" and p.15 "Using my marks/comments"), so you can begin to locate possible writing "problem areas" on your own. You do not need to revise your diagnostic essay.
-- see also the 1000-level paper writing tips site (if you haven't already) to see what pointers you can pick up already to help make the jobs of writing and revising easier.
-- you may wish to begin reading ahead for the next week(s) as well -- see assigned readings below.
-- read in packet pp. 47-57, Roland Barthes' essays "The Death of the Author" and "From Work to Text." Along with Foucault, Barthes (who died in 1980) remains one of the most influential thinkers of the post-Second World War era. He almost single-handedly created the field of Semiotics that we know today, and his studies of literature (both the writing and the reading of it) still offer as much insight now as they did back in the 1970s. "The Death of the Author" offers ideas not so much about the killing of "the author" (in the wake of Nietzsche's theses on God and religion) as the "disappearence" of the point of authority that we call "the author" (noting, of course, the author in authority). "From Work to Text" offers ways to rethink what becomes of a "work" through the act of reading it, which reduces it to a "text" -- and how everything, at some level, becomes a "readable" "text". We'll discuss both pieces in class.
-- also begin reading through packet pp. 101-112, the "Introduction," "Summaries of Critical Approaches," and "Glossary of Important Terms" to David Cowles' The Critical Experience, to familiarize yourself with a few of the critical "schools" we'll either work with directly, or read about in the coming chapters.
-- read in packet pp. 113-123, David Cowles' chapter "Reader Response Criticism." We'll discuss this chapter, and reader response in general, in class today. Don't be mislead by the terms "reader response criticism" -- it doesn't mean what it at first implies. "Reader response" isn't blind, reflex interpretations, saying whatever the hell you please about a work with impunity. Rather, this critical approach asks readers to pay a particular kind of attention to their readings, which we can integrate with the tools provided earlier in the semester by Eco.
-- post any preliminary questions about this material to the listserve to help generate discussion, both in and outside class.
-- LISTSERVE ASSIGNMENT: review "Subtotals" and "A Continuity of Parks" (either the handout, or in packet pp. 149-139), as well as your notes from those class discussions, using the concepts we've gathered from Eco (review those notes as well). In a brief message to the list, share a little of what you find in/about either of those pieces now that you've reread them with Eco's concepts in mind. (Essentially, you're performing a very brief reader response critique of either one of those stories, focusing on how they do what they do depending on how you read them.) Due before midnight tonight.
-- whatever we mayn't have covered in Cowles' chapter we will cover today.
-- today you'll also be placed in your writing groups; these will be the groups you'll work in for the rest of the semester, to help each other gather and discuss ideas, and edit and revise paper drafts. If all goes well, we should also have time to perform a gramar/editing diagnostic.
-- see Additional course terms & concepts site, and print out a copy of this site. We'll discuss a few of the pertinent vocabulary terms for you to use in Paper 1.
-- in groups today, we'll also discuss (given that we haven't already) Paper 1, and begin generating ideas for it.
-- we'll also begin signing up for Conference days next week on Paper 1.
-- in groups today you'll help each other generate and refine/finalize your topic for Paper 1.
-- other possible short work t.b.a.