Welcome to ETS 141:  Reading and Interpretation:  From Language to Discourse!  As the title indicates, in this first-year Syracuse course, we will discover how we read and how we interpret what we read. ETS 141 will teach us to ask “why” as frequently as “what.”  Once we understand this idea, we will be in a position to question the texts that we study, seeking out truth as responsible individuals, while recognizing that each of us is shaped and limited by the culture to which we belong and by the limits of human intelligence.  We must question the entire notion of “meaning” in text as well as in life.  The very definition of text will be expanded to include “anything that has meaning.”  We will apply criticism to literary and nonliterary texts.

The introduction to twentieth century literary and linguistic theorists, beginning with Saussure, will demonstrate that “meaning” does not suggest one truth or message communicated by an author through a text.  Rather, it suggests that decoding may have as much to do with the reader or the context, either for the writer or reader, as with the qualities inherent in the text itself.  Meaning, as we will find, is far from stable.  Language is a complex network of various codes that inscribe attitudes, values, and power relationships of a particular discourse community.  Fundamentally, ETS 141 examines how meaning is produced in and through sign systems such as language, how forms of discourse shape reading practices, and what is at stake in reading.  Finally, we will examine the idea that meaning itself is “indeterminate,” and the closest we can come to meaning is an approximation of it.

As students in this course,  you will each be expected to take charge of your own intellectual growth and development.  We, the instructors, will function as facilitators and as guides for you, but what you learn this semester will be your responsibility.

Texts (selections by instructors)
Bartholomae and Petrosky. Eds. Ways of Reading
Beaty and Hunter. Eds. New Worlds of Literature
Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre
Rhys, Jean. Wide Sargasso Sea
Rostand, Edmond. Cyrano de Bergerac
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
Wilson, August. Fences
Various supplemental selections by the instructors

Flims (selections by instructors)
Avnet, Jon. Fried Green Tomatoes
Lehmann, Michael. The Truth about Cats and Dogs
Pollack, Sydney. Sabrina (1995)
Schepisi, Fred. Roxanne
Schlondorff, Volker. Death of a Salesman
Wilder, Billy. Sabrina (1954)
Zeffirelli, Franco. Hamlet

Course Requirements / Important Dates:

• Formal Papers  - 50%
  • Paper #1 due Week 5
  • Paper #2 due Week 10
  • Paper #3 due Week 15
  • Paper #4 due Week 19
• Response Papers (5 selected) - 30 %
• Informal Writing - 20%
  • (journals, research, class work, group
    presentation, collaborative projects, peer editing)

Clarification of Course Requirements - The following items are Ramsey additions to the Student Manual:

1. The ETS summary form outlines the relative value of papers; in short, the course has portfolio grades of different types. All papers receive letter grades. Ten percent of the course's grade consists of a subjective evaluation of student performance - see the card and the instructor's comments for further explanation.

2. Either instructor will grade any given paper. You may get a second evaluation from the alternate teacher at his/her convenience.

3. Conference time is available during period 6, the scheduled lab periods, any day, or at a time mutually convenient to the instructor and to you. You must arrange such conferencing time in advance.

4. At the teacher's discretion, you may select a paper to revise and rewrite in order to improve your overall grade.

5. The syllabus indicates the weeks in which formal and response papers are due; the instructor will announce specific due dates well in advance. If you are in school up to the day the paper is due and absent on the due date, you must arrange to have the paper delivered to your teacher's General Office mailbox on time (11:07 AM), or it is late. You take care of arranging any individual variations due to your extended legal absence from school. There is a one-letter grade penalty per assignment per day late, including weekends, since Saturday and Sunday are extra days to do work other students have turned in on time. Don't be late.

6. Final drafts must be beautifully neat, technically error-free pieces of work that exhibit some significant revision of earlier drafts. As such, grading standards for these pieces are considerably more stringent than those for the earlier drafts. If you type a neat copy of a rough draft, but do not pay attention to the teacher comments on that draft and do not revise the paper in some important way, the final paper will fail.

Form

• Type, double-spaced, all final drafts, using one-inch margins all around. Each typed full page will contain about 250 words. Use word count in your word processor if you are uncertain as to your paper's length.

• Start your text one-third of the way down the first page to allow room for teacher comments.

• Do not number the first page, but number all the others in the upper right hand comer.

• Do not hand-write anything on the final draft, including page numbers and underlining.

• Do not use cover sheets of any kind, but do use a title page with the format explained in class and in Ramsey's Student Guide to Research Documentation. Print a second hard copy of your paper as a safeguard against loss, either electronic or paper. Staple the paper before coming to class. As the instructor directs, submit early drafts with the finished copy.

WEEK 2 ³ February 5 - 9
Review: Criteria for a proficient response paper
Introduction of Unit I: How We Make Meaning
Reading: Friere's "The Banking Concept"
Discussion: Friere: What ideas about reading and interpretation have been "banked" in you?
Pair Work: Map your reading of "True Gods"
Discussion: "True Gods," using "deep talk" method
Response paper: Make sense of the text of "True Gods"

WEEK 3 ³ February 12 - 16
Reading: Berger's "Ways of Seeing"
Discussion: "Commonsense" reading practices; a mini-history of what we do in English classes
Discussion: "Ways of Seeing"
Response paper: "Ways of Seeing"
Classwork: Find three ads with the following questions in mind: Is the buyer written a particular way? Does this ad depend on its viewer knowing something not in the ad? Does this ad compare a product with something else that has absolutely nothing to do with the product? Does this ad depend for its meaning on some larger reference system?
Classwork: Work with ads
Response paper: "Read" an ad using your "new" way(s) of "seeing"

Outside Reading: Jane Eyre (see chapter schedule)

WEEK 4 ³ February 26 - March 2
Discussion: Formal paper #1 topic and criteria
Group work: Seminar Method for introduction and support (4 typed drafts to class)
Film: Hamlet

WEEK 5 ³ March 5 - 9
2 Paper #1 due March 5
Film: Finish Hamlet
Discussion: The traditional Hamlet
Reading: Psychological Criticism handout
Introduction of Unit II: One Critical Perspective: Psychological Criticism
Group Project: One aspect of psychological theory (see assignment sheet)
Discussion: Work with the language of Psychological Criticism (revisit advertisements)

WEEK 6 ³ March 12 - 16
Group Project: One aspect of psychological theory
Class work: Find an ad that illustrates your psychological concept(s)
Response paper: Psychological analysis of ad
Reading: Hamlet: Prince of Denmark
Discussion: Review language and interpret text - Hamlet

WEEK 7 ³ March 19 - 23
Reading: Hamlet: Prince of Denmark
Discussion: Review language and interpret text - Hamlet

WEEK 8 ³ March 26 - 30
Reading: Hamlet: Prince of Denmark
Discussion: Review language and interpret text - Hamlet
Discussion: Formal paper #2 topic and criteria

WEEK 9 ³ April 2 - 6
Reading: Hamlet: Prince of Denmark
Discussion: Review language and interpret text - Hamlet
Writing: The introduction and thesis
Pair work: Critiquing the introduction and thesis
Writing: Drafting the psychological Hamlet essay

Outside Reading: Wide Sargasso Sea

WEEK 10 ³ April 9 - 12 (April 13: Good Friday)
2 Paper #2 due April 9
Group work: The Seminar Method
Reading: Jane Eyre 
Film: Jane Eyre

WEEK 11 ³ April 16 - 20
Film: Jane Eyre
Discussion: Revisit the traditional Jane Eyre
Reading: Feminist criticism handout
Discussion: One conflicting perspective: Feminist Criticism
Discussion: Feminism in Jane Eyre
Response paper: Feminism in Jane Eyre

WEEK 12 ³ April 30 - May 4
Discussion: Feminism in Jane Eyre
Reading: Wide Sargasso Sea
Discussion: Wide Sargasso Sea

WEEK 13 ³ May 7 - 10 (May 11: Half Day In-service)
Discussion: Feminism in Wide Sargasso Sea
Reading: Wide Sargasso Sea
Discussion: Wide Sargasso Sea
Pair work: Find one feminist concept in Wide Sargasso Sea and use a modern day ad to illustrate
Discussion: Formal paper #3 topic and criteria

WEEK 14 ³ May 14 - 18
Discussion: Sharing thesis statements
Group work: Seminar Method for introduction and support (4 typed drafts to class)
Writing: Drafting Feminism Essays

WEEK 15 ³ May 21 - 25
2 Paper #3 due May 21
Reading: Intertextuality handout
Discussion: Introduction to Intertextuality
Reading: Cyrano de Bergerac / Fences (in class)
Discussion: Internal relations within the text (intratextuality)

WEEK 16 ³ May 28 - June 1
Reading: Cyrano de Bergerac / Fences (in class)
Response paper: Examine the allusions within the text
Discussion: Genre theory and crossing the boundaries of formal frames
Film: The Truth About Cats and Dogs / Death of a Salesman

WEEK 17 ³ June 4 - 8
Film: The Truth About Cats and Dogs / Death of a Salesman
Discussion: Transtextuality
Discussion: Formal paper #4 topic and criteria

WEEK 18 ³ June 11 - 15
Discussion: Deep Talk Method for possible topics/thesis statements
Writing: Drafting an introduction and thesis

WEEK 19 ³ June 18 - 22
Writing: Drafting paper #4
2 Paper #4 due June 14

Congratulations!