SOSC4318 - Modes of Communication: Orality
to Literacy to the Electronic Era - 2002/03
by Mary-Louise Craven
M-L Craven (mlc@yorku.ca)
328 Calumet College: 736-2100 ext. 77812 (with voicemail)
Office hour: Tuesday 9-10. (or by appointment; contact
via email)
Please note: Normally, all Tuesday classes will be held in the
Computer lab - 530 Scott Library. THIS IS A CHANGE FROM THE CALENDAR.
If changes to rooms, readings, etc. are required, they will be
announced in advance in the Thursday meeting time, and online
in our FirstClass conference. ALL course print-outs will also
be available online in FirstCLass; a course web site will also
be utilized.
1. Course description:
This course builds on the ideas of orality, literacy and secondary
orality as presented by Ong (1982). We examine theories about
the cognitive and social effects of chirographic-based and print-based
literacy on different societies. In this electronic era (or period
of secondary orality) we examine the challenges to the conventions
of print-based literacy from advertisements, television and hypermedia.
Defining the term text broadly, we look specifically
at the ways texts are presented (issues of typography, etc.),
how texts are organized (issues of genre, etc.), how texts are
interpreted (for instance we look at what content analysis research
and audience response research tell us about finding meaning in
texts), and how a consideration of the media themselves influence
the text.
This class is held on two different days; one day each week the
class will be held in the computer lab. In the lab, we will be
using a conferencing system to exchange ideas and work on small
in-class assignments, Netscape to access the Web for research
purposes, and WORD and Dreamweaver to edit texts for our class
web nodes.
2. Some quotations to help frame our discussions
about orality, literacy and the electronic era (others to be added
as course progresses):
Information has no natural topography / information
has no natural typography.
Literacy is extremely tricky to define and to measure.
(Finnegan, 1988, p. 39)
To be literate it is not enough to know the words; one must
learn how to participate in the discourse of some textual community.
And that implies knowing which texts are important, [and] how
they are to be read and interpreted. . . . (Olson, 1994,
p. 273)
Postman [in Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse
in the Age of Show Business, 1985] suggests that the habit of
literacy contributes to the formation of a filtering mechanism
through which information must pass. Those who. . . have cultivated
such a mechanism end up with a typographic mind. (Karl,
in Images in Language, Media, and Mind, 1994, p. 195; emphasis
added)
The effects of literacy on intellectual and social change
are not straight-forward. . . . it is misleading to think of literacy
in terms of consequences. What matters is what people do with
literacy, not what literacy does to people. (Olson, Hildyard,
& Torrance, 1985, p. 14)
"Advancing technology, with its increasing ability to provide
fast and natural communications of text, voice, and graphics,
has simplified the literacy skills essential for commerce and
domestic life." (Tuman, 1992, p. 4; emphasis added)
Ong (in a blurb on Tuman's 1992 book) writes: "...the authors
[in Tuman's anthology] show how computers, far more strongly than
writing or print, call for critical literacy." (Emphasis
added)
"Hypertext rhetoric must take into account more than just
the ordering of language into structures and genres inherited
from orality or print literacy. It must also address a more complicated
met-management in which the user modifies ordering processes themselves...a
secondary literacy." (Moulthrop, 1991, Beyond the electronic
book: A critique of hypertext rhetoric, Hypertext '91. New York:
Association of Computing Machinery, 291-98; emphasis added).
the medium is the message/ the medium is the massage
(McLuhan)
3. Information about Server Accesses:
You need a Laurence (the name of the server in the Writing Centre
named after Margaret Laurence) account to access the FirstClass
conferencing system. You get a Laurence account by accessing Passport
York (formerly called MAYA). You can do this from http://apps.yorku.ca..
If you never accessed MAYA before you need your student number
and birthdate; if you forgot your password you can ask them online
to change your password.
Once youre logged onto Passport York, you need to click
on Laurence CAWC and apply for a Laurence account. Youll
get an account if youre officially registered in the course.
(If you want your own webspace, this is available through Passport
York as well).
Come to the first computer lab in 530 Scott Library WITH the Laurence
login and your password. If you forget your Laurence password
the monitor in the Writing Centre can change it for youif
you forgot your userid + your password youll have to go
to the Steacie CNS Helpdesk and get them to do it.
Once you successfully log onto Laurence, please change your password.
From Laurence youll access FirstClass. During our FirstClass
orientation, FirstClass userids and passwords will be handed out.
In brief, go to Passport York to get Laurence account. You need
the Laurence account to access FirstClass in the lab. You can
access FirstClass (once youve got your userid + password)
from home at http://fc.yorku.ca.
The Writing Centre monitors are there to help you. You have access
to the Writing Centre whenever it is open and can use Word and
other programs, not only for this course but also for all your
courses.
4. Grading Scheme
Portfolio of conference work: (evaluated at the end of second
term; students select from their own topics + topics I assign
from the two terms and then organize them* separate handout will
be available online) 15%
On-line and seminar participation (attendance is kept) 10%
Seminar work short written reports and oral presentations
15%
contributions to class hypertext documents 20%**
(see last years work at http://www.yorku.ca/mlc/4318/projects/index.html)
Research project/paper (early in 2nd term; topics will be online)
20%
Final Take-home Exam 20%
(**marks available before drop date in Feb. 2003)
5. Information about portfolios (worth 15% of final mark)
Your portfolio assignment includes both written work from both
terms done in our computer lab sessions as well as original
entries with topics chosen by you. Once you have chosen from all
your years entries, you must organize the material into
some coherent form and turn it into me for marking by the last
day of classes. The mark is based on the insights in the entries
and on your organization of the material.
The ideas below are for the original component of
the portfolio: at the end of the second term, youll pick
some online entries to include as well. The portfolio will, thus,
be a selection of the best of your years online work + a
selection of short pieces about items that you choose to write
about. In total the portfolio will include a minimum of 10 pieces
(8 (or 7) from the class work + 2 (or 3) original
items).
Suggestions for your own original entries:
1. come up with ideas for a narrative video commercial... (using
Budweiser ad as the model)
2. write a piece to be submitted to the Arguments page of The
Globe and Mail or the page in The Star where readers submit a
textextra marks if they actually publish it!
3. convert a previous academic persuasive piece of
writing to a hypertext...(it doesnt even actually have to
be done: just indicate where the links would be and what node
the links go to.)
4. Exchange a piece of persuasive writing with another student
in class. Maybe get them to critique it.
5. Decide whats the best piece of writing you read this
year on this course (why?)
6. write a piece of satire....(a challenge indeed!)
7. read that book youve always wanted to and write up a
review.
8. contribute some of your own graphic designsor revise
some less than adequate designs that you find in your readings.
9. suggest that we all watch a particular rock video (or movie)
and then provide an analysis (based on your choice of methodology)
10. keep a course journal integrating some of the ideas of the
theorists weve looked at.
11. collect a list of neat web pages and provide a
rationale for their success...(involve us in your critique!)
12. write a book or movie review focusing on the idea of the genre,
or the audience reaction or something vaguely related to some
theory we have looked at.
13. record your reactions to a current event that has some tangential
relationship to our course.
14. find another piece of persuasive text that works as well as
Kings letteror one that completely failsand
explain why it works (doesnt work)
15. Decide what is the most important book(s) you read at university
so far (why?)
16. Decide what is the most influential movie you've ever seen
(why?)
17. What is the most important thing you learned about writing
or readingor both.
ETC. (remember these are my ideasentries that I might want
to write about....but Im not you!)
6. Schedule for first 4 weeks
September 10 --> Intro to course; handout of short article
write up a short response to the article for Sept. 12 class
September 12 bring response to class: discussion of responses.
September 17 - IN COMPUTER LAB for FirstCLass orientation
530 Scott Library;
For Mondays class: print out Kings Letter
from Birmingham Jail-write a SHORT essay answering these
3 questions: What does King try to persuade you? Does he persuade
you?How does he persuade you? bring to class on Thursday,
Sept. 19.
September 19 discussion of Kings letters and students
responses.
September 24 - Computer Lab writing topic TBA
September 26 read Ongs chapter in kit on orality
and note his use of word rhetoric
October 1 computer lab topic TBA
October 3 - Ong on literacy article in kit)
(to be continued)
7. Reading Materials
Reading Kit available in Bookstore; you will NOT need the
kit till week of Sept. 24. (It may not be available first week
in any event). Additional readings as needed from the Web; please
be prepared to have these printouts when needed for class.