HOMEWORK for 01/22/08

20 QUESTIONS: a study guide for Beyond Words, pgs. 18-42

In your blog, answer any 5 questions from the list below. Your answers should be brief, but informative.

1. List some examples of texts.
2. How should you begin your encounter with a new text?
3. What is the focal point of a text?
4. Define “genre.”
5. Why is it important to examine the conventions of a text?
6. Is reading words on a page the same as reading words on a screen? Discuss briefly.
7. How does Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 130” bend conventions? Use specific examples from the poem.
8. On which element/s do you, personally, focus when reading Seamus Heaney’s poem?
9. What are some ways in which the subject matter of a text can be signaled?
10. Your interpretation of a text should be supported by __________.
11. Why should the purpose of MIT’s Building 20 have been more carefully examined before Frank Gehry was asked to replace it?
12. Define “context.”
13. Why do people approach texts differently?
14. What are some things for which you should be looking when you take a text apart?
15. Why are details important in texts?
16. What are some strategies for paying attention to details?
17. Define “perspective.”
18. Define “point of view.”
19. Why does the Wall Street Journal use hedcuts rather than photographs?
20. Indicate one section from the assigned reading that you found either interesting or challenging. Explain why.