This week in LIS 201 (week 2)

Week 2: Print culture and literacy

LECTURE ON TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10

• Print culture and literacy

READINGS TO COMPLETE BEFORE DISCUSSION

• Deborah Brandt, "The means of production: Literacy and stratification at the twenty-first century," in Literacy in American lives (2001). 
• Wayne A. Wiegand, "The American public library: Construction of a community reading institution," in Carl F. Kaestle and Janice A. Radway, eds., A History of the Book in America, volume 4, Print in Motion (2009).
• Ted Striphas, "E-Books and the Digital Future," in The Late Age of Print: Everyday Book Culture from Consumerism to Control (2009).

HOMEWORK TO COMPLETE BEFORE DISCUSSION

• If it's your week to write a 500-word article report, you must post this to your section blog before your section meets.  An article report should briefly summarize the main argument of the article, and then pose a question or comment in response. You will also want to say a little something about the author of the article and the way people responded to it. What can you find online about the person who wrote the article? Can you find any online reaction to the article? (It probably came from a book, and you can probably find book reviews.)
• If it's your week to give a speech, prepare and practice!  Otherwise, prepare for a possible extemporaneous speech response.

DISCUSSION MEETING

• First five minutes: Pop quiz? Maybe!
• Two four-minute student speeches (#1 and #2), one on each of the readings (and two two-minute student extemporaneous responses).  Your TA will designate a classmate to record your presentations on digital video. The recording will be either emailed to you or uploaded to your discussion section wiki (which you'll be joining this weekend). After watching the recording, you must email your TA with one substantive way in which you could improve your delivery.
• Discuss this week's lecture and required readings.
• Discuss tasks and strategies for writing assignment #1. (Rough draft due on wiki by start of next week's discussion.)
• Discuss the written presentation grading metric.

ONLINE OVER THE WEEKEND

This week you'll learn how to use your discussion section wiki:

• Please click here for a wiki tutorial
• You must finish this online activity before next week's lecture.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

• Deborah Brandt, "Accumulating literacy: How four generations of one American family learned to write," in Literacy in American lives (2001). 
• Richard D. Brown, "Early American origins of the information age" (2000).
• Kenneth Cmiel, "Libraries, books, and the information age," in David Paul Nord et al., eds., A history of the book in America, vol. 5 (2009).  
• Susan Jacoby, "The culture of distraction," in The age of American unreason (2008). 
• David Levy, "A bit of digital history," in Scrolling forward: Making sense of documents in the digital age (2001). 
• Walter Ong, "Orality, literacy, and modern media" (1982). 
• John B. Thompson, "The digital revolution and the publishing world," in Books in the digital age: The transformation of academic and higher education publishing in Britain and the United States(2005). 
• JoAnne Yates, "Communication technology and the growth of internal communication," in Control through communication: The rise of system in American management (1989).

SPECIAL NOTE

Please note that Wednesday during the third week of classes is generally the last day to drop without a "DR" on your transcript. (You can still drop through the ninth week of class but there will be a notation on the transcript.)