Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
A written task...
demonstrates your ability to choose an imaginative way of exploring an aspect of the material studied.
shows critical engagement with a text or a topic.
demonstrates how fully you understand the manner in which meaning is constructed by language.
demonstrates your ability to produce or critically reproduce types of work studied in the course.
Learning Outcomes:
Examine different forms of communication within the media
Show an awareness of the potential for educational, political or ideological influence of the media
Show the way mass media use language and image to inform, persuade or entertain
The rationale should not only include knowledge about the text or topic studied, but also about the formal
conventions of the text type produced and how they relate to the aims of the task.
This written task relates to Dave Eggers Zeitoun, a novel we read in Part II-: Language and Mass
Communication. I chose to write a blog post from the perspective of Kathy, one of the protagonists in Zeitoun,
depicting her memory of an experience rendered in the novel. I hoped to accentuate certain themes from the
encounter, while also giving a personal voice to Kathy, who I felt was somewhat underrepresented in the novel.
This task demonstrates the effects of islamophobia and sexism on characters in the novel and on Muslims in the
United States. I analyzed the way this experience might have made the character feel, and portrayed them in an
extended personal reflection. Furthermore, I manipulated the chain of events slightly in order to more clearly
highlight the points I wanted to make.
I felt that because Kathy is portrayed as a somewhat introspective character, it makes sense that she would
analyze her experiences through a blog post. This text type is relevant to the time period of Zeitoun and gives the
ideas a conversational element. The language I used was fairly casual overall in order to establish the connection
Kathy (as a blog writer) might feel towards her readers, and to emulate the style that a lot of real--life bloggers use in
their posts. This conversational language shows that Kathy would be writing to an audience with whom she relates
to on social matters like the one discussed in this post. However, my aim as an author would be to reach people
who do not know much about Muslim customs, and who dont hear Muslim perspectives in mainstream media. I
know that ignorance regarding hijabs is widespread, and I feel that hearing stories like this one will help people
break down stereotypes they have internalized about Muslim people.