Week 8 & 9

Week 8 we basically had the presentations from the first and second round of “The music of one generation”. I was very pleased to see the diversity of songs selected and the effort put by each presenter to do a great job.

Week 9 was a holiday, Easter, so we did not have class. This is a good time for some of you to catch up with the extensive listening activities. It is also a good time to remind you that along the semester you have to reflect on three of thesuggested topics, record and upload your reflection as a podcast and send it to me. Very few people have started this and from those who have already submitted a reflection, most have just done the first. We are in the middle of the semester. Don’t wait till the last weeks.

Week 7

This was a short week and so will be the next. We started working with the topic of humor, discussing the main characteristics of humor in the USA and the different genres that are available.  Our first activity, after reading an discussing the article from the group of readings, was watching and discussing Ellen Degeneres monologue on "let's be honest". Here it is for those who miss class or just those who would like to watch it again. 





This monologue is part f a variety show hosted by Ellen. During the show, there are different sections (varieties) such as a musical performance, interviews, brief sketches. The monologue itself shares many characteristics with stand-up comedy routines. Some people might object the term monologue because this genre is unlike the monologue in a theater play (which is longer, dramatic and scripted) while the former is more spontaneous and humorous.

Next week, the second round of presentations on the music of a generation. Enjoy the rest of the weekend and the holiday tomorrow.   

Week 6

 On Monday, we finished the topic of advertising by watching a campaign that supported the rights of the LGBT community. What was curious is that the campaign was launched by Burger King, a company whose ads had traditionally been linked to chauvinism and manliness. We discuss the impact and implications of such a campaign. Then Katie showed us some traditional stereotypes that ads usually exploited: how gender roles are identified and transmitted since childhood in toys ads; how white skin and light hair is construed as ideal beauty and contrasted to dark skin and how husbands are displayed as useless and wives still portrayed in the traditional role of the house maker.

Wednesday and Friday we only had time for your first presentations. I am glad to see that most of you incorporated the things we discussed in class. I am sure each time we all see the improvements.

Next Monday, we will not have class because of the Colloquium the School of Language Studies will be celebrating. Wednesday, we will listen to the last presenters. Two classes were not enough for all to present. I think we will need to plan three classes (or two and a half) for presentation 2.

If you started working on the extensive listening, you should have already completed 4 forms. Click here to see the record on who has started and what has been done. This record contains the information up to Friday March 13th.

Have a nice weekend and see you on Wednesday.

Week 5

Last week we covered persuasive techniques in advertising. Advertisers use different strategies and method to convince people to buy their products and brands. Most strategies fall in one or more of these domains: a) establishing credibility (ethos); b) appealing to emotion (pathos); or c) appealing to reason (logos).

Within these three broad appeal, there are sub-techniques such as the use of loaded language, the use of celebrities, the bandwagon effect, transfer of feelings and so on. These are some examples of very persuasive ads we watched in class.




This one used a celebrity, bribery, appeals to credibility (Stratford experts) and ego.



This one appeals to chauvinism and manliness (real men eat meat), humor and uses a catchy song.

This Monday we will have a brief review activity on advertising with Katie and a some final comments on the topic. Remember that this Wednesday you will start with your first in class presentations.

Week 4

This week we finished our previous work on interviews and started the next oral genre: songs. We studied different things regarding songs. Many times songs have a narrative structure with characters and a plot, a series of events that are narrated or described. We also learned that songs have many literary elements such as metaphors and analogies and that in some of the best songs, the musical arrangements and the singing style obeys to the intended meaning and message the song aims at conveying. We saw a good example of this in the some classic rock songs from the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and Pink Floyd.

We also studied a little bit about the history of rock. We learned that rock has evolved from the merge of different genres such as country music and blues. We also learned that, although rock was born in the USA, soon the UK also adopted it and contributed many of the greatest stars of this genre and many of its distinctive features. For those who could not come to class, here's one of the documentaries of the history of rock we watched and one of the songs we worked on:






Next week we will move into advertising as a genre and some of its distinctive features. Particularly on Monday, we will work on the last song that we have in our schedule, discuss some of the elements of the song reviews. We will also have Katie Kingsella as a guest to the class. She will tell you about her experience creating a short video, a video some of you participated in and most are probably familiar with.

See you next week.