CIE100: Common Intellectual Experience - McLuhan Writing Prompt (10 Points)

Assignment Goals

The goals of this assignment are:
  1. To reflect upon the course texts in preparation for thoughtful discussion
  2. To organize thoughts into a concise and cohesive response to a targeted question
  3. To consider multiple viewpoints about ideas

The Assignment

In this writing prompt, you will consider the questions below and respond in marginalia form, equivalent in length to a 1-2 paragraph response. Choose two short passages from the reading and write rich marginal annotations for each: an observation, a question, and a connection, quoting the passage you are annotating. Then distill your reading into one aphorism of your own, and add one counterargument note, supported by a quote, against your own aphorism. Submit your annotations and aphorism through Canvas before the start of class.

UDL choice: this genre is the default for this reading, and it applies to Question 1, where you may swap in any of the five response genres (analytic, letter, dialogue, marginalia+aphorism, or the Four A’s) as long as the quote and counterargument requirements are met. The remaining question asks for a specific artifact that we use in class, so submit that one in the form described.

Struggling with the reading itself? See the guide: How to Read Hard Texts in CIE.

Writing Prompt

  1. McLuhan claims that the medium is the message: that the form of a medium shapes us more deeply than any content it carries, and that the content distracts us from noticing. Restate this claim in your own words with a quotation, and discuss the strongest objection you can think of to it.

  2. Pick one medium you use daily and audit its message apart from any content, in a four-column grid we use in class. Label the columns attention, body, sense of time, and relationships, and in each one write what the medium trains that thing to do. Beneath the grid, answer in prose: where would a conversational AI fit in McLuhan’s framework, and what might its message be, independent of anything it says?

Submission

Submit a word processed or PDF document.

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