Terministic Screens Activity

(They can turn your world upside down—or maybe upside right?)

Go back to Hemingway and Yalkin. In small groups:

1. Think about each of these writing samples. Return to the pentad. Who is the author (agent)? What is the scene? What is the purpose?

2. Think about how the meaning would change if one of these elements changed.

a. Agent: What if your grandma were to switch places with Hemingway? How would what she might write be different? What if Santa Clause were to switch with Yalkin?

b. Agency / Genre: What if the the genre / medium changed? What if Hemingway was live video reporting

from Turkey instead of writing? How would that be different? What if Yalkin was writing a text instead of this blog post? What would be different?

c. Scene: What if Hemingway were in Bikini bottom? What if Yalkin were in Orange instead of Turkey? What would change?

d. Audience: What if Hemingway was writing to his future wife, the awesome reporter Martha Gellhorn? What if Yalkin were writing this as a letter to Santa? How would that be different?

You see how all of these elements work together to make meaning?

Enter Terministic Screens.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXucC6pwquI (until 1:40)

Read page on Burke.

Recap: We each see the world through our own terministic screens, or “word lenses.” Remember the place stereotype activity we did? How could that relate to the case of Hemingway and Yalkin? What cultural / gender / class / social biases are they possibly seeing through?

Just like analyzing with the pentad, we see how all things—author, image, medium, audience, purpose, each individual word—come together to make meaning. Each of these elements is dependent on each other for the overall meaning. Yet, each is packed with individual meaning, too.

We see this especially with words. Each word has a million different connotations; we each hear a word and think of something that is individually unique to us and our own experience.

Think of these words. Write down how you think of, what you think Hemingway might write down, and what you think Santa might think of. BE SPECIFIC.

1. City2. Tree3. Pet

See the diversity of the responses? Language is fluid; meaning is fluid.

Go to your About Me page. Choose a word that you have written to analyze. What word / image did you have in mind when you chose that word?

On a larger scale, write out some of the terministic screens you view the world from.

(^She’s got her “terministic screens” on ;) )