Intertextuality

Lesson 1: Reading as an Intertexual Practice

Compose a narrative version of the “story” told through a series of checks, published without comment as “Ordeal by Cheque” in a 1932 issue of Vanity Fair. Consider these questions: How many people use the checkbook? How does handwriting affect your reading? Who is Tony Spagoni? As you go through the checks, just hit what you think are major events instead of getting caught up in all the little details.

We will discuss the exercise in class and I will explain how it relates to a concept called intertextuality.

Lesson 2: Writing as an Intertextual Practice

Lecture: We define intertextuality through the examples and analogies below, and I also break down the term "intertext" into its etymological parts: inter meaning between or among and text meaning anything that communicates or that can be read for meaning (spoken words, articles, pictures, clothing, smiles, etc.)

Lesson 3: In-Class Writing Using Intertextuality

In one application of intertextuality, authors use a cultural touchstone or allusion to hit a note of familiarity with their audiences and to make dry material more interesting. Students can use an allusion to relate to their audience and to create a useful context for their points. For example, one might invoke a TV show, movie quote, song or popular music group, poem, play, literary work, speech, political event, or news story. I encourage you to research pop culture online to make connections.

Examples:

"In 1964, just as the Beatles were launching their invasion of America’s airwaves, Marshall McLuhan published Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man."

--Nicolas Carr, The Shallows

"Around the time that women were being penciled in to the equal employment act and Sandra Day O’Conner was being sworn into the Supreme Court, women across the Western world decided that they had the right to pain relief during childbirth." Newly included in women’s healthcare options was the epidural, an anesthesiologist administered placement of a catheter into the epidural space of a laboring woman’s spine where pain blocking anesthesia is injected into her body.

--Caranina Palomino, Tulane Award-Winning Student Essay "The Anti-Epidural Movement: Mommy-Bullying and Women’s Rights to Pain Management" 

However, it wasn’t until 1990, the same year that the movie Home Alone became a top seller, that cell phones became all the rage across America. Little did America know, twenty-two years down the road cell phones would literally and metaphorically make us “home alone.”

--Millie Blumka, Fall 2012 English Student

I have spent the last few years of my life teaching kids to swim. While Ryan Lochte and Michael Phelps were winning medals across the pond in the 2012 London Olympics, it seemed that all of my students were striving to improve a little more each lesson.  My day was coming to an end and I only had one 6-year-old girl left who was actually a pretty talented swimmer for her age.  When I asked her to float on her back, she simply looked back at me and asked if she could get out to go play with her iPad. 

--Ethan Ader, Fall 2012 English Student

Multimedia for Intertextuality

The Day the Music Died - Don McLean on Buddy Holly's Crash

"Curating the GOP Cultural Library" The Rachel Maddow Show, Nov. 17, 2011