1. 11.3.08 | Lost in the Funhouse Goal[s]: Schedule:
Attendance & Questions?
Wrap-up discussion on O’Brien
Lost in the Funhouse
Discussion.
HW – Finish Barth. Check CollectIt for your paper.
Goal[s]:
Identify and evaluate the role of the reader in the ‘realization’ of a story.

2. Discussion.
In the following excerpt, how does Michell Sanders' telling of his war story parallel the narrator's telling of the story about Curt Lemon? In what ways does this define the reader's role in reading the text?
In this text, the author interjects almost every snippet of a war story by telling you it's true and sometimes even the degree of truth. He also tells you what a true story should be in broken bits.
While I found this to be extremely irritating, I wanted to hear what others had to say about it. Were you able to suspend your disbelief and actually listen to the author and believe the story was true? How did this conflict/agree with Ryan's definition of immersion, could you actually get into the text and forget about the medium to access the text? Also, the readings this week have been open-ended and up to your own interpretation, what do you think was the point O'Brien was trying to get across?

3. Reader’s Role: Where are we?
Hills Like White Elephants: Reader is charged with filling in the scene around the sparse dialogue.
Metamorphosis: Reader has to suspend disbelief consistantly, to accept the story’s central conceit.
How to Tell a True War Story: Reader has to assemble the distributed fragments and wade through the ambiguities.

4. What do you do with this?
First of all, what is this story about? What happens?
What is odd about this story?
What do you have to do as a reader to make sense of it? How does it affect your reading?
What is gained or lost by these elements?
How does this story fit our present discussion about reader’s role and interactivity? What can you use from it to contribute to our discussion?

5. Discussion Qs