Assess students' understanding of Barthes' core semiotic concepts — sign/signifier-signified, denotation vs. connotation, myth, studium/punctum, readerly vs. writerly texts, and "the death of the author" — and their ability to apply these concepts to interpret and critique cultural texts (e.g., advertisements, photographs, media narratives, literature). Tasks include concise definitions, comparative explanations, and brief applied analyses demonstrating how Barthesian tools reveal ideology, codes, polysemy, and textual pleasure; suitable for graduate-level comprehension and moderate analytical reasoning.