DWRL Lesson Plans - Summary

Assignment Length:

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Literature:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Writing Process

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

This class activity came out of several grading sessions, wherein I realized my students were having a hard time subordinating an author's points during a summary. They seemed to give each of the author's statements equal weight, without differentiating between which ideas were primary and which were more supporting details. So while this activity is meant to reinforce the skills of summary and syntehsis, it's foremost an thought-exercise, which I hoped would help them give themselves permission to fairly emphasize certain statements over others.

Media Requirements:

Required Materials:

This activity will go more smoothly if each student can efficiently take notes. I allow them to take digital notes on a laptop or tablet, but this isn't strictly necessary. The project does require that the instructor have a media console and projector.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Full Assignment Description:

Ask students to sit in groups of three. These groups will be informal, and they shouldn't get too hung up on them. Most of their work will be individual, but asking them to share with a tiny group before discussing with the entire class can make them feel more confident.

Screen a clip from a popular comedian's standup special. I chose Louis CK, Aziz Ansari, and Bill Burr, to get a range of comedic styles. Each clip should last no more than 3-4 minutes, although the length will of course be based on the amount of time devoted to a single topic within the special. I also chose clips that I felt addressed primary controversies circulating in the news, and ones I felt my students would probably be familiar with.

Ask students to take notes on the clip and to identify the comedian's main point. Then ask them to fill in the supporting details.

Students should share their breakdown of the clip with their miniature group.

Once they have had a chance to discuss (this should only take two minutes or so), get a class consensus about what the comedian is "really" talking about, and what lines are there for effect or support. This is an opportunity to point out which points may seem like they're geting a lot of focus but are actually in the clip for a laugh or for emphasis.

Students should be able to summarize the clip in one statement. Encourage them to write an informal thesis as a class. For example, "In this bit, Aziz Ansari pokes fun at gender conventions by highlighting the arbitrariness of marriage rituals." This statement bridges a summary understanding of the text and an introduction to basic analysis. The extent to which the dicussion veers toward how the comedian's performance and language are affecting the humor is flexible; depending on how far the instructor would like to introduce or foreshadow Unit 2, this activity could stick to summary, or it could invite students to begin considering ethos, logos, pathos, and so on.

Repeat the exercise two or three times, time permitting, and debrief with students. They should feel more confident identifying primary and secondary points, especially with such a flexible genre.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

I recommend converting the YouTube videos to an MP4 file that can be embedded in a Prezi or PowerPoint. This avoids the mid-class confusion of watching ads, finding the right clips, and so on.

Instructions For Students:

1. Watch the following comedy clip.

2. Take notes on what is being said.

3. When the clip is finished, re-read your notes and organize the bit based on its primary argument and its supporting subpoints.

4. Discuss with your group: compare your own breakdown of the primary and secondary claims with the others. Be prepared to report your organization to the class.

Repeat with three different clips, time allowing.

Homework:

1. Find your own clip.

2. Take notes on the content and revise your notes into some kind of outline that separates the main ideas from the subpoints.

3. Write up a short paragraph summarizing and synthesizing the comedian's argument.

4. Post both the paragraph and a link to the clip on the Canvas discussion board.

Evaluation Suggestions:

I ask students to share their choice/phrasing of the comedian's main argument and subpoints with the class. This is an informal evaluation, but it allows me to both determine their comfort with pulling out the major threads of an argument and to encourage them to make those distinctions between which ideas are emphasized and which are supplemental.

I also ask students to do one more summary/synthesis on a Canvas discussion board. They find their own set of clips, summarize them and synthesize their relationship to one another, and post their writing with the clip link on Canvas. I grade it for completion, but it can be a good, efficient way to guage whether students can differentiate between main ideas and subpoints.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

My PowerPoint didn't actually work, but I did have the separate downloaded clips, so it went relatively smoothly. Despite the technical glitch, I got a lot of positive feedback on this assignment. I think my students liked the project simply for content--it made a nice vacation from reading arguments about marijuana legalization--but they did also seemed to really enjoy applying their summary skills to less-conventional media. After we discussed the major/minor points, they enjoyed very briefly discussing how the rhetorical turns worked, which was what made me think this assignment worked well as a pseudo-bridge between Unit 1 (research/summary) and Unit 2 (analysis).

Course Type:

Course Description:

Rhetoric 306 is a course designed to introduce students to the fundamentals of research and argumentation. They are asked to research a controversy, summarize and analyze the arguments of the major stakeholders in that controversy, and then develop their own arguments.

Tags:

Performance

Bridging Summary and Analysis with Standup Clips

Plourde — Thu, 19 Feb 2015 18:51:15 +0000

Author:

Aubrey Plourde

Image Credit:

Image Credit: Cory Schmitz

Brief Assignment Overview:

Type of Assignment:

Assignment Length:

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Literature:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Writing Process

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

Media Requirements:

Required Materials:

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Full Assignment Description:

Ask students to take notes on the clip and to identify the comedian's main point. Then ask them to fill in the supporting details.

Students should share their breakdown of the clip with their miniature group.

Repeat the exercise two or three times, time permitting, and debrief with students. They should feel more confident identifying primary and secondary points, especially with such a flexible genre.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

I recommend converting the YouTube videos to an MP4 file that can be embedded in a Prezi or PowerPoint. This avoids the mid-class confusion of watching ads, finding the right clips, and so on.

Instructions For Students:

1. Watch the following comedy clip.

2. Take notes on what is being said.

3. When the clip is finished, re-read your notes and organize the bit based on its primary argument and its supporting subpoints.

4. Discuss with your group: compare your own breakdown of the primary and secondary claims with the others. Be prepared to report your organization to the class.

Repeat with three different clips, time allowing.

Homework:

1. Find your own clip.

2. Take notes on the content and revise your notes into some kind of outline that separates the main ideas from the subpoints.

3. Write up a short paragraph summarizing and synthesizing the comedian's argument.

4. Post both the paragraph and a link to the clip on the Canvas discussion board.

Evaluation Suggestions:

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

Course Type:

Course Description:

Tags:

Performance

Introducing Rhetorical Analysis with Contemporary Advertisements

sariddick — Thu, 02 Oct 2014 23:01:21 +0000

Author:

Sarah Riddick

Image Credit:

Mozart, Mike. "Smellcome to Manhood." JeepersMedia. Flickr. 2 Oct 2014. Web. <https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeepersmedia/12462069883/sizes/m/>.

Brief Assignment Overview:

The aim of this lesson is to provide students with an accessible and engaging introduction to rhetorical analysis. Students will view four brief texts—three thirty-second videos and one print advertisement—and try to identify the audience, the speaker, and the argument contained in each.

Type of Assignment:

Class Discussion

Assignment Length:

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Literature:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Research

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

Introduce rhetorical analysis to students
Offer a broad illustration of the scope of rhetoric and rhetorical analysis
Familiarize students with initial components of rhetorical analysis (audience, speaker, argument)
Help students feel comfortable offering their own analyses

Media Requirements:

Required Materials:

Media console with overhead projector
Class computer with internet connection
Preferable, but not essential: personal computers for brief individual research activity.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Full Assignment Description:

This lesson is intended to provide a light, engaging, and accessible introduction to rhetorical analysis. Students will survey several contemporary advertisements that vary in a number of ways yet share some broad themes. The order of the texts is intended to subtly help the students progress from basic to more nuanced analyses.

The first moments of this class are open to suit the needs of the instructor. If this is the first day that students will be performing rhetorical analysis, it may be helpful to provide a brief overview of what is to come.

To begin the analytical portion of the class, play the first text—an Old Spice commercial from the 2010 "Smell Like a Man, Man" campaign. The commercial is both fun and funny, thus students should respond well to it. Moreover, its fast pace and quirky tone will likely get students laughing, which will hopefully loosen them up for analysis.

Once you have played the video, ask the following questions:

Who is the speaker?

Who is the audience?

What is the situation?

What is the argument?

What does the text want you to feel?

What does the text want you to believe?

What does the text want you to do?

How is the text making that argument?

Be sure to draw out detailed responses from the students. Play the video again, as needed. One reason this ad is great for an initial analysis is because it has two different speakers (i.e., the spokesman and the company), two different audiences (i.e., implicit and explicit), and plenty of components that students can draw on to support their answers to the argument questions.

Next, play the second and third videos. Each of these are 2008 advertisements from the Corn Refiner Association's "Sweet Surprise" campaign about high fructose corn syrup. Ask students the same series of questions, and encourage them to pay even closer attention to the details that help create this argument.

Once you feel that your students have adequately analyzed the argument in these two texts, have students go to the website featured at the end of the videos. If students don't have computers, do this together as a class. By this point, hopefully students will have mentioned that the text wants you to go to this website, so this can be a way of getting them to further test the text. Once there, have students try to identify any bias on the website and ask them to list specific examples. This is meant to encourage students to closely examine sources and to consider how word choice and other stylistic choices shape an argument.

If time permits, have students look at one more text—a 2014 print ad from the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. In the ad, one woman remarks about new public transportation changes and another woman responds, "Can't we just talk about shoes?" There are several broad parallels between this text and the former texts, so students should feel comfortable by now analyzing this form of visual rhetoric.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

Given the brevity of both these texts and the follow-up questions, it would be a good idea to thoroughly familiarize yourself with each text before presenting them to the class. With this being an introduction to rhetorical analysis, students may feel shy about offering responses, so being prepared with many different ways to prompt their analyses can be helpful.

Instructions For Students:

For the group analysis portion of the class:

Answer the following the questions. Cite evidence to support your response.

Who is the speaker?

Who is the audience?

What is the situation?

What is the argument?

What does the text want you to feel?

What does the text want you to believe?

What does the text want you to do?

How is the text making that argument?

For the individual research portion of the class:

Go to http://www.sweetsurprise.com
Can you identify any bias?
Cite specific examples to support your response.

Evaluation Suggestions:

There is no evaluative component to this activity.

Course Type:

Course Description:

This lesson plan was designed for "Rhetoric and Writing", an introductory course.

Tags:

Annotated Bibliographies with Canvas Discussion Board

lazhu — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 21:37:48 +0000

Author:

Lily Zhu

Image Credit:

From a business site!

Brief Assignment Overview:

This assignment introduces annotated bibliographies to the students as preparation for a longer homework assignment, and their first paper. In using a public forum, students will see that even annotated bibliographies containing the same sources are flexible products influenced by individual projects.

Type of Assignment:

Assignment Length:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Annotated Bibliography

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

This in-class activity is meant to help with research and collecting reliable sources. The students in my particular course had an independent annotated bibliography due at the end of that week, and their first paper due the following week.

Media Requirements:

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Required Materials:

Projector
Internet
A computer for every student (though this is not required should the instructor decide to use only his/her own computer and project it for the students)

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Useful Anytime

Full Assignment Description:

This is a two-part activity; half is completed in-class and the other half is a homework assignment due by the next class day.

Homework assignment: Posted to Canvas Discussion Board: “Annotated Bibliography”

The assignment below is a modified version of Purdue OWL's description of annotated bibliographies. (You can upload a file [PDF, Word, etc.] to this discussion board rather than typing directly into the comment boxes since formatting tends to be difficult on Canvas)

Write an annotated bibliography that includes 4-5 sources. Your bibliography must be MLA style (see Easy Writer or Purdue OWL for review). Each annotation must be 100-150 words and include the following:

1. A phrase or brief sentence presenting the credibility/background of the source author (example: Holmes, an eminent scholar in insert relevant field here, discusses …)

2. A very brief summary of the central idea of the source. This should be no more than half of your entire annotation. Make sure you can distinguish whether this is an information article that merely collects and summarizes other people's arguments - or whether it is an opinion article.

3. An assessment of how this source is useful and relevant to your research project. What are the source’s strengths and weaknesses?

(I also provided an example of an annotated bibliography in this space)

In-Class Practice:

(This is a thread I started under the “Annotated bibliography” discussion board. Students will be able to access it at home so that they will not only have the sample I provided them in the homework prompt, but the products of their group work. I want them to have multiple models and strategies that they can use for their individual annotated bibliographies.)

(Students are split into groups of 3-4. All groups are given the same set of articles to annotate, but each group must determine which parts of the sources to summarize and what the final bibliography will focus on.)

Write an annotated bibliography according to the directions listed in the “Annotated Bibliography” post on Canvas

a) http://kotaku.com/5910857/straight-white-male-the-lowest-difficulty-setting-there-is (opinion article)

b) http://www.nber.org/digest/sep03/w9873.html (information article)

c) http://www.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.abstract (information article)

Before you begin working on your annotations, read all 3 sources and decide what a general focus could be - one that ties all 3 sources together.

You should think about whether one source interacts particularly well with another. How does (c) fit into (a)'s argument? What about (b)? Make sure you consider bias and credibility too.

Post your completed responses to this thread.

(At the end of the class – once all of the groups have posted their responses – look through the bibliographies together. Discuss how, even when given the exact same articles, students end up with varying annotations simply because they saw different connections between the sources and because they focused their bibliographies on different topics.)

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

Find a set of articles for the students that will produce rich annotated bibliographies and generate discussion afterwards.

Instructions For Students:

See assignment description

Evaluation Suggestions:

Completion and discussion based.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

This assignment can take a surprising amount of time, especially if you plan on debriefing and discussing the actual controversies within the articles.

Course Type:

Using Comment Walls to Practice Rebuttal

Sloan — Fri, 18 Apr 2014 16:11:14 +0000

Author:

Casey Sloan

Image Credit:

Pixabay

Brief Assignment Overview:

This assignment asks students to think through the rhetorical practice of contributing to a discussion on a website's comment wall. After finding a video on YouTube, a blog entry, or an opinion article on an online news source, students will read through the comments section, locate effective and ineffective comments, and ultimately draft a possible contribution to the wall based on their understanding of any manifested disagreements. This exercise will highlight the importance of refutation, concession and rebuttal.

Type of Assignment:

Homework Assignment

Assignment Length:

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Rebuttal

Stasis

Style

Pedagogical Goals - Literature:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Social Media

Media Requirements:

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Late in the Semester

Full Assignment Description:

Students will be asked to think critically about ways to effectively make an argument in a small amount of space, the "venue" of forum comment walls, the genre of the comment post, and the importance of fair, balanced rebuttals. This exercise also helps students understand the impace that rhetorical skills can have in real-world situation. Students will find an online argument that takes a position in their controversy (YouTube videos work well here), read through the comments section, identify a disagreement, evaluate various users' use of rebuttal, and, ultimately, insert theirown opinion. This assignment works in-class for rooms with computers with internet access. It can also be assigned as homework.

Before this lesson, define refutation, concession, and rebuttal for your students. Ask students to surf the web (a simple Google search worked well for my class) for a position within their controversy. Ask them to examine the argument, then read through the comments section. Ask them to find some examples of effective and ineffective responses to the argument. Ask them to think about why particular comments are convincing and why others are not. Are some responses simply offensive? Do they give faulty evidence? Do they give a fair summary of the argument or misrepresent it?

After your students have looking through the comment walls, have them report to the class or to small groups on their findings. The ensuing discussion should solidify the importance of a fair summary, concession, and refutation.

Ultimately, ask them to write less than 100 words offering a rebuttal to either the argument or to a comment they found particularly intriguing. Instruct them to focus on fairly representing their opponent's position and finding common ground before persuasively using refutation.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

This assignment requires computers with internet access. Decide beforehand whether this assignment will be performed in-class or as homework.

Instructions For Students:

Before this assignment, students should be introduced to the concepts of refutation, concession, and rebuttal. This is a great way to emphasize the importance of brief, fair summaries and of finding common ground, or points of stasis, with opposing positions.

1) Locate an argument online that participates in your controversy. Try using some key words in the Google search engine. Make sure the blog post, opinion news article, YouTube video, etc. has a comments section that you can access. Read through the argument, then read through the comments wall. What do people disagree with in the article? Where are commenters disagreeing with each other?

2) Pick two comments that you think are particularly effective in convincing the reader. Pick two that are particularly ineffective. How do these comments differ from each other? Which comments fairly represent the main argument? Which comments use concession? Which comments use refutation? How does each comment go about rebutting the main argument (or another comment)? Do any of the comments make faulty claims?

3) Write up your own comment that will contribute to the conversation on this forum. It must rebut either the main argument or another comment on the wall. Your rebuttal must be less than 100 words, offer a fair summary of your oppositon's position, and offer some point of concession.

Course Type:

Course Description:

I used this lession in an introductory rhetoric course.

Tags:

Ethos and Online Dating 2.0 - Incorporating Visuals

Cate Blouke — Fri, 21 Mar 2014 15:54:10 +0000

Author:

Cate Blouke

Image Credit:

Image from The Dating Game scene in Mallrats. Found on The Baltimore Chop website.

Brief Assignment Overview:

A remix of a previous lesson plan, this exercise asks students to analyze the ethos of an online dating profile and then pair it with an appropriate image - drawing on the relationship between written and visual rhetoric.

Type of Assignment:

Assignment Length:

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Social Media

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

This works as a great introduction to the concepts of ethos, audience, and/or visual rhetoric.

Media Requirements:

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Required Materials:

In theory, you could do this assignment without classroom technology, though an internet connection and projector would be ideal.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Useful Anytime

#A - twocentsworth. "Studious." Flickr.com. 3 June 2008.

Full Assignment Description:

This is an update on a previous lesson plan: Teaching Ethos Using Online Dating Profiles, which relies strictly on textual analysis. As I explain in that plan, "Perhaps more so than any other piece of writing, and even more so than my students' facebook pages, the self-summaries presented in online dating profiles are fundamentally arguments of ethos. Regardless of specific rhetorical aim (a casual hook up, a future spouse, or something in between), at heart, each of these texts is saying to readers, 'this is who I am, accept me.' So they seemed like a great source text to get my students really thinking about how and why they evaluate people: what sort of snap judgements they make, how they read into things without even realizing it."

In this version (re-designed for my Introduction to Visual Rhetoric course this semester), I ask students to draw connections between written ethos/self-presentation and pieces of visual rhetoric. I offer them a written profile alongside a series of pictures of eligible "bachelors" to choose from. They then had to make the case for why they thought a particular image fit the written profile.

For this specific class, we had just begun a unit on style, and my students had been reading excerpts from Barry Brummett's A Rhetoric of Style and Stuart Ewan's All Consuming Images. Our discussion, therefore, focused a lot on the stylistic choices in the images and how those might be read as reflections of particular values indicated in the written profile. While those readings and that framework aren't necessary for this exercise, they did help to get my students grounded in the way they read people's visual style. Without this kind of foregrounding, you may end up having to do a fair bit of extra wrangling to get students to articulate why they draw the conclusions they do (i.e. how they connect mustaches with driving a Vespa). But that can be a great discussion - forcing them to confront/explain the assumptions they make.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

I spent a fair bit of time compiling a set of "bachelor" photos from creative commons liscenced images that I found on the web, rather than using people's actual OKCupid profile pictures. I'd recommend just using the ones I've put together (see below), though you're welcome to make your own. The idea of using actual images from OKCupid profiles didn't sit well with me, even if they are publicly available. It seems like an invasion of privacy (in a way), or at least a kind of appropriation that I'm not comfortable with. The written profile I excerpted was previously a public page but has since been taken down/made private - which means if you have students do this as a homework assignment or on computers, they can't just google some key phrases to find the actual profile (one of the downfalls of the previous lesson plan).

I tried to compile a diversity of styles that nevertheless might fit with the written profile, as well as some that I thought clearly didn't fit. However, I was surprised by my students' responses. There were multiple votes for five of the seven images - a much wider range than I anticipated.

Instructions For Students:

In our introduction to the concept of style, we also talked about the idea of "ethos" - the character, or sense of authority, that one presents to the world, either through writing (as you may have addressed in previous rhetoric courses) or (for our purposes) through style.

This unit is all about thinking through the assumptions we make about, or (more kindly) ways in which we read, both the styles of others and our own styles. What we think of a particular style or clothing item isn't necessarily the same as how others view it.

There is, perhaps, no clearer instance of an argument based on character (and style) than online dating profiles. Each person's profile essentially makes the argument that "you should date me because of who I am." These arguments are paired with a selection of images, presumably chosen to cast the author in his or her most favorable light. On the free online dating site OkCupid, users combine images of themselves with written self-summaries in order to convince potential matches to give them a chance.

For this exercise, read over the written dating profile below, and then review the potential images. Your task will be to pair the written profile with one of the possible images. We'll assume that all elements of the image were carefully crafted/selected for this particular purpose/venue.

Questions to consider in making your choice: What kind of person does this profile describe? What does he value/care about? Which image do you think best reflects those values or that style?

Write a few sentences explaining your choice. Be sure to offer evidence for your analysis. Why does this image/person seem most fitting to you? What kinds of things about the man's style do you infer from the image? How, specifically, does that connect with the written description? You might also include your rationale for eliminating other potential options.

Keep in mind that you want to think about the "big picture" of this profile. While one or two aspects of the written part might point toward a particular image, is that image wholly congruent with the rest of the profile?

The Written Profile:

I have a yearning to explore different territory. To frolic in a refreshing mist atop the Yellow Mountains of Mainland China. To play with other great musicians. To watch shows in the opera house of Lyon, with an intermission of French kids break dancing outside the hall. To cook my own recipe in a Paul Bocuse culinary. These are things that most of my homies won't touch. Lest we forget, I am an abnormal guy; and I am looking for an extraordinary girl.

I want a girl who can be fun and adventurous. The kind of girl who isn't too afraid to suddenly break out of a three-day isolation and take a road trip across the country on a 1987 Vespa which I am convinced can take at least another hundred thousand miles.

Interestingly, my most passionate relationships involved completely contradictory personalities. Speaking of character--unfortunately, not all of us can be satisfied with pixellated photos and interview format autobiographies. Call me old-school, but coffee and a heated intellectual conversation beats the hell out of a 9 day back and forth email chat marathon. If you want to get to know me, call me. Tell me about yourself. Talk to me about politics. What is really important to you? I never get tired of meeting new and inherently good people.

The Potential Bachelors:

Bachelors.jpg

Image Credits:

#B - Mosborne01. "Ashs-student-playing-guitar." Wikimedia Commons. 1 July 2010.

#C - torbakhopper. "Cool Dude." Wikimedia Commons. 10 Nov 2011.

#D - Chris Hunkeler. "Running with Music." Flickr.com. 5 May 2013.

#E - siuhonglo. "Singapore Flyer." Flickr.com. Aug 27 2011.

#F - connerdowney. "7 - Meditation." Flickr.com. 08 Jan 2009.

#G - sadly, I have lost the citation information for this one. I know it was CC licensed, though. I will post citation if I can find it again.

Evaluation Suggestions:

This was in in-class exercise, so it wasn't evaluated.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

My students really enjoyed the exercise, and I was surprised by the arguments they made for one image over another. It fostered a lively conversation about stereotypes and assumptions (particularly the way they read the image of bachelor #C).

Course Type:

http://nypost.com/2014/02/09/sugar-daddy-website-has-coeds-rationalizing...

Course Description:

RHE 315 - Introduction to Visual Rhetoric

With the rise of new media and network television, Americans are exposed to thousands upon thousands of images on a daily basis. From our facebook streams to our television viewing choices to our personal email accounts, we are bombarded with images: of celebrities, of politicians, of consumer goods, of natural disasters, of… cats. And we must filter through it all in order to make sense of our world.

In this course we will explore the ways in which images can be read, analyzed, constructed, and manipulated. We will interrogate how images inform our reading of historical and political events, of personal identity, of public and private spaces. We will think through issues of self-presentation: how our stylistic choices convey messages to the world around us, and how we interpret the choices of others. We will look at the spaces we frequent and consider the rhetorical effects of everything from the architecture to the furniture to lighting. In short, we will investigate how the visual (non-linguistic, non-textual) world conveys its messages.

Tags:

Rhetorical Analysis of "Sugar Dating" Ads and Audience(s)

Wiedner — Wed, 12 Mar 2014 19:59:46 +0000

Author:

James B. Wiedner

Image Credit:

Brief Assignment Overview:

Students work on argumentation techniques, rhetorical fallacies, and other concepts via reading a heavily-biased article from the New York Post discussing the relatively new but quickly growing phenomenon known as "sugar dating," which consists of web sites that pair older men (sugar daddies) who are willing to pay money for the company of young girls ("sugar babies"). The amount that any potential sugar daddy can range from several hundred to several thousand dollars.

While sugar dating sites seem to be happy to recruit young girls of all stripes, they are clearly most interested in attracting students, as evidenced in part by the fact that membership fees are waived for any potential sugar baby who registers with a .edu email address. The banner ad above is illustrative of most common underlying technique found on these sites. That is appealing to the fact that the typical undergraduate student is cash-strapped, and that being a sugar baby is an easy way to solve the problem. The titillating subject matter and the fact that half of the classroom are part of the demographic being so narrowly marketed towards caught everyone's attention from the get-go.

After they finish reading the article, displaying and bouncing through one of the sites on a projetor is great in a classroom that is equipped to do so, but it is by no means necessary.

The class is divided into two groups who assemble their respective arguments as to the propriety of selling such a product using the rhetorical appeals employed and the audience to which they are marketing (primary and otherwise); a loosely-moderated class debate/discussion ensues.

Type of Assignment:

Assignment Length:

One-Two Class Periods

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Literature:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

No Classroom Technology Required

Social Media

Visualization

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

Increasing Classroom Participation, Building Rapport Between Students, Building Rapport Between Instructor and Individual Students, Building Rapport Between Instructor and Class as a Whole

Media Requirements:

Required Materials:

Nothing other than copies of the article distributed by the instructor at the beginning of class.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Useful Anytime

Full Assignment Description:

The instructor distributes copies of an article taken from the web site of what is generally regarded as a reputable source for news. The class has no access to the article beforehand. The instructor asks the class if any of them are familiar with “Sugar Dating;” calling on student(s) with raised hands to explain what sugar dating generally refers to. The instructor then elaborates on the definition provided, paraphrasing points that might have been lost in the student’s explanation, adding any aspects of the concept that were not mentioned in the process. (5 minutes)

Students read the article individually. (5-10 minutes) phenomenon

The class then divides into two equally-sized groups, and discuss positive and negative aspects of the concept of sugar dating in general, along with the article’s presentation of the concept. One group is identified as the “pro” group, with the other identified as the “con.” However, the instructor does not articulate a specific question upon which they are taking sides. The two groups each work to flush out and organize what they believe to be their most salient points. (10-15 minutes)

An open discussion in a point/counterpoint format is the conducted, with the instructor keeping the discussion from straying to far afield, while casually interjecting to emphasize and elaborate upon the concepts that are relevant to rhetoric and/or law as they arise during the discussion. It is important that the instructor is as unobtrusive as possible throughout the ensuing discussing, to the extent that the collective “personality” of a particular class will allow. (30 minutes for a class meeting twice a week)

The instructor wraps up the debate and the class by highlighting some of the most important substantive points and the most effective argumentation techniques from each side of the discussion. Students are informed that there is a discussion prompt related to the day’s discussion; each student must submit one original posting, along with at least one response to another student’s original posting before the next class meeting. (5-10 minutes)

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

To prepare for the class, the instructor should spend time analyzing the specific article to be distributed to the class, composing a rough outline of considerations such as (1) the arguments (and counterarguments) most likely to be made by students, (2) the rhetorical concepts the instructor is most interested in covering, (3) questions that the class discussion might not touch upon.

The instructor should also do their due diligence in researching the subject in general. Visiting the actual sugar dating web sites is especially important. Students will have varying degrees of knowledge on the subject. Given the fact that these sites specifically target female college students, there is a strong likelihood that at least a couple of students will be well-versed on the subject; the instructor does not want to be learning about nuances of the sugar dating process, etc. from one of their students.

Instructions For Students:

As indicated above, instructions to be given to students are minimal (intentionally so). They're instructed to take about 10 minutes reading the article being contemporaneously distributed, with particular attention to tone, word choice, authorial bias, context, and visual rhetoric. They are then divided into two groups with opposing viewpoints, and are instructed to construct the most persuasive argument that they can, taking rough notes (to be submitted at the end of class) outlining the same.

They're reminded to consider likely arguments from the other side, and the best way to address/respond to them. Students then partake in a debate wherein the instructor guides them back on track if they are getting off-topic, overly emotional, or missing each other entirely (from a stasis theory standpoint).

At the end of the class, the students are given instructions to make a substanive blog posting responding to an instructor-provided prompt; the will seek to continue aspect(s) of the in-class discussion. Along with one original blog posting, students are instructed to post at least one response to the original posting of a classmate.

There is not any reading students are instructed to do in preparation for the class.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

The article’s author has a clear bias from the title onward, so I ask for a show of hands as to who agrees with the author’s…unflattering…representation of sugar dating and their advertisement and recruitment techniques. To my surprise, about 18 of my 22 students said that they agreed with the author. To keep the group numbers equal, I (somewhat lightheartedly) pointed out that the pinnacle of achievement for any rhetorician is to be able to effectively argue a point with which they wholly disagree. As my class is entitled “Rhetoric of Law,” I pointed out that this skill is of particular importance to attorneys, given that they take an oath to be “zealous advocates” for their clients in court, even if those clients are individuals whom they might find repugnant on a personal level. I then split the class roughly in half, based only upon where they happened to be sitting (or standing) at that moment, and then moving individual students towards one of two camps in order to arrive at numerical parity. I did not give consideration as to what side any particular student chose during our initial show of hands.

This lesson plan is well-suited for developing familiarity between students, increasing student participation, and establishing rapport between the instructor and his students- both individually and as a class. For these reasons, the lesson plan might be particularly useful at the beginning of the semester, or later on if class participation begins lagging.

Course Type:

Advanced Writing Course

Tags:

"Creating" Visual Rhetoric Through Student-Designed Flash Games

lazhu — Sat, 09 Nov 2013 08:07:39 +0000

Author:

Lily Zhu

Image Credit:

Mars Cafe

Brief Assignment Overview:

This assignment gives students a chance to make their own (very elementary) argumentative, flash game. By actively engaging in the process of game design, students will have to think through their intentions and the process of piecing together visual, aural, and verbal rhetoric.

Type of Assignment:

Major Course Project

Semester-long Project

Assignment Length:

Semester-long Project

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Video Games

Visualization

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

This is meant to be a long-term group project (at least a month), ideally assigned as a final media presentation which sums up elements of effective argumentation in an entertaining, yet carefully thought out, fashion. It follows a previous assignment in which students analyze a flash game by PETA for various forms of rhetorical appeals/fallacies (http://lessonplans.dwrl.utexas.edu/content/flash-games-and-visual-rhetoric).

Media Requirements:

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Required Materials:

Projector
Internet
Computer/media console for the instructor
Optional: computer for every student

Timeline for Optimal Use:

1. http://www.sploder.com/games/members/geoff/play/arcade-tutorial-links/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh22sYhJjKk

Late in the Semester

Full Assignment Description:

Though there are many sites of varying difficulties from which instructors can choose, www.sploder.com is both easy and flexible to work with. It’s intended to inspire elementary school students (around the ages of twelve) to become interested in coding and game design; as a result, this lesson plan does not require extensive tutorials or a large amount of in-class time set aside for instructional purposes.

www.Sploder.com allows the user to “design” his/her own game through preset conditions. There are five different game types – among which include “retro arcade” and “classic shooter” – with protagonist options, movements, and attacks already installed. The user, then, is left to “make”: the environment for each level, tools, weapons, text boxes, non-playable characters, bonuses, bosses, and music. For my class, I placed particular emphasis on in-game text/dialogue and atmosphere/visual cohesiveness as ways for the groups to make whatever persuasive points they intended. As an additional hurdle, I required that my students include “switch” events within the game (linked events in which the player cannot progress unless another task is accomplished first. For example, the big boss cannot appear until a specific minion is destroyed or, a “barrier” in the path will not disappear until a token is collected).

Completed games will be played through on the last day of class using a projector and the instructor’s computer.

Below, I’ve posted the prompt I handed out and a general rubric. I also offer my students three comprehensive tutorials for specific game types available to Sploder.

Goals: You and your group will be presenting your own persuasive video game designed on http://www.sploder.com/. In addition, you will turn in a 500-word group essay discussing this project.

The purpose of this assignment is for you to take what you have learned from PETA’s Pokemon Black and Blue (or the McDonald’s one http://www.mcvideogame.com/index-eng.html) and apply it to your own platform game. Questions to think about: what rhetorical strategies does the parody engage with? What visual strategies? How does it convey its message, and how explicit or implicit are its arguments? What are potential weaknesses of this media form that you must avoid in your own creation? What are potential strengths that you should focus on?

How to begin:

1. Make an account on www.sploder.com (one for your group) and let your instructor (me) know what your group account name is.

2. Go through video tutorials (if you google or search on youtube, you will find plenty of fine tutorials. Do not ask your instructor for search help; at this point in the semester, you should be proficient on your own)

3. Experiment with as many components as you can.

To earn a C+

Your game must have:

1. At least 2 complete levels to your game.

2. An observable and understandable message

3. Text (whether that be on signs and/or dialogue boxes)

4. At least 2 Switch events (for example: the player can only deactivate a barrier if (s)he kills a particular monster; or, the boss monster will only spawn if the player presses a particular object)

5. An environment (minor characters, decorations, etc.) which contributes to the persuasive argument and overall atmosphere.

6. At least 60% of the game must involve some type of action (rhetorical, visual, textual, etc.) and not just walking around like a derp.

Your 500-word essay must have:

1. One section discussing the argument your game is meant to present and what the game’s position is.

2. One section discussing the visual and rhetorical strategies your group employed in the game to convey the opinion in #1 to the player. Be detailed as to what various elements are meant to specifically accomplish.

3. One section covering how group work was divided.

4. One optional section discussing how you think this assignment could be improved to teach you more about digital rhetoric, or, alternately, what you thought was the best part of this assignment.

Hints:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf72Ybtg7DA

2. “Retro arcade” seems to be the easiest and most popular form. If your group is having difficulties, I suggest starting out with this. Be aware, though, that because this is the one with the most tutorials available, I will expect a more complex game should you choose this style.

Student samples from Fall 2013:

1. Anti-bullying and methods of conflict resolution:
http://www.sploder.com/games/members/tomasdamico/play/final-project-rhe3...

2. Saving the world from pollution:
http://www.sploder.com/games/members/hsieh0422/play/save-the-world/

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

Spend maybe an hour or two on the website just experimenting with the different game types and design options. Students, for the most part, have more technical questions such as “how do I save?”. When students present, you'll be moderating - asking questions about the narrative, devices used, etc. I asked one student from another group to play, and as this student played, the group would explain their intentions and techniques.

Instructions For Students:

That entire prompt posted above.
1. Make the game in groups, fulfilling instructor requirements.
2. Write a 500-word essay detailing intention, process, rhetorical devices, and workload.

Evaluation Suggestions:

Students will play each other’s games. As a student plays through another group's game, that group will be in charge of explaining and presenting on their game at the same time (it's basically an interactive powerpoint presentation). The instructor will grade based on a preset rubric. The general hope is that students will incorporate the rhetorical skills they have developed all semester into the game.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

I tried to put students into groups of 4, with each group containing someone familiar with video games of any sort (the earlier PETA’s Pokemon Black and Blue exercise helped me see who in my class was proficient and who was uncomfortable with this type of media).

To my surprise, I found that the next time we met (after I’d first introduced the project), half of the groups had already started the project without any prompting from me. I’d anticipated having to devote a class or two to work-shopping the groups’ games, but this turned out to be unnecessary as they were all fine and highly motivated on their own. This may have to do with the nature of the 500-word essay (in which students must discuss the division of labor).

Students really will go above and beyond for this project. They'll make complicated and involved projects that will constantly surprise you!.

Course Type:

Course Description:

Composing Short Writing Assignments for the Internet: Confronting the Digital Native Myth

Steel — Tue, 17 Sep 2013 00:13:32 +0000

Author:

Connie M. Steel

Image Credit:

Digital native image found at http://www.mondaynote.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/144-digital_native2...

Brief Assignment Overview:

This peer learning assignment and lesson plan series gives students the opportunity to explore digital composition. It allows students to research container designs for themselves; set up a website or blog; peer-train each other to use the site; develop writing standards for content; and write peer-editing and publishing content. This plan can be adapted equally well to short rhetoric or short literary criticism assignments.

Type of Assignment:

Class Discussion

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Homework Assignment

Assignment Length:

Multiple Class Periods

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Literature:

Literary Criticism

Textual Analysis

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

1) To develop ideas of critical reception in digital formats by asking students to analyze and benchmark websites and blogs

2) To develop standards for on-line writing by having the students generate the writing prompt

3) To access on-line composition technologies by choosing a product capable of meeting their aesthetic goals within their resource limits (i.e. free and within time constraints)

4) To develop research skills by selecting books for review appropriate to the blog theme

5) To develop collaboration and oral argumentation skills through an in-class debate and final selection of aesthetics, technology and writing standards

6) To formulate ideas for logos and arrangement of multiple textual pieces

7) To write a short review essay. (The short reviews become the final product and content for the website).

8) Peer review and copyediting of short essays

Media Requirements:

Required Materials:

A computer classroom; or enough laptops that every two students could share

Internet access

Students

An idea for a short writing assignment relevant to course content that would be interesting to potential audiences outside of the class room, such as book reviews on a particular theme, or research summaries on a coherent topic of current interest

Timeline for Optimal Use:

http://womenofsteel.wordpress.com/2012/04/19/34/

Late in the Semester

Full Assignment Description:

I designed this series in response to the 'Digital Native' myth. The 'Digital Native' myth goes something like this: today's students grow up surrounded by technology, and therefore, magically know how to use it. But when I surveyed actual students at the beginning of a course "Literature and Artificial Intelligence," I found that the number of students who knew how to compose on the internet was very small. When I showed the aggregated results to the students they noticed immediately a large gender bias in our class--only one of the young women had ever started their own blog. This raised a sort of accessibility issue that we decided to address as a class. Further discussion revealed that instructors tend to set up courseblogs or course websites for students, and then just ask the students to create a login and add the content. Many did not understand the data input side of things well enough to explain it to a peer. The majority of students did not know how or why those containers had been chosen or how to set up a blog of their own, thus indicating a significant barrier to entry for digital composition in spite of access to the relevant hardware. In response to the students' survey results and comments, I expanded the original blog post assignment to include the full range of steps required to get from Step A to Step B in digital composition for the internet. This series was designed for a computer lab classroom (I have done similar things with a series of reservations for a computer lab).

This is a series of in class workshops and take home assignments. The entire class functions together as a collective to produce a single website with a common theme composed of multiple short essays. These are the skeletons of the prompts I used to guide the students through the process of selecting a container, developing standards, writing, editing and publishing content.

TAKE HOME ASSIGNMENT #1—Selecting Texts Prompt

As a take home assignment, I asked students to post three suggestions (each) for texts to review on the website we would build. The idea here was that the texts selected might influence the overall aesthetic choices. The stories needed to fit the course theme of science fiction involving artificial intelligence with the added dimension of a female author as we found a shortage of information about female science fiction writers on the internet. Here’s the discussion board prompt:

“List three stories by giving MLA citations for the copies you find (on Amazon, at the PCL, your local bookstore, etc). If someone else checked them out of the library, recall them now! If we don’t own the book/story, use Inter-Library Loan to request a copy from another university.”

Then we whittled down

WORKSHOP #1—Brainstorming and Benchmarking Writing Standards and Technologies

In order to accomplish the next goal the class was divided into four teams representing different types of decision making steps. Each team is giving a specific task building towards decisions that will effect the writing of the whole class. The instructor should leave some time at the beginning and end of class for discussion and should check in with each team to make sure they understand their job and how their job fits in with the other jobs.

Technology Selection Team: This team consists of students with prior web/blog/wiki experience. It is this teams job to compare notes on the usability of programs they have used and come up with their top recommendations for the class. (Tumbler and Word Press are favorites).

Aesthetics Team: This team's job is to identify sites that do similar types of work and look appealing. What might be the technical challenges of making something similar? They come up with a list of sites and narrow it down to their favorite four to show the class.

Writing Standards Team: This team is given the task of developing standards for content. In this case the students benchmarked the genre elements in a graduate level E3W Review of Books and adapted them to a shorter on-line format. Students should think about word limits (discourage anything longer than 500 words) and types of questions they want answered in the review, and think about things like pictures.

Managing Editor Team: This small team (two students is fine) compiles, polishes, organizes and removes the duplicates from the lists of books in the discussion forum. At the end of class, final decisions are made as to who will read and review which texts. Everybody commits.

HOMEWORK #2—Find and begin reading your story

Prompt: “This past week you were supposed to find and start reading the text you will review for our blog/wiki on Women and Science Fiction. BRING YOUR STORY TO CLASS on X Date! If it is something you are accessing through EEBO or other on-line source PRINT the cover/title page and the way to access it (website/database) onto a sheet or two of paper and bring that to use. Come to class ON-TIME and ready to do some creative workshopping.”

GAP CLASS—Schedule a day for something else while you give students the time to find/buy/read their books.

WORKSHOP #2—Caucusing and Decision Making

First half of class:

1) At the beginning of class students turn their books and book covers over to the General Editing Team. The Gen-Ed Team gets a delegate each from the Tech and Aesthetics teams to come up with two creative ways to organize texts in the on-line exhibit. (Total of four people). They will present these to the rest of the class.

2) The Tech and Aesthetics Teams caucus to figure out which of their favorite aesthetics are ones that are technologically feasible. They will come up with their best two options to show the class.

3) The Writing Standards Team meets with the professor to publish a handout with their content requirements. This will be distributed at the end of class.

Second half of class:

1) Managing Editor Team presents the final list of books.

2) Tech and Aesthetics teams present their recommendations.

3) Voting on container choices.

4) The Writing Standards team explains the content requirements prompt.

5) Final Decisions are posted as a plan on the discussion board (by the professor) for students to refer to at home and in the next workshop.

HOMEWORK #3—Short Content Writing Assignment

Students write their content using the standards developed as their prompt. They are asked to bring their work to class in electronic format (we used Word).

WORKSHOP #3—Peer Review and Content Building

1) Students read and peer review each other’s content. (This could also be a homework assignment).

2) Students copyedit and correct their work.

3) The tech team peer trains everybody to upload their content. People who "get it" first become peer trainers for the person next to them.

4) Uploading and final proof reading.

5) Troubleshooting. More troubleshooting.

FINAL SHOWCASE

Some students may need to take their time with the content upload. Give them the chance to finish their upload and editing during office hours or for homework. The instructor can review the site for typos or you can leave the remaining mistakes. Extra credit opportunities can be offered for students to add bells and whistles to the site, or for submitting an extra writing assignment.

At the beginning of the next class show off the final product and give the students a chance to discuss what they learned. A fun follow-up is to ask everyone to publicize the site by posting it on their social networking accounts (like Facebook, Twitter or their own blogs). Follow up in a later class by reporting the number of hits.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

This assignment/lesson plan requires clear communication with the students, and a certain amount of patience with utter chaos. By that I mean, the students did all the things I would normally do for them, like picking the website technology and designing the prompt, and I had to stand back and let them take control. Basically, my main job was to keep the teams communicating, to keep them aware of how their jobs fit into the bigger picture, and to help them figure out how to do things without micromanaging. This meant letting them make and learn from minor productive mistakes. There were a couple of challenges, which are described below.

Instructions For Students:

The series of steps are listed above in the Assignments section. Assignments and content can be flexibly adapted to course themes. The in-class workshops were designed for a 1 hour 15 minute class format. When lesson planning, it is important to include time for explaining tasks clearly to students and for getting their feedback at the end of class sessions. This time could vary quite a bit depending on the size of the class, the experience level of the students, and how well they have bonded as a group. I save this type of series for the end of the semester when students already have experience with writing, editing and conducting peer review. This assignment builds off those skills and teaches them new ones.

Evaluation Suggestions:

GRADING

This is a multi-piece project, so I split the grading into smaller chunks, which could be adapted to a variety of syllabi. This also encouraged class attendance.

1) Homework grade for the discussion post listing book choices (credit/no credit--went into the homework grade built into my syllabus)

2) Quiz grade for bringing books to class so that the general editors for workshop number 2. (Pass/Fail--went into the reading quizzes part of my syllabus)

3) Writing assignment for content, and upload completion—Students were given a letter grade. The writing assignment was worth 10% of the syllabus total.

4) Peer review quiz credit for editing during the third workshop. (Pass/fail quiz grade).

5) A small extra credit bonus was given for the “best peer editing team.” This was awarded to the peer editing pair that had the fewest number of copyediting mistakes in their final blog entries.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

The students chose to make a wordpress site. The following is a representative entry of the work they produced.

Their target audience was potential high school and lower division college instructors looking for science fiction texts for their courses. They decided each entry should include an image; a quote reflecting the author's writing style; a brief gloss of plot, genre, and themes; and an indication of the relative reading difficulty, along with pricing information. Two of the students were radio/television/film majors and the class decided it was OK if they reviewed science fiction films by women directors. Tagging and navigationals levels were added to reflect time periods, genres, theme and popular media. One challenge occurred when it was discoverd that the blog's default is to list entries by the date of upload. This wasn't a useful navigational feature but the students discovered it after they had already committed to their container theme. Another challenge appeared with the image uploads. Some of the book cover images load exactly as they are supposed to and others don't (in spite of a uniform training session). Overall, they did a nice job with the content and peer editing. The feedback from the students was that their overall confidence in trying to build a website or blog on their own had increased with knowing the types of decisionmaking steps to make, and their overall ability to explain what they were doing to a peer increased.

The site has since become the target for trolls. As a consequence there are some random unauthorized entries dating after May in the blog. A blog's flexibility for multiple users is an advantage, but sometimes older static website designs have better security. So, that's something to think about.

Additional Resources:

They needed to read books to complete this assignment.

Course Type:

Advanced Writing Course

Literary Studies Course

Course Description:

This lesson plan was developed for a writing intensive sophomore level course designated as "introduction to the major/introduction to literary methods." The course variant was titled "Literature and Artificial Intelligence." Course content bridged the canons of English and Artificial Intelligence with a selection of science fiction, philosophy, literary criticism and scienctific essays. In the second half of the semester, students were asked to build a website featuring book reviews for relevent science fiction stories by women authors. Their potential audience was instructors in high school and lower division college courses.

Tags:

Research and Descriptive Reading - Visual Analysis

Mercier — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 19:29:06 +0000

Author:

Aaron Mercier

Image Credit:

Piquef: Conde Nast, 2011

Brief Assignment Overview:

This plan puts student into groups of three or four and asks them to collaborate on generating a coherent analytical reading of a New Yorker cover image. The students present their readings to the class and then trade images and present a re-reading. Class ends with the groups reclaiming their original image, incorporating the different reading, and self-assigning research topics. The following class, the groups re-convene and then present a reading that integrates the two primary readings, bridged and nuanced through external research.

Type of Assignment:

Class Discussion

Homework Assignment

Assignment Length:

Multiple Class Periods

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Presentations

Visualization

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

Building descriptive and analytical habits of mind

Identifying and avoiding evaluative modes of reading

Accepting uncertainty

Synthesizing divergent ideas

Media Requirements:

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Required Materials:

Networked classroom or student laptops, and/or a pile of old New Yorkers or similar images. You can also compile and distribute these images digitally.

Media console/document projector for presentations

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Full Assignment Description:

**Note: this works best if you have made visual rhetoric exercises part of your course structure in the early weeks when you're introducing the "analysis" concept. If you haven't, you can set aside some classtime one or two days ahead of this to get some practice in with other images.

At the beginning of class, the instructor should review the differences between descriptive, evaluative, and analytical reading strategies. Emphasize the ways in which evaluative reading can disguise itself as analytical, and the obstacles to critical thought it can create.

--Divide the class into groups of 3-4

--Distribute New Yorker Covers. It's best if the instructor vets these for topicality, transparency, and complexity. It's a good idea to have a range of difficulties, but each image should have a clear current-events referent and be susceptible to at least two different interpretations. "Money Issue" covers and the covers published during the Occupy movement and major elections cycles are especially rich, although there are plenty of recent covers that take up higher ed and internecine sociocultural tensions that get really interesting too.

--You can have a written prompt if you like, but don't be too presctiptive. I simply tell my students to formulate a one-sentence description that states what the image is of/about, then to generate a kind of critical summary that points to specific visual elements and makes claims about how they contribute to a greater complexity of meaning. While they're working, circulate between the groups. if no one has questions for you, offer them some of your own. Be especially watchful for students who are skipping steps, or not working closely enough with the image, or being too general. Deal with these missteps by asking provocative questions about the grounds of their claims.

--Avoid being over-directive. This exercise is about keeping them in the space of discovery and description as long as possible, so questions should be formulated so as to throw them back into the text rather than push them towards conclusions. The typical undergrad is deeply uncomfortable with this space and if you give too many directions they will simply spit them back at you as "answers" in the presentation.

-- Give the students about fifteen minutes in their first group session to come up with a two-minute presentation. This seems like a relief to them, since they don't think they can fill longer time slots with "just this image." Inevitably, the groups will run over time. Be really strict. Time them with an alarmed stopwatch and cut them off after the two minutes. The fourth group to present will usually come in just at two minutes. This is a teachable moment about the time and space responsible analysis actually requires.

--Have the groups switch images and repeat the process.

--If you're being disciplined about time, you should have about 20-40 minutes to wrap up after the second round of presentations. (Ten minutes of housekeeping and introduction to the exercise, 30 minutes of group prep time, 16-20 minutes of presentation [assuming a class of 20-24 students], four minutes of transitions/slop time have been filled up so far.)

--Wrapping up:Have the groups reclaim their original image. Their assignments for next time will be for each student to find some relevant secondary source and write a 3-sentence description of it and its relevance to the group's image. At the beginning of the next class, the groups get a ten-minute final planning session, then give a 5 minute presentation.

--Give a prompt for this presentation, since it should do several very specific things.

--Present the group's original reading modified to integrate or challenge the second group's reading of the image in question.

-- Present at elast two secondary sources that give theoretical/critical and/or historical context to the image

--Offer a complex, nuanced, and analytical statement of what they believe the image is about, what it says, and how it fits into the larger context of the moment in which it was published.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

--Browse the issues of the New Yorker in general.

--Be aware of the headlines that were current when the issue was published

--Have a stopwatch of some kind

--Be ready to evade requests for over-directive instruction

--Have some inspirational quotes about uncertainty and negative capability handy

Instructions For Students:

In general, see the Full Assignment Description

I shy away from elaborate written instructions for this sequence because it's really about establishing comfort with a state of intellectual play. Written instructions become training wheels in this context. Because the stakes are very low, but kind of implicitly present in the whole economy of dialogue and idea exchange, I find such training wheels to be disruptive and counterproductive. Keep it all very verbal for this whole process.

Evaluation Suggestions:

This is not a lesson/assignment sequence that requires a lot of evaluation. In fact, evaluating the quality of analytical approaches should be left largely to class discussion. The way I approach this is to thank presenters and then ask the rest of the class where they'd take it next. Presentations that provoke the most energetic conversations become the examples you refer to in later classes, so there's a kind of ongoing reward system that does not punish lower-quality efforts

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

This exercise was a hit. Students respond pretty well to being given the thematic reins, and many of them respond really well to the oppportunity to argue. A lot of them remarked that the development of two co-existent readings for the same text, and then being asked to synthesize them, was a real eye-opener.

This exercise is also a great way to establish a collegial and collaborative learning environment. Be present, but keep your role in the realm of moderator/facilitator. Ask questions and insist on time limits for things, but try to avoid "correcting" readings unless they stray into major, fundamental error. Even then, it is usually better rely on the internal economy of the exercise. If one group goes astray, the next might correct them for you. Save these interventions, if necessary, for the endgame.

Additional Resources:

PBWorks/ some kind of blogging platform helps, but is not necessary, in bridging the classwork/homework divide. Make sure the group members make plans to be in touch, especially if you make the at-home portion happen over a weekend.

Course Type: