DWRL Lesson Plans - Audio

Assignment Length:

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Literature:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Research

Summary

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:

Early in the Semester

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:

The (Selling) Powers of a Good Cry

lazhu — Sat, 08 Mar 2014 05:31:18 +0000

Author:

Lily Zhu

Image Credit:

A popular meme

Brief Assignment Overview:

Students will look at a series of popular, “sad” advertisements and discuss the ways in which certain commercials have successfully tapped into elements of rhetoric specific to viral videos. Through this, students will expand their understanding of argumentation to include the very relatable perspective of consumerism.

Type of Assignment:

Assignment Length:

Partial Class Period

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Citation

Writing Process

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Audio

Multimedia

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

This assignment acts as a transition point from Unit 1 (summary) to Unit 2 (analysis), ideally introduced the day Paper 1.2 is turned in. Since this activity functions primarily as an introduction to Unit 2, students will be expected to apply Unit 1 concepts – such as summary and kairos – with an additional, analytical dimension. Though not all students studied rhetorical analysis in high school, a brief overview of ethos, logos, and pathos will suffice for this assignment. They will be paying particular attention to intended audience and the ways that it might impact choices in rhetorical strategies.

Media Requirements:

Required Materials:

As long as the instructor has access to a console/projector, that should be enough.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Full Assignment Description:

This can be both an informal or formal exercise depending on the instructor’s preference.

I split the students into two groups and showed students two video advertisements with vastly different strategies. Half of the class focused on visual rhetoric and the other half focused on verbal, written, and aural rhetoric. Each student was given a table where they would cite a piece of evidence from the text and then explain, in detail, how it contributed to the company’s persuasive effectiveness based on intended audience. Students presented their findings in a back-and-forth fashion between groups and eventually came to understand that rhetorical strategies often work as a cohesive unit rather than measurable, separated components (whether that’s ethos, pathos, and logos working together, or visual, verbal, and aural interactions).

The first advertisement was Chipotle’s high-budget “The Scarecrow.” The ensuing discussion included not just the ad itself, but Chipotle’s situated brand, its parent company, and the smartphone game app associated with the video. In addition, there is an edited version of this same advertisement,“Chipotle Scarecrow (Honest version),” which critiques the hypocrisy and consumerist qualities of the original; this commentary is a nice complement and is a good example of the analytical thinking necessary to writing Paper 2.1.

The second advertisement (“Giving is the Best Communication”) is from Thailand, funded by a massive communications company (True Move H) and contains very little dialogue and text, but makes great use of lighting, music, camera angle, etc. Students have to think a little more creatively to truly analyze it. Many of the students enjoyed viewing and discussing this one and even offered suggestions for further videos to dissect, including “Silence of Love” – a Thai advertisement for life insurance. Life insurance is obviously a sensitive topic which makes this commercial even more interesting. Be warned, half of my class teared up/cried after viewing it.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

Watch through all of the commercials so you have a sense of what overlapping strategies are used, how cultural relativism may tie in, etc. There are too many points to cover with these commercials, so be sure to prepare and pick out what you think is most important and relevant to your syllabus.

Instructions For Students:

Watch and take notes on each commercial.

Decide on the intended audience

The notes should be detailed and organized as follows:

Evidence from the commercial – corresponding analysis

Prepare for a discussion about the advertisements’ effectiveness based on audience/kairos

Evaluation Suggestions:

Participation and/or worksheet completion

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

Students really took to this, which is unsurprising. The advertisements chosen above went viral because they’re engaging to watch. This eventually grew into a larger conversation about advertisement tropes (in particular, those involved in car commercials).

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:

Logically Looking for the Perfect Beat

Cowan — Fri, 07 Mar 2014 19:41:36 +0000

Author:

Jake Cowan

Image Credit:

Puding Jahodovy

Brief Assignment Overview:

In this assignment, students learn to identify the objective musical elements that make up their favorite songs — and then become personal Pandoras for their peers.

Type of Assignment:

Assignment Length:

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Audience

Enthymemes

Logos

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Audio

Collaboration

Media Requirements:

Required Materials:

Instructors should ask each student to bring a pair of headphones or earbuds to class in order to listen to music without disturbing their neighbors. Each student should also come to class with a favorite piece of music already in mind.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Full Assignment Description:

For most students, music is a major part of daily life: They listen to it in the car, when they do homework, as they walk to class (but hopefully not during). Very few students, however, actually play music, and very rarely do students consider why they might prefer one song over another. This exercise aims to help students articulate their preferences a little more clearly by encouraging students to think about a favorite song in terms of its objective qualities and the ways in which those components create an underlying logical structure. Additionally, this will help illustrate for students how the rhetorical term logos does not merely point to stastistics or facts, but refers to the ways in which those individual elements tie together to create a line of reasoning.

As a way of introduction, I like to show my students this video from TIME Magazine, which discusses how Pandora — the music streaming website — selects new songs for users to listen to. Later on in the project, students will be asked to act like mini-Pandoras for their classmates, so the video should help them to start thinking along those lines early. Once they have a picture of the overall exercise, I provide my students with general and simple definitions of the most basic components of any piece of music: Instrumentation, tempo, timbre, tone and form; we then discuss how those elements join together in particular ways to establish a genre. It's instructive to note that many styles of music share qualities — heavy metal and reggae, for example, both tend to have songs written in the sonata form (AABA) and played by simple rock instrumentation (guitar, bass, drumset, vocal) — but it's how those elements are strung together that define a song's genre.

Once the basic definitions are out of the way, the students should keep those terms in mind and note those elements as they listen to an example piece of music selected by the instructor. In my own classes, and based on my own preferences, I like to play upbeat dance music like "Treasure" by Bruno Mars — students have most likely heard the song before, and can generally think of a number of similar post-disco songs right off the bat. But the key is for the instructor to pick a piece that he or she really does enjoy, and one that is not too esoteric, in order for students then to be able to suggest other similar songs. As outlined in the Instructions for Students subsection, the individual objective elements should be identified as the students listen to the music; they can then offer their own ideas on what pieces might be a close match.

Having thus provided an example as a class, the instructor should then partner up the students and have the pairs each take to individual computers. Again, as outlined in the Instructions for Students subsection, each student will tell his or her partner of a favorite song, and then help them locate a version online. Repeating the same sort of exercise as they did with the instructor, the students will identify the objective components that make up the genre of their partner's song, and then suggest what they think is a similar song (and, again, locating a version online for their partner to hear). When all the pairings have finished the exercise, the instructor should ask them to share the results of the exercise — what song their partner gave them; what song they suggested in return and why; whether the partner liked the new song — with the rest of the class.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

Before class, instructors should select their example carefully. There is often a generational divide between the instructor and her students, so they may not know many of the same songs. The instructor should thus try to play a more contemporary artist, and one that is relatively generic, in order to make the example easier to understand. Furthermore, having similar songs already in mind would help illustrate the ideas and stoke discussion. When I have done this exercise, I have played "Treasure" by Bruno Mars for my students, comparing the style and instrumentation to "Baby I'm Yours" by Breakbot (as well as this mashup by The White Panda).

Instructions For Students:

Whenever listening to a piece of music during this exercise — whether it's one that the instructor is playing, or a song shared by their peers — students should write down the objective musical elements that they hear. These include, but are not necessarily limited to:

Instrumentation (e.g., acoustic guitar, synthesizer, female lead vocals, drumset)
Song form (e.g., Verse-Chorus-Verse-Chorus-Bridge-Chorus)
Tempo and time signature
Timbre and tone (i.e., does it sound distorted and angry? slow and low?)
Finally: What genre do these elements suggest?

In the second half of class, the students will break into pairs. Each one will tell his or her partner one of their favorite pieces of music, and help the partner to locate a version to listen to on YouTube or Spotify (or possibly using their own iPod). After listening to the partner's piece of music once or twice and writing down the above components, each student should try to think of other songs they have heard before that have similar qualities. The students will then suggest those new comparable songs to their partners, assisting them in finding a version on YouTube or Spotify. Once they are both finished and have listened to the suggestions, the students should discuss with one another what they liked (and what they might not have liked) about the second songs, then share those results with the class.

Evaluation Suggestions:

This assignment is ungraded — all that matters is participation.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

Students have generally enjoyed this exercise, and are better prepared for later lessons on syllogisms, enthymemes and fallacies. Furthermore, once they have finished the assignment, I have noticed a few students logging on to Facebook to friend their partners, which helps to build a healthy class atmosphere for the rest of the semester.

Course Type:

Tags:

Transforming Video with Popcorn Maker

Wise — Fri, 07 Mar 2014 16:40:10 +0000

Author:

Beck Wise

Image Credit:

Image: Joakim Wahlander

Brief Assignment Overview:

Like many things, visual rhetoric is often best learnt by doing. This lesson plan introduces students to video editing using Popcorn Maker, a web-based tool for mashing up online texts.

Type of Assignment:

Assignment Length:

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

One-Two Class Periods

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Invention

Organization

Style

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Media Requirements:

Required Materials:

Hardware

Computer access for all students (laboratory or bring-your-own-device; small groups often work better than individuals for this)

Web access

Software

Access to modern, Flash-capable browsers (Safari in particular often does not play nice with this tool)

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Full Assignment Description:

In this class period, students are asked first to analyse a piece of visual rhetoric and then to create their own using Popcorn Maker, a web-based tool for mashing up online texts including videos, images, audio and text.

I begin the class by introducing students to visual rhetoric, asking them to analyse the various levels of a visual text progressively -- first by silently reading a transcript of a video narration, then by listening to the audio, and finally by playing the full video. Unpacking the text in layers like this helps students engage with the possibilities and effects of medium, as well as or instead of content (for a lesson plan which lays this out in detail, see Laura Thain's 'Shifting Focus from Content to Medium', which uses records of the Hindenberg disaster in this way; I often use Anonymous' 'Message to Scientology' as my text for this activity, since it fits with themes of my 'Rhetoric of Hacking' course and conveniently provides a transcript, saving me the effort of creating one).

I then introduce students briefly to Mozilla's Popcorn Maker, demonstrating the very basics and offering them links to a couple of tutorials. The tool lets students quickly and easily create web videos -- and because it's designed to incorporate and transform other online texts, the barrier to entry is lower than with other video editors; in my experience, students are more comfortable transforming existing tests and can feel paralysed when asked to create from scratch.

Working in small groups or individually, they are asked to 'play with the tool', using it to create videos which make 'some kind of point', whether or not it relates to the course theme or content -- I keep my language fun and the instructions unspecific, since the goal is to gain fluency with a tool they might want to use for later projects, and to come up with something quick-and-dirty in a single class period. As a result, I've seen a lot of in-class videos featuring Miley Cyrus! Towards the end of the class period, I ask anyone who has a video work-in-progress they're comfortable sharing to email me the link and we review some of the products on the overheard projector. As well as illustrating the various possibilities of Popcorn Maker, it tends to serve as a good icebreaker, as students discover shared interests.

Depending on your class' interest in making and viewing videos, you can extend this into a second day or ask students to share their videos on a course website.

One thing to be aware of: when replaying videos, expect long buffering times. My students this semester have also reported the tool becomes unstable when producing complex texts with many included elements; I'd steer students towards offline video editing software if they want to compose extended video and multimedia projects. Popcorn Maker is great for quick-and-dirty projects using existing web content, and is particularly good for introducing students to video editing (its interface mirrors a lot of popular offline editors), but it definitely has its limits!

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

Before class, you'll want to prepare to share your chosen text in written, auditory and video form. You might provide the text as printouts or display it on a projector; for the audio version, you could play the video with the projector screen blanked or use a YouTube-to-MP3 converter to obtain an audio track to play.

You'll also want to spend some time with Popcorn Maker -- follow the tutorials linked above (I recommend Miriam Posner's tutorial over the official Mozilla one!) to become familiar with the tool. I suggest making a video of your own to show your students ... I throw something terrible together real fast to encourage them to be OK with imperfect results (remember -- this is just play), and make it clear that something can be achieved inside a class period. Don't believe me it's kind of rubbish? Here you go. This is about 15 minutes of work and is designed to subvert the messages in the video I use in the analysis section of the class. You can play the video right through and then hit the 'Remix' button to get a look at the actual construction, which makes the example doubly valuable as it allows students to reverse-engineer the project if they want.

Instructions For Students:

My instructions to students for this activity are extremely informal; I tell them ahead of time we'll be talking about visual rhetoric and assign a brief reading outlining what that means. On the day, I guide them through the various levels of analysis of the assigned video (to which they have not previously been exposed) and demonstrate the tool we'll be using to make our own videos, then essentially cut them loose to play and create. I provide links to the tutorials above for their reference, but most students prefer to figure things out on their own (and typically succeed in doing so).

Evaluation Suggestions:

My suggestion for evaluation: don't! This is a plan for play, designed to give students tools (and in my experience, they WILL use them later).

Course Type:

Talking Heads, Remain In Light

Course Description:

This activity was designed for 'Rhetoric of Hacking', an intermediate writing course conducted in Fall 2013 and Spring 2014. The course engages with public discourse around hacking, the notion of hacking as rhetoric, and ways to hack rhetoric (in this instance, by transforming and repurposing existing texts).

Tags:

Web video

Remix

Play

Teaching Context with Album Covers

Rhiannon Goad — Fri, 15 Nov 2013 22:42:58 +0000

Author:

Rhiannon Goad

Image Credit:

Brief Assignment Overview:

This lesson plan uses album covers and music to help students (1) utilize vocabulary and (2) consider the importance of context in rhetorical analysis.

Type of Assignment:

Homework Assignment

Assignment Length:

One-Two Class Periods

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Media Requirements:

Required Materials:

handouts, Internet, screen projection, audio, and computers for students groups (optional), website/Spotify for posting images and music (optional)

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Full Assignment Description:

In this assignment, students examine a group of album covers twice: first without the music and then along with. Examining album covers one step at a time allows students to see the payoff of careful analysis. This exercise also helps students understand the importance of context when analyzing a piece.

Pro tip: My students were more responsive when asked to analyze new album covers that they had not yet seen for music they had not yet heard. To find new albums for this, I found this guy is pretty useful.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

Prepare a sideshow with album covers (I used 5)
Prepare a playlist of songs corresponding to the album covers (I used spotify)
Prepare a packet of handouts for students. For each album cover you show, have a sheet with the same questions on both sides. Label one side A and the other side B. On mine, I asked: What emotions might this artist invoke? How? What does this album cover suggest about the artist? How? What values does the audience hold that this artist might appeal to? What kind of style is used and for what purpose?
Distribute packets and explain to students the exercise
Have students answer the questions the on “Side A” as you show the album covers without music
Have students flip their packets over to "Side B" and repeat slide show for students (I spent about 1 minute or show per album cover)
Put students into small groups to discuss their findings
Discuss findings with students; ask: How did your responses differ when you heard the music?

Instructions For Students:

Use packet of handout to take notes
Answer the questions the on “Side A” when we look at the album covers without audio
When you reach the end of your packet, flip it over to “Side B”, now answer the questions again
Get into groups of 3 to 4, discuss some of the differences you found between your notes

Tags:

Shifting Focus from Content to Medium

Laura Thain — Sun, 06 Oct 2013 02:05:07 +0000

Author:

Laura Thain

Image Credit:

Blancomoleon

Brief Assignment Overview:

Using various records of the Hindenburg disaster, this assignment encourages students to engage with medium over content, especially in terms of literary studies.

Type of Assignment:

Assignment Length:

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Arrangement

Rhetorical Analysis

Visual Rhetoric

Pedagogical Goals - Literature:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Invention

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

This assignment encourages students to think beyond their preconceptions of what "medium" is and view all things as mediated--especially text.

Media Requirements:

Required Materials:

Instructors will need to assign an orienting theoretical piece on medium and assemble an applicable archive of media for students to analyze. I used the first chapter of McLuhan's Understanding Media ("The Medium is the Message").

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Full Assignment Description:

Assign the students a piece of media theory that you think well supplements their primary text reading in a literature class or your chosen archive of materials in a rhetoric class. Some potential candidates include Raymond Williams, Marshall McLuhan, or Bolter and Grusin. You may also ask your students to watch a lecture such as this one in order to gain some grounding for talking about media. We spent a full class period discussing McLuhan's argument before engaging in this activity.

I then assembled an archive of media artifacts around our primary text, War of the Worlds. I asked the students to approach this archive mostly through affect, which I defined as "the way media objects make us feel."

I began by handing out a transcript of Herbert Morrison's famous radio broadcast account of the Hindenburg disaster. I asked the students to read this transcript to themselves and circle words or phrases that made them feel a certain way. Then, I asked them to account for their experience in terms of the medium in which they experienced it. Next, I played an audio file of Morrison's radio broadcast and asked them again to recount their reaction, again accounting for medium. Finally, I asked them to watch a YouTube video that superimposed a Universal news reel of the explosion over the audio of the broadcast. Students were generally most moved by either the radio broadcast or the YouTube video and discussed why.

I then explained that Orson Wells wanted to capture the "spirit" of the Hindenburg broadcast (1937) in his own adaptation of War of the Worlds (1938). I played a ten-minute portion of the radio broadcast and asked them to relate the two radio pieces to each other, again, paying attention to how the medium of radio attempted to make its audience feel a certain way.

By this point, the students generally agreed that radio, rather than "lacking" the visual, capitalized on conveying information chiefly through an aural medium. We talked a little bit about McLuhan's view of "hot" vs. "cold" media, and I then asked them to think about how text itself also function as a medium.

We then read a selection from Book II, Chapter 4 ("The Death of the Curate") in War of the Worlds as a class. I asked them to each read a paragraph of the text as dramatically as they felt comfortable doing. Again, I asked them how the text as a medium tries to inspire suspense in the audience.

Finally, we watched an analagous clip from Steven Spielberg's 2005 War of the Worlds, in which the Martian alien, like the passage from the book, is probing the basement while the protagonist hides in fear. I asked them how the visual medium attempts to create suspense in the same plot arch. After students practiced analyzing the two very different methods, I reiterated that that content of the two pieces was somewhat irrelevent to their analysis--the medium was what mattered.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

Make detailed notes on the orienting piece of media theory you assign your students and spend time working through that piece with them. Our class spent an entire day on "The Medium is the Message" and read it in terms of our current text (War of the Worlds) before engaging in detailed analysis of other media.

Instructions For Students:

Students need to read and discuss a secondary media text in addition to primary course materials for this lesson.

Course Type:

Adaptable For Use Without Classroom Technology

Literary Studies Course

Course Description:

I teach a ninety-minute class period of Literature and Popular culture, which is a varient of Literature Across the Disciplines (E314J). The course seeks to explore the intersections of literature and popular culture from the point of view of mass readership and other forms of mass media. The course requires students to consider mediation through the lens of culture, history, and media theory as they engage in close reading and analysis.

Podcast/Paper: Having Students Do the Same Assignment in 2 Media

detweiler — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 20:04:27 +0000

Author:

Eric Detweiler

Image Credit:

Compiled from images on Wikimedia Commons

Brief Assignment Overview:

I have my students complete their first major assignment in two forms: (1) An individual 3-page paper and (2) a 5-6 minute group podcast. In both, they describe a text and situate it in historical context.

Type of Assignment:

Major Course Project

Assignment Length:

Course Unit

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

To get students to think about the ways in which presentational form/medium effects their inventional and organizational processes, as well as what counts as rhetorically effective.

Media Requirements:

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Required Materials:

Recording devices. If at least one student in each podcast group has a personal computer with a built-in microphone, that's fine. If that's not the case, or if you want to go hi-fi, USB microphones can step quality up a little bit. Access to some sort of editing software: Apple's GarageBand or Audacity are common options, and the latter can be downloaded for free online.

Audio Hijack Pro is also another useful software if students want to use clips from the text they're discussing in their podcast. The website snipmp3.com can also be used to grab audio from YouTube videos if Audio Hijack Pro isn't affordable/available.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Early in the Semester

Full Assignment Description:

In my RHE 309K course, Rhetoric of Irony, students examine, analyze, and argue about the rhetorical and ethical implications of irony in political and popular discourse. Their first assignment is to choose a historical (before the year 2000) ironic text and describe the text, its context, and its use of irony to their classmates.

My course includes a lot of writing, of course, and I want to get students thinking critically about that writing from the start of the class. In order to do that, I wanted to supplement the paper version of this first assignment with something in another medium and/or mode. Because I have worked with podcasts and audio strikes me as relatively straightforward (in a sense, a podcast can be little more than a recorded speech, writing's other half in the history of rhetoric and rhetoric instruction). The podcast allows students to invent and organize their material in a different way than the paper, and with structured reflective writing and conversation can help them think about the particularities and peculiarities of written and aural/oral discourse. I've found it can open up productive conversations about the difficulties and tropes of academic writing. For instance, students often have an easier time inventing material for the podcast than for the paper (I do require a first draft of the paper that's due one week before the podcast and final paper draft). Even though a 5-6 minute podcast and a 3-page paper can accomodate about the same number of words, students frequently feel like they've have to make copious cuts to fit everything into the podcast and stretching to find enough material for the paper.

In short, this assignment allows students to think about the constraints and affordances of both spoken and written compositions, as well as how they might adapt rhetorically to both forms/media/modes (these aren't synonyms here, of course, but all potential frames for discussing these assignments). It can also be a useful method of invention and helping students think about the patterns and obstacles that crop up in their academic writing processes.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

There are a variety of ways to approach the podcast assignment. I didn't spend much time teaching my students how to actually make podcasts. I basically showed them what GarageBand, Audacity, and Audio Hijack Pro looked like on our classroom computers, showed them how to drag audio files into the first two and how to sync the latter up with other applications. I focused more on showing students how to search Audacity's robust wiki and how to look up GarageBand tutorials on YouTube, etc. Learning to learn these technologies for themselves, in other words, was a big part of the assignment. I also provided them 15-20 minutes of in-class time to work as a group a few times, which gave them a chance to play with the technologies while I was on hand to offer troubleshooting advice and general tips.

As an instructor, you might want to have some knowledge of the technologies, then, though being an amateur along with your students can be a productive learning experience. If you don't have a computer classroom with those programs, I imagine the shorter introduction described above would be best, leaving the onus on students to experiment with them outside of class. If you do, you could certainly conduct a more in-depth, participatory in-class tutorial.

If even having students download Audacity seems too daunting, this assignment could feasibly be completed by having students record a script using Windows' pre-installed and very basic Audio Recorder; all current Apples come equipped with GarageBand.

Instructions For Students:

Since the meta-assignment comprises two parts (the group podcast and the individual paper), both assignment prompts are included below. The podcast comes first.

Unit 1 Podcast

Podcast: An audio program, often brief, that’s similar to a radio show but intended for digital download rather than live play. We have already spent some time addressing the important role situational factors play in creating a kairos for what counts as/is recognized as effective “irony.

We have already spent some time addressing the important role situational factors play in creating a kairos for what counts as/is recognized as effective “irony.” For instance, much of the ironic political critique of 1970s Saturday Night Live skits might seem dull or weird without a deep understanding of how Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan were seen and thought of at the time, as well as what political contexts they were a part of. Without knowledge of Jon Stewart’s role on The Daily Show, the kairos of his Crossfire appearance would be much harder to understand.

General

Your first major assignment, then, is to create a group podcast in which your group situates an ironic text in its original context. Exploring, in other words, the situational variables that made up its kairos. For our purposes, the text must have been originally released before January 1, 2000 (in part because that’s a neat dividing line, in part because—as we’ll see later this semester—9/11 brought about some important shifts in many Americans’ attitudes toward irony). Your podcast should include your text itself, as well as relevant events, people, etc. that had some influence on the contexts out of which the text emerged. For instance, what cultures was the author a part of, and how might they have influenced her or his ironic rhetorical choices? How was the text originally distributed (British newspaper, 1960s Japanese television, FM radio, etc.), and how might the context of that material form shape the text? Who, if relevant, was in political power? Were any military or social conflicts going on in the background? Was your text responding to a specific previous text, or to a general cultural and/or political atmosphere? In short, your podcast should help your audience better understand your text and its kairos. Don’t give context for context’s sake, but bring to your listeners’ minds key contextual details relevant to your text’s rhetorical point(s) and the broader historical situation in which those points were being made in order to foster a better understanding of your text in its context.

You will work in either pairs or trios. All members must agree on the chosen text. That choice is yours, not mine, as is how you divide the workload—as long as you do so in an equitable manner and all group members’ voices appear at least once in the final podcast. Keep in mind this collaborative project’s potential relevance to your individual Learning Record.

Specifics

Your podcast is due on the wiki by the beginning of class Mon., Feb. 18. Upload it as an .mp3, .aac, .or .wav file. Podcasts must be 5-6 minutes long. We will listen to all groups’ podcasts in class that day. The time limit is strict, and you should make use of that time in a rhetorically effective—in a kairotic—manner. In addition to the release of your text itself, your podcast must introduce and set up at least three additional contextual variables: events, people, wars, other texts, private or public squabbles, or responses to your text. You should verbally cite at least two sources in your podcast. Source requirements are covered in more detail in the corresponding paper assignment. Your primary rhetorical goals are to inform and to entertain. Make a podcast that will hold your classmates’ and my attention. My feedback on the timeline will be given in written form, with each group member receiving the same write-up.

Paper 1

General

In addition to the group podcast, you are responsible for writing an individual paper in which you describe the context out of which your text arose, the significance and ironic message of the text itself, and how that specific message responded to/interacted with your text’s kairos. Keep in mind your primary purpose is—as with the podcast—to give your readers a better understanding of your text by situating it, not to offer context for context’s sake. Always make sure you explain the relevance of that context in terms of your text.

You should try to avoid taking a position on whether your text’s message is “good” or “bad.” Try to stick primarily to describing and summarizing text and context rather than evaluating. If your text was rhetorically ineffective or responded poorly to its context, let that point be made via exposition (for instance, that it’s faded into history or has a powerful legacy) rather than direct argument. Let me know if I can clarify here.

Though you can draw on your group’s conversations, brainstorming, etc. in writing your paper, the actual process of writing should be undertaken individually. If you have questions about the boundaries of collaboration and plagiarism, check the course strands or with me. Basically, your paper should have different sentences, paragraphs, and overall arrangement than your other group members’, though the basic content could be largely the same.

Specifics

Your paper must have at least four sources. Two of those sources must be scholarly; two must be broader historical or primary sources. We’ll discuss these distinctions in class on Jan. 30. If you aren’t confident in this area and want to get a head start, however, feel free to talk with me in advance. Easy Writer also has advice here. Your paper may share one scholarly and one historical source with your other group members’ papers. The other scholarly and historical source must be unique to your paper.

Paper 1 should be at least 1000 words including the works-cited page, heading, title, etc. That should make the body of the paper around 3 pages. The paper should be properly formatted according to MLA guidelines, which we’ll discuss as this unit unfolds. A full draft of the paper

(1.1) is due in the corresponding wiki folder on Mon., Feb. 11. Paper 1.1 will be peer reviewed in class on that day. A substantially revised version (1.2) is due in the corresponding wiki folder by the beginning of class on Mon., Feb. 18.

Evaluation Suggestions:

I use The Learning Record to assess my classes, so students get qualitative feedback from me on both the podcast and the paper. I offer marginal comments on the first draft of the paper. In response to my comments and a peer review, students set three revision goals--each including what the goal is, why they've set it as a goal based on peer review/my comments/personal reflection, and how they plan to carry it out--for writing/revising their second draft (the ".2" in the prompt above). I approve those goals in advance of the revisions, then focus my comments on them in assessing the second draft.

My commentary on the podcast, which focuses primarily on invention, organization, and audience awareness, is the same for all members of each group and is about a paragraph in length.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

I wasn't sure how this approach would go over this semester, which was the first time I assigned both podcast and paper. Students seemed enthusiastic about the podcast. In addition to being more "fun" than a traditional paper, it seems the unorthodox and novel nature of podcasts for school purposes led them to feel more freedom in inventing and organizing. They were, in other words, much less prone to podcaster's block than writer's block. I require the paper to be more conventional in terms of college writing for a rhetoric course, but the podcast gave them ample material to conventionalize for the paper.

Additional Resources:

The Scholar Electric on Incorporating Audio Assignments: http://www.ryantrauman.net/scholarelectric/2012/11/13/212/

Audacity's wiki: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Audacity_Wiki_Home_Page

The Learning Record: http://www.learningrecord.org/

Course Type:

Course Description:

What is irony? It’s a rhetorical device that has been called “infinite absolute negativity” and “the key to the tightest bonds of friendship.” Jane Austen uses it to poke fun at Victorian social norms, Stephen Colbert to mock American politics, television shows like South Park to critique—well, just about everything. Irony’s complex history is part of the reason its definition is so hard to pin down. Working towards an understanding and definition of the term will thus be one of the aims of this course.

Irony’s presence in individual rhetorical exchanges can be equally hard to identify, however. Consider the times you've been reading something online—say a friend's Facebook status—and found yourself asking, "Can this person possibly be serious?" This course, then, will also examine how irony functions practically in political and popular discourse. The effective use of irony requires both the speaker and listener to share a mutual understanding not only of the position being ironically stated, but the other party’s unstated beliefs and the actual critical message under the surface. Traditional rhetorical variables—speaker, audience, purpose—are all present, but layered in a manner that requires especially acute rhetorical awareness. This course will thus necessitate that students assume and practice a rigorous rhetorical consciousness as they engage with irony as both a concept and a complex rhetorical device, constructing and critiquing ironic arguments as they consider the historical, political, and ethical implications of irony’s deployment from Socrates to Swift to sitcoms.

Tags:

Screen Readers and Visual Accessibility

Anonymous — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 18:58:46 +0000

Author:

Will Martin

Image Credit:

"Day 009 - Fear of a Blank Planet" via marcandrelariviere's Flikr stream

Brief Assignment Overview:

The purpose of this lesson is to introduce the students to screen reader software, so that they will be aware of the challenges that blind people face in using web sites, and so that they can adjust their own sites to accomodate access for the visually challenged.

Type of Assignment:

Assignment Length:

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Arrangement

Audience

Delivery

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

To teach students about accessibility issues when building and designing web sites.

Media Requirements:

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Required Materials:

This lesson requires the following equipment:

A classroom equipped with computers for each student, including Internet connections.
Headphones for each student.
A screen reader program.
A screen blocker card (optional)

A more limited version of the lesson, demonstration only, can be done in any classroom equipped with a computer for the instructor.

Headphones are necessary because when you have a classroom full of 15-25 students the din of the computers all speaking at once makes it considerably harder for the students to distinguish their own computer from the others. While the lesson can be done without headphones, it’s substantially more difficult.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Full Assignment Description:

Many people who build web sites are unaware of or have no direct experience with screen readers, the software that blind and visually disabled people use to access web sites (and indeed all the software on their computers). The purpose of this lesson is to introduce the participants to that software, so that they will be aware of the challenges that blind people face in using web sites, and so that they can adjust their own sites to accomodate access for the visually challenged.

The most common screen reader programs, JAWS and WindowEyes, are commercial software, and not cheap. Typical JAWS licenses may run up to $1200 USD per seat. There is a 40-minute demonstration version available, but its licensing terms make it unclear whether it’s legal to use the demonstration version for these purposes. So I prefer the free and open source screen readers FireVox or NVDA. Because they are open source projects, there are no licensing fees to worry about, and the students may have copies of their own if they wish.

The two have some significant differences. NVDA, short for “Non-Visual Desktop Access,” is a fully-featured screen reader. It can read not just web pages, but any application the operating system might run. Because it must deal with a much wider selection of software, NVDA has fairly complex controls. It is only available for Microsoft Windows.

FireVox, by contrast, is an extension for the Firefox web browser. It turns Firefox into a “self-voicing” browser which can read web pages aloud. But it cannot access other desktop applications. Because it works with only one program, FireVox’s controls are fairly simple. It works with Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X (though it’s buggy on Mac). Because of its comparative simplicity and its broader availability, I prefer using FireVox for this lesson.

There are other screen readers out there — for example Orca on Linux. I will assume from here on in that you are using FireVox. Regardless of wich screen reader you use, I recommend that you become comfortable with its controls before teaching the lesson, so that you’ll be able to aid students who get stuck.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

You'll need to install a screen reading software on the computer system. For detailed instructions on configuring FireVox, see the "additional resources" section below.

The lesson breaks down into three phases:

Introduction
Demonstration
Experimentation

Introduction

At the beginning of class, I talk briefly about the challenges that disabled persons face in using the Internet. I tell the students specifically about the importance of alt text, skip links, and structural headings in web design. Typically I write the HTML code for these on the board, describing each one and fielding any questions as necessary. I mostly limit my technical discussion to visual impairments, because that’s the focus of the lesson. However, I usually mention other accessibility problems as well, such as the general lack of captions for the deaf on Internet videos, the difficulty that paralyzed people face in typing, and so on.

In a class period lasting 1 hour and 15 minutes, this portion of the exercise should take approximately 20-25 minutes.

Demonstration

During the demonstration phase, I start FireVox on the instructor computer and attempt to locate a specified piece of information on the web, reciting aloud for the students each command I give. For example, I might try to find out how much a copy of the course text book costs through Amazon. First I press CONTROL+L to highlight the location bar. Then I type in Amazon’s address. Once the page is loaded I press CONTROL+SHIFT+L to bring up a list of elements in the page, use the arrow keys to navigate through that list, and then select a search box from the form elements. I type in the title and press ENTER. Once the new page has loaded, I press TAB repeatedly to move through the links in the document until I find one that sounds right, then I press SPACE to trigger the link. Once the page has loaded, I slowly walk through the document using a combination of TAB, CONTROL+SHIFT+F (for Forward) and CONTROL+SHIFT+D (for Back). I do this using a remote keyboard, with my back to the screen. However, I leave the projector in the classroom running. FireVox highlights the particular section of the screen it’s reading at any given moment, and it’s useful for the students to see those visual cues as I am in the process of using the audio to determine where I am and what I’m doing.

Inevitably, I run across an image which does not have alt text, nested tables, or some other impediment to my understanding of the text. At this point I might stop and show them the code, or I might simply point to my hand-written version. Often I fail in whatever objective I’ve set for myself, but this generally doesn’t matter too much, since the point of this section is just to show them what the process is like before they try for themselves.

In a class period lasting 1 hour and 15 minutes, this portion of the exercise should take approximately 5-10 minutes. Those with a flair for the dramatic might make a show of putting on a blindfold.

Experimentation

Lastly, I give the students a task to complete without being able to see the screen. (see "Instructions For Students" below)

Instructions For Students:

Here are the steps the students need to perform in order to activate FireVox, assuming that you have pre-installed it using the Profile Switcher extension as described above:

Collect a pair of headphones
Plug them into their computer
Log In
Start Firefox
Click File → Launch Another Profile → FireVox
They can close the existing window or not, as they choose.

Once FireVox is up and running, they need to blank out their screens, either by turning them off or by putting a blocker card in front of them. Typically, I ask them to find their own contact information in the UT directory. If they have removed themselves from the directory, I tell them to find me, or a neighbor. Some students accomplish this task quickly, in which case I ask them to just go and browse around on the web.

Evaluation Suggestions:

this assignment was not evaluated

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

I have had excellent luck with this lesson. The students are invariably fascinated by the process. Frequently they had assumed that the blind simply could not use the web at all, so not only observing someone surfing the web blind but doing it themselves is — if you’ll forgive the phrase — an eye-opener. As a consciousness raising effort, it works fairly well.

At the very end of the class I try to contextualize their experience. The brevity of the exercise — a single class period — means that they experience the initial feelings that come with trying to learn a deeply unfamiliar interface. The two most common reactions are excitement and frustration. What they do not get is the sense of accomplishment and pride that comes with mastering that interface, because they don’t work at it long enough. Typical comments run along the line of “I’ve never been so glad to have my sight,” which highlights the frustration and unease of the experience. So, at the very end of the lesson, I try to compensate for that a bit by pointing out that blind people, who cannot independently access the Internet in any other way, soon become highly proficient at using the screen reader. They often remain frustrated, but that frustration tends to spring from encounters with badly designed web sites more than frustration with the screen reader interface.

On balance, I think using a screen reader is a valuable experience for anyone with any kind of responsibility for a web site. It takes accessibility problems out of the realm of the abstract and makes them concrete, tangible. Making future web designers palpably aware of the issue helps ensure that they will stop to consider access for the blind in their future work.

Additional Resources:

Installing and Configuring FireVox

The web site for FireVox can be found at the Firevox website. The installation process is straightforward, but there are considerations to take into account:

Do your computers automatically undo changes made during a session when you log out?
Do you have other Firefox extensions installed?

If your computers automatically undo changes made during a session whenever someone logs out, then you may wish to walk the students through the process of installing FireVox themselves. it’s a useful exercise for them. However, if the computers do not undo this change, then subsequent classes in the same room may be troubled by web browsers which inexplicably speak to them. In that case it’s best to install FireVox beforehand.

If you have other Firefox extensions installed, it’s possible that some of their shortcut keys may conflict with one another. For example, both FireVox and the Web Developer Toolbar use the keyboard shortcutCONTROL+SHIFT+F. In FireVox, that shortcut instructs the browser to move on to the next element in the document and read it aloud. But in the Web Developer Toolbar, the same shortcut enables the Element Information dialog. If you have both extensions installed and pressCONTROL+SHIFT+F, then both actions will be triggered.

You probably don’t want Firefox to speak all the time. And key conflicts are annoying. The best way to resolve both of these is to install Firevox in a fresh profile, which allows one copy of Firefox to be used by many individual users with separate sets of configuration info (including extensions). You can either do this manually (using the -p option on the command line) or you can use the Profile Switcher extension (I prefer the latter approach). Here are precise step-by-step instructions for installing FireVox in its own profile:

Download the Profile Switcher extension:
1. Click the link above;
2. Right-click the link that says “Download (for Firefox)” and save the XPI file to your desktop;
3. Once the download is complete, click “File → Open” in Firefox and open the file;
4. There will be a brief countdown; when it is done click “Install Now”;
5. Quit Firefox and restart it.
Create a new profile for FireVox to live in:
1. Click File → Open Profile Manager;
2. It doesn’t matter whether you close the current profile or not, pick “Yes” or “No” as you please;
3. Click Create Profile;
4. Click Next;
5. Enter a name for the profile — this can be anything you like, I generally use “FireVox”;
6. Click Finish;
7. Click your new profile in the list of profiles;
8. Click Start Firefox;
Download and install the FireVox extension:
1. Go to the FireVox download page;
2. Right-click the “CLC-4-TTS Suite with Fire Vox - Bundle Pack” link and save the XPI file to your desktop;
3. Once the download is complete, click “File → Open” in Firefox and open the file;
4. There will be a brief countdown; when it is done click “Install Now”
5. Quit Firefox and restart it;
6. If you are on Mac, click Tools → FireVox TTS Selection → Mac TTS
At this point, you should hear FireVox talking to you every time a page loads. If you don’t hear it, then:
1. Make sure your speakers/headphones are turned on;
2. Make sure the system volume isn’t muted;
3. If you’re on Mac, make sure you selected the “Mac TTS” option correctly (see previous step);
4. If it’s still not working ... uh, keep poking at it till it does. You do have sound drivers installed, right? Can other programs make noise?
PressCONTROL+SHIFT+H. This should bring up a list of headings in the document. If instead you see a new window called “Library,” then you’re using Firefox 3.x. There’s a conflict between FireVox and Firefox — the command is triggering two effects at once. You can correct this in one of two ways:
1. Method A — Remap the Key:
  1. Click Tools → FireVox Options;
  2. Scroll down till you find “List of Headings” in the list of assigned keys;
  3. Assign it a new key — the letter T will work;
  4. Click OK;
  5. The list of headings may now be brought up usingCONTROL+SHIFT+T. You may need to restart Firefox for this to take effect.
2. Method B — Unbind the H key from the History window:
  1. Install the Keyconfig extension;
  2. Restart Firefox;
  3. Click Tools → Keyconfig;
  4. In the list of defined shortcuts, find the “Show All History” entry, mapped toCONTROL+SHIFT+Hand click it to select it;
  5. Click the Disable button;
  6. Close Firefox completely and restart it;
  7. The list of headings may now be brought up usingCONTROL+SHIFT+H.

FireVox is now installed and configured correctly on this machine. I usually install a copy of the Profile Switcher extension in the FireVox profile too. It doesn’t conflict with FireVox at all, and it makes it easier to switch back and forth between FireVox and your regular Firefox profile.

Take some time and familiarize yourself with the Firefox controls. You can see all of the available keyboard shortcuts by clicking Tools → FireVox Options. FireVox does not use the mouse, because blind people cannot see the mouse pointer to use it.

I’m going to assume from here on out that you’re using Profile Switcher and a separate FireVox profile.

Screen Blocker Card

For best effect, the students should not be able to see the monitor of their computer while performing this exercise. If the computers in your classroom have a power button for the monitor, then you can just turn off the monitors. However, some computers (such as recent iMacs) do not offer a switch for turning off the monitor power. In this case you will need to create blocker cards before class.

These are very simple — just get some cardstock large enough to cover the screen and thick enough to block it out, and have the students prop them up in front of their monitors. If you wish, you can tape a keyboard shortcut cheat sheet to one side so that students can see a list of commands in front of them.

Keyboard Shortcut Cheat Sheet

Here is the cheat sheet which I attach to my blocker cards:

Firefox Shortcut Keys

Key	Function
Ctrl + L	Select the address bar (so you can type in a new location).
Alt + Left Arrow	Go back one page.
Alt + Right Arrow	Go forward one page.
Ctrl + T	New tab.
Ctrl + N	New window.
Ctrl + W	Close tab/window.
Ctrl + Tab	Next tab.
Ctrl + Shift + Tab	Previous tab.
Ctrl + F	Find in this page.
F3	Find next in page.
Shift + F3	Find previous in page.
F5	Reload page.
Ctrl + F5	Reload and ignore cached page.
Ctrl + C	Copy text.
Ctrl + X	Cut text.
Ctrl + V	Paste text.
Spacebar	Activate current link (or form element).
F6	Next frame.
Shift F6	Previous frame.

FireVoxShortcut Keys

Key	Function
Ctrl + Shift + D	Read previous.
Ctrl + Shift + F	Read next.
Ctrl + Shift + E	Repeat.
Ctrl	Stop speaking.
Ctrl + Shift + O	Speak selected text.
Ctrl + Shift + Q	Query current element for more info.
Ctrl + Shift + U	Speak parent element text.
Ctrl + Shift + P	Read current position.
Ctrl + Shift + A	Auto-read from current point on.
Ctrl + Shift + H	List Headings.
Ctrl + Shift + L	List all elements.
Ctrl + Shift + S	Spell out a word.
Ctrl + Shift + M	FireVox Options
Ctrl + Shift + Y	Toggle Live Region announcements.
Pause/Break	Toggle Sticky Keys
F16	Toggle Sticky Keys (Mac keyboard)

Using FireVox Sticky Keys

When sticky keys are turned on, you don’t need to press Ctrl + Shift for each FireVox command; just the letter itself. This is convenient, but causes problems any time you have to type information into a form. Always turn sticky keys off when typing information in a form.

Course Type:

Advanced Writing Course

Course Description:

This exercise is useful for any course in which students are asked to compose online or construct web sites.

Tags:

Audience Appeal - Making Commercials with Animoto

Cate Blouke — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 16:07:55 +0000

Author:

Cate Blouke

Image Credit:

"Blank Billboard" by mediaboytodd

Brief Assignment Overview:

Using the extremely user-friendly online video creation tool, Animoto, students create short commercials pitching (potentially) odd combinations of products to target audiences (pianos to businessmen, running shoes to retirees, etc.)

Type of Assignment:

Assignment Length:

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Invention

Organization

Synthesis

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

The primary goal for this assignment is to encourage students to think about audience - how to construct appeals catered to particular audiences. However, it is also useful for thinking through visual rhetorical choices (which images and pre-set video themes to use), audio choices (which song to accompany the video), and arrangement (how to structure the appeals/advertisement).

Media Requirements:

Required Materials:

To do this in-class, your students would need computer access (either a technology-based classroom, or a number of students could bring in their personal laptops) and access to an Animoto account. For one month of service, Animoto only charges $5 (a relatively minor investment for a really fun classroom activity) and your students could all work in the same account. The DWRL has a yearly subscription ($30), and lab instructors should contact Will Burdette or one of the ADs for the login information.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Full Assignment Description:

As an in-class exercise, students select a generic product from a set of options either provided by the instructor or generated by the students themselves and then re-distributed at random. Some example products might be: running shoes, sports cars, toothpaste, laptops, etc. Students then select a target audience (or "market") for thier product - also at random from a pre-determined set of options. With their basic product and target audience, students are then asked to produce a short commercial advertising their product using Animoto.

Students are required to make a number of rhetorical choices linking their product to their audience - selecting an appropriate brand name, generating a catchy slogan slogan, creating a short sales pitch, and choosing appropriate images and music to accompany their appeals.

Animoto allows users to insert small amounts of text in between images and/or video clips, constructing a short "commercial" or video trailer with predetermined "themes" and a limited selection of music. Unlike iMovie or Windows Movie Maker, Animoto does not offer a large amount of user-agency (in terms of timing, transitions, etc), but, as such, it also requires little (or no) instruction. Students are generally able to sort out how to use the tool in under five minutes and can easily complete their commercial with time to show the final product to the class and discuss it. The class discussion, then, provides an opportunity to discuss the freedoms afforded by more complicated editing programs. So, Animoto is an excellent "baby-step" towards more sophisticated video creations - particularly for students who are wary of technology.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

The assignment is made particularly exciting through the element of chance - so I bring a number of generic products (sporting goods, frozen dinners, tupperware, etc.) written out on slips of paper, and a set of audiences (parents, the elderly, businessmen, etc.) written out on separate slips. Students are divided into groups (usually of 3-4) and each group draws a product and an audience from the slips. The incongruity that tends to result from this random selection makes the exercise both challenging and engaging. I've also let my students come up with the product options, though this did result in the rather silly pairing of selling "underwear" to "mothers." So, you may want to come up with your own options if you feel this might disrupt the classroom.

Instructions For Students:

As we've discussed, making effective rhetorical appeals is all about discerning the relationship between an author and his or her audience. This exercise is designed to get you thinking about how to cater your appeals to a particular audience - which can be especially challenging if you are confronted with a potentially hostile or disinterested audience. How will you approach them (i.e. effectively cultivate your ethos) if your audience isn't necessarily receptive to what you're pitching? How would you sell a given product to an audience that (normally) might not be inclined to buy it?

You will use a simple on-line video creation tool (Animoto) to generate short "commercials" for your product. You'll select a generic product from the options generated by your classmates. You'll then select a target audience from options that I've compiled, and it will be your job to create a product and commercial aimed at that audience. This will entail a number of rhetorical choices - from brand name, catch-phrase/slogan, specific appeals, visual rhetoric (the images you choose to employ), and the music that will accompany the commercial. For each one of these, you will want to consider your company's ethos (why this audience should buy your product), pathos (what emotions or values might convince them to buy it), and logos (do your appeals make sense).

While I'm hoping that the random selections will result in odd combinations, be sure to take this 'seriously.' It might be tempting to use humor, but be careful not to alienate your audience by making light of them or their interest in the product. You'll present your finished product at the end of class, and as a group we'll discuss what makes the commercials rhetorically effective.

Here are the requirements for your commercial:

You need to select a brand name for your product
You need to come up with a slogan/sales pitch for your target audience (e.g. "Beef: It's what's for dinner" or "Milk: does a body good" or "Just Do It," etc.)
You need at least three images connected to the product you're pitching, and three images connected to the audience (though you're welcome to add more than this)
Select music that seems appropriate for your audience, product, and sales pitch
The commercial should be "real" - as in, take it seriously and avoid egregious rhetorical fallacies (no scare tactics or ridiculous promises)

Evaluation Suggestions:

I typically give my students 20 minutes or so to put together their commercials, then we watch them as a class. I ask them to consider what makes the commercial effective, and to point out the qualities they see as particularly appealing (to that given audience). Then we try to think through some possible objections that the audience might have, and we discuss how the commercial might have been more effective. This usually revolves around questions of ethos (product reputation and reliability) and the logos of the commercial (is it making unsubstantiated claims; does it make sense). Adittionally, we talk about what the groups hoped to accomplish and the challenges they faced.

Students will often express frustration at the textual limitations of Animoto (it only allows for lines of 20-30 characters), and/or the limited amount of agency in terms of timing and transitions. This opens up a space to talk about these aspects of video editing/composition, which is especially useful if future video editing projects are on the syllabus.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

My students love this exercise. It's a low-stakes and fun way to introduce the concept of audience, and it inevitably produces a range of high quality of work. After I tried this exercise the first time, it was quite helpful to show my next set of students an example before turning them loose.

Course Type:

Course Description:

I've used this exercise in both my introductory writing course (RHE 306) and my intermediate course (RHE 309K) with similar, positive results.

RHE 306 – Rhetoric & Writing is a course in argumentation that situates rhetoric as an art of civic discourse. It is designed to enhance your ability to analyze the various positions held in any public debate and to advocate your own position effectively. Your work in this course will help you advance the critical writing and reading skills you will need to succeed in courses for your major and university degree.

Tags:

Remixing Materials from the Public Domain

Will Burdette — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 21:23:11 +0000

Author:

Will Burdette

Image Credit:

"Cue" via danmachold's Flikr stream

Brief Assignment Overview:

During the workshop-style lesson, students will learn about the literary and rhetorical aspects of selection and juxtaposition. This assignment introduces students to ways of finding public domain music and audio clips of literary and rhetorical value. It also briefs them on the ins and outs of fair use of copyrighted content. It gives them a chance to play with two audio interfaces (DJay and GarageBand). The work results in a short ringtone that can serve a work sample for their portfolio and fun novelty to take out of the classroom.

Type of Assignment:

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Assignment Length:

Multiple Class Periods

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Organization

Synthesis

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

Invention
Organization/Arrangement
to help students broaden their definition of writing beyond words on a page and reimagine the formats their writing might take;
to emphasize the importance of selection and juxtaposition in literature and writing;
to demonstrate how appropriately and legally to re-use source material created by others;
to give students an introduction to tools that they can use to produce and perform audible writing.

Media Requirements:

Required Materials:

Web browsers
Headphones
DJay software
GarageBand software (other audio editing software like Audacity will work)
iTunes

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Early in the Semester

Full Assignment Description:

This lesson plan was designed in conjunction with the Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky that Subliminal kid lecture and performance. During the workshop-style lesson, students will learn about the literary and rhetorical aspects of selection and juxtaposition. This assignment introduces students to ways of finding public domain music and audio clips of literary and rhetorical value. It also briefs them on the ins and outs of fair use of copyrighted content. It gives them a chance to play with two audio interfaces (DJay and GarageBand). The work results in a short ringtone that can serve a work sample for their portfolio and fun novelty to take out of the classroom.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

Make sure students have headphones or provide them. (Use the DWRL classroom set of headphones w/ 1/8" plugs instead of the USB headphones. Plug in only the headphones, not the mics.) Compile a list of places to search for public domain or Creative Commons music and audio. It's best to do the search in real time so you can show them how to download the files. For that reason, it's important to rehearse your search a few times so you know the results ahead of time.

Student Instructions:

Instructions are available in a variety of formats:

Instructions in HTML
Instructions in Keynote
Instructions in PDF

Instructions For Students:

In this workshop, we:

find audio content
mess around with tools for editing, remixing, saving, and uploading audio content
make a ringtone that you can put on your phone and take with you

More specifically we’re going to:

find two tracks (one literary/rhetorical/spoken word track and one musical track)
mix them together and record them in DJay
open the file in GarageBand and cut it down to < 40 seconds (5-6 recommended)
export as a ringtone

Search one of the collections listed under resources for one spoken word piece and one piece of music.

Open iTunes and make a playlist called “Writing With Sound.” Drag both of your files into that
playlist.

Open DJay and find your “Writing With Sound” playlist and drag one file onto one turntable and
one file onto the other turntable.

Mess around a bit. Add some effects, play with cue points, looping, and skipping. Adjust the speed. Sync the tracks, etc. Rehearse until you find something suitable to record.

Hit the record button and play around for a while. Save to your desktop.

Open GarageBand.

(A this point it is good to highlight the difference between GarageBand and Djay. Djay is more of

a performative tool that you can use to make a recording. GarageBand is an editing tool. You could do the same thing in GarageBand without Djay. But DJing is a slightly different skill set than audio editing or making mash-ups. I want students to understand that.)

Find the file you made in Djay and drag it into GarageBand.

Time permitting, add effects, drums, whatever. The “i” button on the bottom right will give you instruments. The eye-shaped button on the left will pull up a loop browser.

Select a sample. Click on the cycle region button and a strip will show up above the tracks. Click
and drag it and you will be able to select and loop a passage.

Share it. Select Share > Send Ringtone to iTunes. Find the Ringtone in iTunes under “Ringtones.” (It should be filename.m4r). Drag it to your desktop and e-mail it to yourself. You now have a ringtone for your phone.

Upload a version for your portfolio. Share > Export Song to Disk > Choose mp3 encoder, and export. You now have an .mp3 to upload.

Evaluation Suggestions:

The ringtone is assessed as part of the portfolio or learning record.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

It is important to pace your instructions so that you are not trying to give students new information while they have headphones on. For that reason, it's important to demo the whole workshop, then direct students to the instructions in case they need a guide to reference, then turn them loose.

Additional Resources:

Places to find spoken word samples for use in academic projects:

There are lots of places to find music online that you can use in academic projects. A couple are:

But don't forget that fair use was designed specifically to allow for the use of copyrighted work. This lessson plan takes into account all four of the pilars of fair use. For more information on fair use, see "Fair Use" at Stanford University Libraries.

Of course, time and talent permitting, you can produce your own music, ask a friend, or use remix-friendly artists like:

Other Tools:

SoundCloud (Good for uploading, sharing, and peer review because it allows commenting at specific places in the tracks.)
FreeSound.org (Good for finding sound effects.)
Aviary (Good for editing in a browser.)

Course Type: