DWRL Lesson Plans - Cultural Norms

Kairos and Ideology Analysis: American Values and Contexts

Sloan — Mon, 27 Oct 2014 21:05:23 +0000

Image Credit:

Brief Assignment Overview:

This assignment asks students to fill out a worksheet for analyzing the ideological presuppositions of two arguments that rely on a popular superhero, Captain America, to make their respective arguments. This assignment can be used to solidify student understanding of kairos and presuppositions.

Type of Assignment:

In-class Exercise

Homework Assignment

Assignment Length:

Single Class Period

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Literature:

Cultural Context

Historical Context

Media Requirements:

Adaptable For Use Without Classroom Technology

Required Materials:

For students:

-Pen or pencil

-Worksheet (can be filled out on a computer through an LMS like Canvas or Blackboard, or in hard copy provided by instructor)

-The image and article to be analyze (either through a computer or in hard copy provided by instructor)

For instructor:

-Without classroom technology

-Hard copies of worksheet, comic book cover, and article for each student

-With classroom technology

-Projector to show image and article

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Mid-Semester

Full Assignment Description:

The Captain America comic book cover published in April, 1942 features a larger-than-life Captain America physically subduing a stereotyped caricature of Japanese Emperor Hirohito. This cover appeared shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, a historical event depicted on the cover itself. Students will analyze the kairos (Pearl Harbor and WWII) and the presuppositions about American values (victory through martial power, strength, an in-group mentality, patriotism, etc.) for this comic book cover.

They will compare the American values lauded in the comic book cover with the American values mobilized by the Sikh artist Vishavjit Singh. In 2013, Singh dressed up as Captain America and walked through New York City. He catalogues his experiences in the Salon.com article "Captain America in a Turban." Students will analyze the kairos (the Twin Towers terrorist attacks, discrimination against Sikhs in America) and the presuppositions about American values (diversity, inclusivity, etc.) for this article/ performance.

After filling out the worksheet on kairos and ideology, either for homework or in class, students should be encouraged to share their answers in a group discussion.

This assignment allows students to clearly see the connection between kairos and ideology by demonstrating how the same fictional character (Captain America) can be used to mobilize very different presuppositions and beliefs.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

Instructors should decide whether students will be given hard copies of the worksheet, the comic book cover and the article. Instructors should also be prepared to answer student questions about the publication dates of each source, the relevant historical context and the larger performance project of Singh.

Students should also have alread been introduced to kairos and ideology.

Students should first be given preliminary information about the comic book cover and the article. They should be provided with the publication dates for each and told about the medium in which each appeared.

Instructions For Students:

I have pasted the instructions from the worksheet below. Before filling out the worksheet, students will need to know the publication dates of each source. The worksheet is also provided below in Additional Resources. The two sources are also linked below. My students took about twenty minutes to fill out the worksheet. We spent the remainder of the class discussing their answers.

Kairos and Ideology Critique: Captain America and American Values Worksheet

Name:

Rhetorical Analysis defines kairos as “both the occasion for discourse and the surrounding conditions that present the rhetor with opportunities and constraints: opportunities or openings to say certain things in certain ways; and constraints that limit what can be said and how” (9-10). We can think about kairos partially as the historical context for a controversy.

According to Rhetorical Analysis, ideology is “a set of presuppositions that influences most everything—people’s family lives, their political choices, their intimate and professional relationships. These presuppositions must be held by an entire social class, culture, or community” (185-86). Ideological analysis allows us to identify key beliefs and values held by a group of people.

Examine the Captain America comic cover from 1942 and the Salon article about the Captain America performance piece by Vishavjit Singh in 2013. Both sources are using the ethos of Captain America to make very different arguments. Answer the following questions:

What is the kairos for each source?

Are the sources “timely,” or, do they respond intelligently to their respective kairos? How so?

What does each source presuppose about American values? What values does the comic book cover ask you to share? What values does the performance piece ask you to share?

How do the values/beliefs about American culture in each piece match or mismatch the piece’s kairos?

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

This exercise seemed to make kairos and ideology readily accessible to some struggling students. The widely-known historical events of World War II and 9/11 helped clarify not only kairos, but audience as well. We talked about how the recent attack on Pearl Harbor helped create the audience for the comic cover and how an awareness of 9/11 made Singh's performance all the more relevant and powerful.

I did find it important to emphasize early on that the WWII comic cover uses racist imagery to make its argument. We had a very productive discussion about how the dehumanizing of Hirohito effectively concealed certain American ideological values like diversity while emphasizing others like exceptionalism and martial power.

Additional Resources:

April 1942 Captain America War Propaganda Comic Book Cover (Captain America punches a Monstrous Emperor Hirohito while Pearl Harbor Unfolds at their Feet)

Sept. 2013 Salon.com "Captain America in a Turban" (Sikh artist Vishavjit Singh describes his experience dressing up as Captain America and walking the streets of New York City)

Worksheet for Students:

Kairos and Ideology Critique: Captain America and American Values Worksheet

Name:

What is the kairos for each source?

Are the sources “timely,” or, do they respond intelligently to their respective kairos? How so?

What does each source presuppose about American values? What values does the comic book cover ask you to share? What values does the performance piece ask you to share?

How do the values/beliefs about American culture in each piece match or mismatch the piece’s kairos?

Course Type:

Intermediate Writing Course

Course Description:

I used this lesson plan in RHE 309k: The Rhetoric of Superheroes, an intermediate writing course with special topics chosen each semester by the instructors. Students are taught writing, research, rhetorical analysis, and invention.

Tags:

Exploring 18th-19th Century Crime Broadsides Online

coulson — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 14:09:22 +0000

Author:

Doug Coulson

Image Credit:

Harvard Law School Library

Brief Assignment Overview:

As a conclusion to an online research workshop, students explore the rhetoric of 18th-19th century crime broadsides from the Harvard Law School Library's online collection of crime broadsides.

Type of Assignment:

Assignment Length:

One-Two Class Periods

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Literature:

Historical Context

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Research

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

The goals of the assignment are to further a discussion of the symbolic aspects of legal rhetoric, or how legal rhetoric operates not only to decide the outcomes of legal cases but to shape communal values and norms, by having students conduct an in-class rhetorical analysis of texts and images describing crimes and the apprehension of criminals during the 18th-19th century when such information was widely disseminated in broadsides and public discourse regarding the investigation of crimes common. The assignment is also designed to facilitate the teaching of online research and communication techniques and to generate engaging class discussion.

Media Requirements:

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Required Materials:

In-class computers with internet access and a course blog.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Useful Anytime

Full Assignment Description:

As a conclusion to an online research workshop, students explore the rhetoric of 18th-19th century crime broadsides from the Harvard Law School Library's online collection of crime broadsides.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

Previous discussion of legal rhetoric should have covered the symbolic aspects of legal rhetoric, or how legal rhetoric operates not only to decide the outcomes of legal cases but to shape communal values and norms.

To begin the assignment, introduce students to the Harvard Law School Library's online collection of crime broadsides. With students at their computers, demonstrate the site's search features and discuss a couple of sample broadsides as a tutorial of the site.

Inform students that their task is to isolate and analyze the ways in which norms and identity are rhetorically constructed in one of the broadsides from the site. (Alternatively, students could be instructed to isolate multiple broadsides to compare and contrast.) The remainder of the class is devoted to students conducting their own research and posting their broadsides along with a brief rhetorical analysis to the course blog. The blog posts may then be discussed collectively as a class with or without requesting individual students to present on their broadsides and analysis. The assignment may be completed in a single class period or span two class periods, depending on the details of the assignment.

Instructions For Students:

In furtherance of our discussion of the symbolic aspects of legal rhetoric, or how legal rhetoric operates not only to decide the outcomes of legal cases but to shape communal values and norms, you will isolate and analyze the ways in which norms and identity are rhetorically constructed in one [or more] of the crime broadsides from the Harvard Law School Library's online collection of crime broadsides. Your task is to identify a broadside that reflects a particularly interesting example of a rhetoric of identity and post the broadside with a brief rhetorical analysis to the course blog. At the conclusion of the assignment, we will discuss your collective findings and analyses.

Evaluation Suggestions:

I've never graded this assignment. It's primarily designed to engage students in questions considered during the course and facilitate class discussion.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

I've used this lesson plan with two classes and both found the broadsides and their rhetoric fascinating and enjoyed the assignment. Their contributions were often very engaged and insightful.

Course Type:

Advanced Writing Course

Course Description:

In his book On the Contrary, rhetoric scholar Thomas Sloane writes, ”Rhetorical thought is—let us admit it—highly perverse and lawyerly in nature.” In this statement, Sloane not only alludes to the closely intertwined history of rhetoric and law from the earliest days of Western thought to the modern era, but highlights their shared promotion of an agonistic “art of controversy” which seeks to facilitate controversy through the practice of arguing both sides of a case, a practice classical rhetoricians called in utramque partem (“on either side”). The principal theorists of classical Greek and Roman rhetoric promoted agonistic contests in which speakers argued opposite sides of disputed issues, often with specifically judicial contexts in mind, and the American legal system’s adversarial system of justice is founded on a contest of accusation and defense between parties in which each seeks to persuade a judge or jury of disputed issues of fact and law on opposite sides of a case.

Despite the close relationship between rhetoric and law, however, and the fact that the lawyer remains, in the words of legal scholar James Boyd White, “the modern rhetorician in its purest form,” the modern professionalization of law has frequently attempted to deny or repress the rhetorical aspects of legal discourse and the agonistic conflict on which the adversarial system of justice is founded. Instead, modern law has promoted a view of legal discourse as a value-neutral “science” based on logical deduction and immune to social and political influence. This paradoxical relationship between law and rhetoric in modern legal discourse has produced a recent revival of questions about modern law’s denial of rhetoric, including important questions about the role of character and emotion in legal argument, the role of narrative in the analysis of legal evidence, the effect of the adversarial system of justice on social cohesion and division, and the relationship of legal rhetoric to democracy, coercion, and violence.

In this course, we will study these questions by first examining the forms of argument used in the legal profession today, focusing on arguments regarding the interpretation of circumstantial evidence in legal cases and the analogical, or case-based, form of legal argument known as “legal reasoning” which is used to argue for or against the application of judicial precedent to new cases. Specifically, we will study arguments regarding the evidence in controversial trials such as the 1935 Richard Hauptmann (“Lindbergh Kidnapping”) trial, the 1982 Lindy Chamberlain (“Dingo”) trial, and the 1992 Randy Weaver (“Ruby Ridge”) trial, as well as arguments and judicial opinions in U.S. Supreme Court cases regarding the minimum standards of effective legal advocacy found in the Sixth Amendment’s right to assistance of counsel. After examining the forms and purposes of legal rhetoric as it is actually employed in the legal profession, we will then consider contemporary critiques of the adversary system and the agonistic rhetoric on which it depends, including critiques implicit in public perceptions of the legal system and cultural representations of lawyers.

Tags: