DWRL Lesson Plans - Stasis theory

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

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

Author:

Image Credit:

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

Brief Assignment Overview:

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

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

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

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

Type of Assignment:

Class Discussion

In-class Exercise

Homework Assignment

Assignment Length:

Single Class Period

One-Two Class Periods

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Literature:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Collaboration

Social Media

Visualization

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

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

Media Requirements:

No Classroom Technology Required

Adaptable For Use Without Classroom Technology

Required Materials:

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

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Useful Anytime

Early in the Semester

Full Assignment Description:

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

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

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

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

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

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

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

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

Instructions For Students:

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

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

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

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

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

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

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

Course Type:

Advanced Writing Course

Intermediate Writing Course

Introductory Writing Course

Tags:

Using FreeMind to Draft Controversy Maps

Sarah Frank — Thu, 03 Oct 2013 22:21:14 +0000

Author:

Sarah Frank

Image Credit:

A variation on the FreeMind logo, using both the butterfly and the light bulb. (Made by Dyvim using Inkscape)

http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/File:Freemind_logo_by_dyv...

Brief Assignment Overview:

In this week-long assignment, students draw on stasis theory to generate a visualization of available arguments in a controversy.

Type of Assignment:

In-class Exercise

Assignment Length:

One-Two Class Periods

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Invention

Stasis

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Pre-Writing

Research

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Visualization

Media Requirements:

Adaptable For Use Without Classroom Technology

Required Materials:

For computer classroom (with Freemind software):

- FreeMind software

- 3-4 viewpoint articles on a single topic, assigned by the instructor or chosen by individual students

For a traditional classroom (no computers or no Freemind):

- large paper or posterboard

- 3-4 viewpoint articles on a single topic, assigned by the instructor or chosen by individual students

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Early in the Semester

Full Assignment Description:

This lesson plan draws on stasis theory, and aims to help students visualize their controversy before composing Essay 1 (the Controversy Map).

Before coming to class, students read a chapter on stasis theory (I assigned a chapter from Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students, but any textbook chapter on stasis theory will be adequate). To open class, students discussed the reading, and we reviewed four points of stasis (conjecture, definition, quality, policy) and the common questions that characterize those stasis points.

Next, I had students assemble in small groups (3-4 students per group). Each group created a Mind Map using FreeMind software. I asked each group to create a map with four arms—one for each point of stasis.

Each group then reviewed four articles I provided. I asked each group to record the arguments made by each author, and to map those arguments onto the appropriate stasis, using FreeMind. Two examples of the students' Mind Maps are displayed below:

GARCIA_Mindmap.png

Huerta_MindMap.png

Students then uploaded their Mind Maps to our course workspace (on pbworks.com). As a class, we viewed and compared each group's map. We discussed the similarities and differences between maps, and speculated on how and why these differences can exist.

Before the next lesson, I imported each group's Mind Map, and I combined their Maps into one comprehensive Map:

306_GroupMindMap_Gentrification.jpg

During the next class meeting, we viewed the comprehensive Map as a group. We noted that all authors responded to questions of conjecture (per our example: "Does gentrification exist?") similarly. Referring back to stasis theory, we agreed that no substantive debate was taking place at the conjecture stasis.

We also noted, however, that authors tended to respond to questions of definition ("What is gentrification?") quite differently. The Map above demonstrates this point visually; the definition stasis (mapped in the top left corner) shows that authors tend to make more arguments at this stasis than at others. In the same vein, authors tend to respond to questions of quality (mapped in the bottom right corner) in various ways, depending on what definition they adopt.

Finally, we noted that discussion at the policy stasis (bottom left corner) is sparse, and we hypothesized (drawing on stasis theory) that authors cannot yet speculate on policy because they have not agreed on definition and value questions.

After discussing the comprehensive map, I asked students to use the remainder of class time to create their own Mind Maps for their chosen controversies. This assignment gave students the opportunity to conduct more research in class, and it helped students begin to visualize the field of their controversies. At the end of class, we discussed the relationship of their Mind Maps to their first major essay. I recommended that students use their Mind Maps to think about the landscape of the debate, and to help them draw connections between various viewpoints.

This assignment can be condensed into one class period, if the instructor does not wish to do the preliminary group exercise.

This assignment can also be adapted to traditional classrooms if the instructor provides materials to create physical (pen and paper) Maps.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

Instructors wishing to implement the preliminary group exercise should select 3-4 viewpoint articles on the same topic, and make those articles available to students. Additionally, instructors should familiarize themselves with the FreeMind software. Instructors should also determine how (and where) students should save completed Mind Maps, since most campuse computers will not support FreeMind.

Instructions For Students:

DAY ONE:

1. Assemble in groups of 3-4 students, and create a Mind Map with the topic in the center (gentrification, in our example), and four arms protruding from the center. Each arm should represent one point of stasis.

2. As a group, review the articles provided. As you read, record the various arguments (both thesis and claims) each author makes.

3. Record the arguments in the Mind Map, linking individual arguments with the appropriate stasis. For example, an author who argues that gentrification is a problem in which race is central is making a definitional argument. This argument woud need to be recorded on the "Definition" arm.

DAY TWO:

1. Examine the comprehensive map created by the instructor. Reflect on (and/or discuss) how the map represents the field of the controversy. Based on the Map, how would you describe the controversy?

2. Using the research you have conducted on your own controversy, create a new map that records the various positions in your chosen debate.

Evaluation Suggestions:

Students completed this assignment as part of the Learning Record, but instructors may have their own strategies for evaluation. While the maps do not lend themselves to a quantitative grade, instructors may ask students to compose written reflections on group Maps and individual Maps. These written reflections may be more easily evaluated based on the students understanding of stasis theory.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

This exercise is successful as a pre-writing exercise in Unit 1. Students are often confused when asked to describe the "field" or the "big picture" of a controversy in Essay 1, but this assignment helps them by representing this "field" or "big picture" visually.

At the end of Unit 1, some students remarked that, in writing Essay 1, they needed only to describe linguistically what they could observe visually on their individual Mind Maps.

This exercise was also successful in introducing stasis theory.

Course Type:

Introductory Writing Course

Tags: