DWRL Lesson Plans - Late in the Semester

Course Description:

RHE 306: Rhetoric and Writing

This course is grounded in the rhetorical analysis of "controversies," broadly defined. It is divided into three units, each one requiring some sort of outside research. The first two units are devoted to rhetorical analysis; they are mostly descriptive and allow students to become familiar with what is being said and how. The third unit is devoted to advocacy; having become familiar with the controversy, students now take a position within it and produce an informed argument for that position.

Tags:

Mind map

Mapping a Controversy (Literally)

Stevenson — Fri, 24 Apr 2015 18:49:15 +0000

Author:

Katharine Stevenson

Image Credit:

Wikipedia

Brief Assignment Overview:

Students create Google maps to contextualize events and locations related to their controversies.

Type of Assignment:

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Assignment Length:

One-Two Class Periods

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Kairos

Visual Rhetoric

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Pre-Writing

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Media Requirements:

Required Materials:

Every student or at least every pair of students needs a computer with Internet access.

Each student needs a Gmail account that is not a utexas.edu account. (All of my students have always had them.)

You will need a computer with a projector for displaying each student's project.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Full Assignment Description:

This classroom project is absolutely necessary for my Rhetoric of Tourism course, but it would be useful in any class that involves research projects and/or readings about travel or that are based in unfamiliar settings. My students tend to talk about the locations relevant to their chosen tourism controversies as if everyone in the classroom knows where these places are. Often, even the student writing about Jakarta isn't clear on where exactly it is!

Have students work in pairs to figure out the new GoogleMaps website, but have each student complete their own map. Avoid demonstrating too many GoogleMaps features on the projector; left to their own devices, students will figure out how to use the website collaboratively.

Begin with a short introduction in which you describe the assignment and show students how to create a new GoogleMap that will save itself as they make alterations to it. (I found that this was the part of GoogleMaps that my students had the most trouble figuring out. They must be logged into a Gmail account to create a saveable map.) After describing the instructions and expectations to the class, give them at least forty-five minutes to complete the assignment. Then have each student email you a link to their map and present their work to the rest of the class.

I set aside one and a half class days for this assignment: one full day to create the map, and one half day to present the maps.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

You will want to thoroughly familiarize yourself with the new GoogleMaps before you assign this project. There were some functions that my class could not figure out on their own, like how to draw a simple line on the map.

I created a sample map for my class that I could display on the projector and that they could explore on their own browsers.

Instructions For Students:

Most of the controversies we're working on in class are concerned with unfamiliar parts of the world. While some of us have had the opportunity to travel, we probably haven't traveled to all of the same places as our classmates, and most of us haven't been to any of the key locations of some of these controversies. The goal of this assignment is to help us all visualize where current tourism-related controversies are occurring.

For this assignment, you will create a Google map. I'll demonstrate how to begin and save a map before we start. You will then add things to the map, concentrating on points that you think will be helpful to the rest of the class. If your controversy spans several different parts of the globe, include them all! You can use this as an opportunity to demonstrate distances between various locations.

Your map should:

1. Include at least five locations relevant to your controversy. These could be points at which various events occurred, or they could be part of a timeline showing a related sequence of events.

2. Include the travel routes that are part of your controversy. You can even include a travel route from Austin to demonstrate distance or time.

3. Include several photo pins that help to contextualize your controversy.

4. Use descriptive labels.

Once you've created and saved your map, you will click "share" to obtain its URL, which you can then post in the comments section of today's PbWorks page. make sure that you change your map's privacy settings to be viewable to people who have the link. You will need to present the map to the class when everyone is finished, with descriptive commentary about the content. This should be fun and interesting, especially finding photos of your relevant locations, but it should also be instructive. Try to focus on locations that need to be understood in order to shed light on your controversies.

Evaluation Suggestions:

I don't grade this assignment, but it counts as a completion grade towards a group of assignments making up 20% of the grade.When students present their maps, I am always prepared to prompt them for more information, ask them to zoom out to show more context, etc. I try to involve the whole class in a discussion about geography and the relevance of various locations to their controversies.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

I haven't had any issues with students not completing this because it isn't graded; both semesters they've enjoyed the map assignment and it's clear that the whole class learns quite a bit. In my experience, students are pretty unclear about lots of geographical locations, particularly in Eastern Europe, India, Africa, and South America.

Course Type:

Tags:

Mapping

Google Maps

Concession, Refutation and Rebuttal Through Amazon Reviews

Grewe — Sat, 15 Nov 2014 21:22:27 +0000

Author:

Lauren Grewe

Image Credit:

Image credit to Pets Adviser, www.petsadviser.com.

Brief Assignment Overview:

In this activity, students will use Amazon reviews of the Women's Sexy PhD Halloween costume to identify places where the authors concede, refute and rebut the idea behind the costume. They will then come up with their own Amazon reviews for a product, real or imagined, of their choice.

Type of Assignment:

Adaptable For Use Without Classroom Technology

Assignment Length:

Partial Class Period

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Rhetorical Fallacies

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Invention

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Remix

Media Requirements:

Required Materials:

Preferably, each student or at least each student group would have their own computer on which to read the Amazon reviews. Alternatively, a few students could bring in laptops or tablets to share with their groups.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Full Assignment Description:

Go over the Rhetoric 306 chapter that discusses concession, refutation and rebuttal. Then, introduce the students to the "sexy" women's PhD costume on Amazon. Have them get into groups and read the customer reviews for the costume. They should identify which reviews use concession, refutation or rebuttal. In the case of refutation, they should identify the flawed rhetorical argument. After they complete this task, discuss their results as a class. Then, have them work individually to write their own reviews of whatever product they want, using either concession, refutation, or rebuttal in their counter arguments.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

Prepare a powerpoint of the chapter discussing concession, refutation and rebuttal.

Instructions For Students:

Have the students get on their computers and look up the "sexy" women's PhD Halloween costume on Amazon. Then, get into groups and identify concession, refutation and rebuttal in the reviews of this product. After you've done that you will discuss your findings as a class. Next, you will be writing your own Amazon reviews of whatever product you'd like, using elements of concession, refutation, and rebuttal.

Evaluation Suggestions:

No evaluation necessary.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

My students really enjoyed reading the witty Amazon reviews of the costume. Some were inspired by the sarcastic concessions and rebuttals and modeled their own reviews after those they had read.

Additional Resources:

See this article on women PhDs' responses to the costume.

Course Type:

Course Description:

This is for use in the Rhetoric 306 class.

Tags:

Halloween

Concession

Refutation and Rebuttal

Using Comment Walls to Practice Rebuttal

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

Author:

Casey Sloan

Image Credit:

Pixabay

Brief Assignment Overview:

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

Type of Assignment:

Homework Assignment

Assignment Length:

Adaptable For Use Without Classroom Technology

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Rebuttal

Stasis

Style

Pedagogical Goals - Literature:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Social Media

Media Requirements:

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Full Assignment Description:

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

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

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

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

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

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

Instructions For Students:

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

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

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

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

Course Type:

Course Description:

I used this lession in an introductory rhetoric course.

Tags:

Villains versus Villains: Writing Persuasive Dramatic Monologues

lazhu — Fri, 18 Apr 2014 06:09:01 +0000

Author:

Lily Zhu

Image Credit:

Movies and Candy

Brief Assignment Overview:

Students work in groups to compose persuasive, dramatic monologues from the perspectives of famous, fictional villains.

Their goal is to convince the audience that the fictional, villainous actions committed were justified or, at the very least, sympathetic. This assignment focuses on voice, audience, and ethos.

Type of Assignment:

Assignment Length:

Partial Class Period

No Classroom Technology Required

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Invention

Style

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Multimedia

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

In preparation for their final paper (in which students choose a particular written form and publication venue – with very specific styles – to “publish” their argumentative essay), students will practice developing a consistent persona, recognizing the importance of context and audience. Writing from the perspective of an “unlikable” or unsympathetic figure will force students to exercise more awareness when modulating tone and more precision when structuring their syllogisms.

Media Requirements:

Required Materials:

No technology is required although the availibility of desktops/laptops would make this assignment easier for the students.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Full Assignment Description:

Have your students watch or read an excerpt of a villainous speech you’ve found commendable or seductive. In my case, I showed a YouTube clip of Zorg’s (Gary Oldman’s) speech from The Fifth Element.
(As an added bonus, I later showed a clip of Al Pacino’s irreverent speech as John Milton from The Devil’s Advocate)

I also gave them a printed version of the monologue so that they could follow along

Priest Vito Cornelius: I try to serve life. But you only seem to want to destroy it.

Zorg: Oh, Father. You're so wrong. Let me explain.

[Puts an empty water glass on his desk]

Zorg: Life, which you so nobly serve, comes from destruction, disorder, and chaos. Now take this empty glass. Here it is: peaceful, serene, boring. But if it is destroyed -

[Pushes the glass off the table. It shatters on the floor, and several small machines come out to clean it up]

Zorg: Look at all these little things! So busy now! Notice how each one is useful. Why a lovely ballet ensues, so full of form and color. Now, think about all those people that created them. Technicians, engineers, hundreds of people, who will be able to feed their children tonight, so those children can grow up big and strong and have little teeny weeny children of their own, and so on and so forth. Thus, adding to the great chain of life. You see, father, by causing a little destruction, I am in fact encouraging life. In reality, you and I are in the same business.

Students are told to engage in a detailed analysis, breaking down rhetorical elements of the chosen monologue. How does the speaker twist his/her morally reprehensible actions/behaviors into positive ones?

Because Zorg’s speech was based on an 1850 essay by Frédéric Bastiat, I had my students read a portion of that text (That Which is Seen and That Which is Unseen) – “the parable of the broken window” - and discuss how Bastiat essentially deconstructs and points out the flaws of Zorg’s argument (and any like his).

Students are then divided into groups of threes. They must pick a tv show, film, book, comic, game, etc. with a clear villain/antagonist everyone in the group is familiar with (this ensures equal contribution).

Depending on the amount of time the instructor plans to spend on this assignment, the requirements can be adjusted. I told my students to

“Write a dramatic monologue of at least 2 paragraphs from that character’s perspective, justifying a major villainous action or story arc. Be sure to make use of ethos and pathos (e.g. The Tragic Back Story or The Misunderstood Misfit).

Be as serious as possible. You may use humor, satire, irony, etc. when appropriate, but that is no excuse for weak argumentation and sloppy writing. Style and voice matter! Stay in character.”

Students then posted their completed monologues to a discussion board and had the option of presenting their speeches in front of their classmates. I had a class of 14 and the major villains were: Lotso from Toy Story 3, Captain Hook from Peter Pan, Magneto from X-Men, and Scar from The Lion King.

Though we ran out of time, the final bonus round involved a villains versus villains debate. The groups were to compose brief arguments as to why each was the most ethically sound, or least morally problematic antagonist.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

Find an interesting sample speech, and if possible, a complementing one that serves as a foil or rebuttal.

Instructions For Students:

1. Contribute to class discussion

2. Contribute to group work (analyzing and writing)

3. See assignment description

Evaluation Suggestions:

The interactive, creative component of this assignment – and making sure that the groups were small – helped motivate every student to go all in. This is more of a participation grade than anything else.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

Many of the students were very excited about their final product and enjoyed looking at ethos and voice from this perspective.

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.

Video Remixing with Jon Stewart

Bohmann — Tue, 08 Apr 2014 21:51:53 +0000

Author:

Axel Bohmann

Image Credit:

Wikimedia Commons

Brief Assignment Overview:

The assignment introduces students to some very basic video editing techniques (cutting clips, detaching audio, inserting new audio) and gets them thinking about how the visual and sound channel in a video composition play together to create rhetorical effect. It's also fun as hell.

Type of Assignment:

Assignment Length:

Partial Class Period

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Multimedia

Multimodal

Remix

Media Requirements:

Required Materials:

Every student needs to be able to access a computer with video editing software (I use iMovie since that is available on DWRL machines, but Mozilla Popcorn Maker is freely available and will work for this assignment too (see Beck Wise's LP post). A pair of headphones for each student is strictly not required, but without them there will be a lot of noise distraction. I just ask my students to bring their own headphones along with them to class and try to have a couple of extra ones available.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Intermediate Writing Course

Full Assignment Description:

In March, 2104, Jon Stewart took this campaign ad from Kentucky senator Mitch McConnell (R) and developed a number of remixes from it (see for example the segment from the show or just search #mcconnelling). This practice quickly developed into a wide-spread online phenomenon. Apart from being hilarious, it is remarkably simple to do, yet can teach students a good deal about video composition. I developed a standalone exercise out of it that just introduces some basics of video composition, but you could easily fill a whole class period or even two with it (for example, I don't ask my students to analyze the McConnelling videos others have made, since at the point in the semester I'm doing this exercise I mainly want to lower their affective filter/anxiety about doing their own multimedia projects and help them acquire some skills to do so).

The first thing I do is simply show students the segment from the Daily Show, which has several examples of McConnell remixes. Most of my students this semester knew it already (although that's going to be different as the trend fades away), but everybody still enjoys watching it. Towards the end, there is a point when Stewart says "we're calling it #mcconnelling and I think everyone can play" (03:48). This is where I cut in and tell students that now it is their turn to play. To make it interesting, I make a competition out of it: the best McConnelling student video (by popular vote) gets to be handed in in lieu of their remixing assignment due a couple of days later.

I provide written instructions for a) downloading video and music from youtube, b) importing material into the event library in iMovie, c) starting a project in iMovie, and d) detaching audio from video in iMovie. In addition, students have found it helpful if I walked them through the entire process once on the instructor station. Once that is done, they need time (ca 20-25 min.) to get their materials in place and work with them. During this I hover around the classroom and try to answer any questions, help fix issues, etc.

One thing to be aware of is to leave yourself and your students enough time to make sure they can save their project, and save it in the right format (i.e. they want to 'share', not just save the iMovie project). In the trajectory of my class, it makes sense to withhold the finished #mcconnelling remixes from classmates until the next class session, when I use them as a segue into more advanced video editing. But there is no principled reason you should not watch the films as a class right after finishing the exercise.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

The most important thing you want to make sure is that you know your way around the functions in iMovie (or whatever program you choose) that students will be working with. I suppose the easiest way to do this would be to make your own #mcconnelling video. As an added benefit you can then show that to your students and give them another thing to compete with - works quite well in my experience.

Also, be sure to let your students know in advance that they should bring headphones to class. Else it will get distractingly loud.

Instructions For Students:

McConnelling in iMovie

This exercise will get us started on working in iMovie and thinking about remixing sound
and moving images to create new arguments.

If you haven’t seen it yet, watch http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/s4z9il/-mcconnelling

Find the original McConnell spot at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrdTX8m5G98 (or youtube search “McConnell original video”)

Download the video using http://www.clipconverter.cc/

Start iMovie (the little star symbol in your program bar on the Mac side of the computers, or use the search ('magnifying glass') function and type in "iMovie")

It will tell you you can start a new project by dragging and dropping material into “this area” (the project window), but that’s a lie

In fact, you will first need to import that material (File -> Import -> Movies) into the Event Library

Then, select the section you need from the library and drag and drop it into the project window

Select the entire project, right click on it, and choose “Detach Audio”

Now, you can simply delete the original audio

Choose an audio file that will work well with the video (remember you can use www.youtube-mp3.org to grab audio off youtube)

Unlike videos, the audio file will need to be directly dragged and dropped into your project from its location on your file system – don’t ask me why.

Have fun.

Evaluation Suggestions:

I work with the Learning Record (highly recommended), so there is no direct evaluation attached to this project. But even if you use a more traditional grading system, I would refrain from putting a number to this assignment. Since it is in-class work under time pressure and with all sorts of potential software issues built into it, this would seem unfair towards students. The only thing I do in terms of evaluation is let the class pick their favorite remix and give that a reward (in my case, having this work stand in for an otherwise additional remixing exercise).

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

My students generally loved this exercise.It's always fun to make someone else (especially a Kentuckian senator) look stupid, the cognitive load seemed just right so they were learning something new but not overwhelmed by it, and the sense of competition between classmates really spurred them on. The results look/sound great.

One student, however, could not successfully import video into iMovie and I was unable to fix the issue. So this exercise was a little frustrating for her. Some steps to take to prevent this from happening are a) making sure everybody works with the same version of the program that you use to demonstrate the steps, b) checking lab computers for bugs/issues.

Course Type:

Facilitating Multimedia Composition

RMazique — Sat, 05 Apr 2014 06:33:14 +0000

Author:

Rachel Mazique

Image Credit:

Rachel Mazique's "Disability in Pop Culture" Class YouTube Channel

Brief Assignment Overview:

This lesson helped students begin composing their final rhetoric assignment: a Multimedia Argument Project (MAP). I encouraged students to work with each other during the planning process and to collaborate with one another as they developed their digital literacy skills.

Type of Assignment:

Assignment Length:

Multiple Class Periods

Course Unit

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

In addition to the goals above, students were to:

-become familiar with the range of digital resources available for multimedia composition projects

-practice composing in multiple modes (visual, aural, alphanumeric)

Media Requirements:

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Required Materials:

--Please Note: all of the links below were organized onto appropriately titled pages in a folder titled "Final Project Help" on our class wiki--

1. samples of student-authored multimedia projects:

either from The Journal for Undergraduate Multimedia Projects (TheJUMP) or past student work from my class YouTube channel,

2. KeepVid website (best run on Safari),

3. a Google Doc for class brainstorming on “Beginning the Final Project,” (stored on a class PBworks wiki page)

4. Internet Archives,

5. Creative Commons for songs,

6. Disability song list,

7. Animoto website, instructions for Animoto video production, More Animoto Help,

(beneficial, though not required):

8. Digital Writing and Research Lab (DWRL) rental equipment,

9. our class PBworks wiki Homework page

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Dr. Rodrigue's Digital Writing Resource Page

Full Assignment Description:

Adapted from Justin Hodgson’s Multimedia Research-Argument Creation

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Multimodal Argument Project Prompt:

Using your prior knowledge, that of your peers’, and the skills you will gain during this unit, you will create a multimodal researched-based argumentative "document." These multimodal arguments should demonstrate a significant research effort as well as showcase your abilities to write, think, and express yourselves via the integration of multiple media. This research will include the time you spend with “how-to” guides/tutorials with the aim of improving your digital literacy skills. But, unlike the common approach to this type of "writing," where students/researchers write a traditional paper and then try to remediate that into multimedia forms, these projects will be "born digital." Composing digitally requires you to think, draft, design, and revise in multimedia, not engage in a text-to-multimedia practice.

The multimodal project is fairly open, but its breadth is necessary as each project will be different and take a different shape depending on the intent, skills, and risk-taking strategies of each student-author. I am open to your creative input and ideas!

Your controversy or the pop culture source that you’ve analyzed should shape your creations and the varying rhetorical strategies that you employ. For example, if you’ve analyzed a cartoon or comic in Paper 2.1, you may want to create your own. If you analyzed a documentary, consider creating your own documentary. We will more fully discuss the flexibility of this project in-class, both on the day this project is assigned and throughout the unit, to ensure that you have a solid grasp of how to navigate these guidelines.

That said, here are some concrete guidelines.

Minimum Requirements:

Must take a stance with relation to your controversy and attempt to persuade readers/viewers;

Must clearly be framed as an argument of conjecture, definition, ethics, value, or policy

Must engage your analyses of representations in pop culture by either supporting certain representations, subverting stereotypical representations and/or transforming an argument made in pop culture.
Must integrate and/or utilize multiple media (both the visual and alphanumeric modes are required) for rhetorical purpose (audio is encouraged, but optional—depending on your medium);

The video is not the only medium open to you; you can also compose a comic, be creative and innovative with PowerPoint, create a website, a video game, etc.
Feel free to run an original project idea by me for approval.

Must rebut/refute at least one counterargument/position with the presentation or production of counter-images, words, and/or voices.
Must include at least 5 quality sources and "Works Cited" details (in MLA format) within the MAP--not in a separate document:

At least 2 must come from scholarly resources (you should use the research you gathered for your Annotated Bibliography; you may also use the scholarly class readings)
If your project is nearing the maximum length, you may go over the limit (if you need more time/space to add in the Works Cited and make it readable). Note, this exception to the length requirement applies only for the Works Cited. If you want to discuss another exception, please see me. See the length requirement below.

Length requirement:

Create a 2-3 minute video if you’re working alone.

If you’re working with a partner or two, the video's length requirement increases based on the number of people involved: 4-6 minutes, or 6-9 minutes, respectively.
Group size max: 3 people
If you’re not composing a video, the length requirement still applies with relation to an in-class final presentation of your project. So, if you’re using PowerPoint, it should run 2-3 minutes long in a presentation.
If you’re making a comic strip, the strip should be about 2 pages long--or however long you need to make your argument and be able to present it to the class in 2-3 minutes.

Accessibility requirement:

Make your project accessible to a deaf audience (captions/a transcript)

I can work with you on captioning your video in the Open Lab (PAR 102) on Wednesdays from 5pm-8pm.
I can also point you to some guidelines I created and work with you during class.
Fyi: if your submission to TheJUMP is accepted for publication, you will also need to make your project accessible to a blind audience (descriptions of visual features). If you did this work in advance of publication in TheJUMP, I would consider this evidence of going above and beyond in the argumentation/digital literacy course strands.

For a variety of digital resources, see the link below:

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

Plan for at least five weeks of in-class time to work on this multimedia argument project. Students need in-class time to familiarize themselves with the various technologies available to them and to learn how to compose in a digital medium besides the alphanumeric programs they are used to composing in (i.e. Microsoft Word).

If feasible within your department, sign up for at least a "plus" account with Animoto. Here in the Digital Writing and Research Lab (DWRL), instructors are fortunate that the lab will renew or subscribe to digital services like Animoto--as long as they serve a pedagogical function. I communicated with the supervisor in the DWRL, who renewed our plus account so students could create a video up to nine minutes long, which was what I required if a group had three students working together.

Below are the major steps I used for this day's lesson plan on "Facilitating Multimedia Composition":

Review vocabulary important to beginning students' composing process: topic, controversy, position and stakeholder. Ask students: what do these terms mean? What is the difference between a topic and a controversy? Explain how students should organize their arguments.
Have students review what their classmates are doing (on a Google Doc students filled in at the start of today's class: “Beginning the Final Project”) and consider who they may want to collaborate with in a co-authorship of this final project.
Introduce students to KeepVid as a way to export videos from YouTube.
Discuss Copyright laws.
Introduce the Internet Archives and Creative Commons.
Point students to “Disability Songs” list.
Have students use the rest of class time to talk over ideas with classmates they want to work with, review samples of student-authored multimedia projects on TheJUMP/previous work from our class YouTube channel, plan their final project with a rough outline, and look for images, videos and/or songs they may want to use.
Remind students to not only look for images, videos and songs that they agree with or those that could support their argument but also images, videos, and/or songs that they disagree with and will refute/rebut in their final project.
Review the definitions of refutations and rebuttals.
Point students to instructions for Animoto (on the wiki) but also mention that I can help students with this program.

Instructions For Students:

As a starting point to today's class, I had students go to the “in-class activities” folder on our class PBworks wiki.

From there, they went to the Google Doc folder and clicked on the “Beginning the Final Project” page.

Here's what they needed to write out as a starting point to the composing process. (The page also functioned as a class resource that would allow students to determine who they might want to co-author a project with.)

Please write:

1. Your topic;

2. Your controversy;

3. The pop culture source you will remediate

4. At least three positions that stakeholders take with regards to your controversy

5. The position that you saw your pop culture source taking

6. The position that you yourself take. (I explained that for this final unit, students were invited to share their viewpoint and to tell us where they stood with regards to their controversy.)

7. Possible multimedia project ideas you are considering (website, comic, documentary, photoessay, stop motion animation, etc).

Evaluation Suggestions:

For information on how I assessed students' final projects, please see my blog post on the topic: "Multimodal Writing: How do we Assess New Media?" at the Digital Writing and Research Lab's Blogging Pedagogy website

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

Students had the choice to author a project alone or to work in groups of two or three. The number of students involved in a project affected the length requirement. Longer projects were expected of group-authored multimedia arguments.

Most students felt that their controversy was unique and would not merge well with fellow classmates' controversies or topics. (These final projects were the result of a semester-long process researching a single controversy). Those who did choose to co-author a project chose to work with only one partner rather than two (for logistical reasons apparently). One group started with three members, but one member eventually decided she wanted to work on her own due to creative differences. She had a specific argument she knew she wanted to pursue.

Students who were interested in co-authoring a project needed extra guidance from me on how to coherently weave together an argument on two distinct controversies. With these students, I encouraged the student groups to start from a broader standpoint--to work from our class topic "Disability in Pop Culture"--and to use research from their specific controversies to determine an argument they wanted to make about their particular topics within our class's "umbrella."

Several students were anxious about multimedia composition.

Several others were excited about this change of pace.

In the end, through in-class guidance and collaboration amongst peers, students who were anxious about composing in iMovie for the first time (for example) were eventually proud of their final product and the new digital literacy skills they gained throughout this composition process. Several students creatively went above and beyond the requirements to create a project they would be glad to publish in a public forum such as our class YouTube channel.

One student even composed an entirely original music video; another student drew and created an original stop-motion animated video; several others drew their own comics (either by hand on paper, or online with digital drawing tools/comic software).

Additional Resources:

Recommendations from Justin Hodgson:

Bump Halbritter's recent book Mics, Cameras, and Symbolic Action: Audio-Visual Rhetoric for Writing Teachers talks about audio and video work,

Sean Morey recently had his textbook The New Media Writer come out with Fountainhead Press,

and Kristin Arola, Jennifer Shepard, and Cheryl Ball recently published their Writer/Designer: A Guide to Making Multimodal Projects.

According to Professor Hodgson, those three texts provide a nice (but not comprehensive) avenue into conversations about multimedia composition and some particular strategies for writing (with) media.

Beyond that, he recommends that instructors peruse the Computers and Composition (and Computers and Composition Online) journals for works that might resonate with your class's particular focus.

And, as always, the Blogging Pedagogy site and TheJUMP are useful resources!

Course Type:

Course Description:

In this course, students focus on analyzing the relationship between pop culture and rhetoric. Their analyses examine public disagreements about various issues such as: How do popular (mis)representations of "the supercrip" convince us to make political decisions regarding accessibility, advocacy, education, and/or social policy? How can we evaluate arguments that not only depict (dis)abled people as "heroic" but also those that portray the converse: the "grotesque unfortunate" deserving of "pity" and "help"? How do these arguments address questions of basic human rights, needs, drives and "eugenics rhetoric"? Will children (and adults) make political decisions based on recurrent thematic representations of "disability" in pop culture, and, is that a good or bad influence?

Tags:

Reading Text in Context

Laura Thain — Tue, 10 Dec 2013 06:00:42 +0000

Author:

Laura Thain

Image Credit:

NY Times

Brief Assignment Overview:

This in-class exercise encourages students to explore context for texts they are analyzing (rather than receiving such context from direct instruction) and then use visualization software in order to present their findings to their classmates.

Type of Assignment:

Assignment Length:

Adaptable For Use Without Classroom Technology

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Arrangement

Audience

Delivery

Pedagogical Goals - Literature:

Cultural Context

Genre

Historical Context

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Pre-Writing

Research

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

This exercise aims to empower students to define textual context that seems important to them at any stage of their encounter with a text.

Media Requirements:

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Required Materials:

Students need to have at least briefly encountered the textual object they are trying to contextualize. I usually conduct this exercise after their first section of reading.

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Full Assignment Description:

The purpose of this exercise is to empower student to explore useful historial context by giving them clear guidelines by which to conduct preliminary research and to introduce visualization tools to implement in presenting that research to their peers. This exercise works best if the instructor has already provided context for class readings on several occassions, giving students an idea of what such a presentation looks like.

I begin by passing out a handout that describes different types of context that students may explore. I then randomly assign students to one of five groups in order to explore and assemble that context into a presentation. Pasted below is a version of this context handout created for Ian Fleming's From Russia With Love:

Context-Building Exercise

GROUP 1 Historical Context

As a group, situate From Russia With Love (1957) within its historical context. What is important to our reading of the novel in the world of politics, science, culture, social movements, or national identity? Is gender important? Is race important? Is sexuality important?

You may use dipity (www.dipity.com) to make a historical timeline that includes pictures or other visuals to present to the class.

Useful Resources: Gale Virtual Reference Library, Wikipedia, scholarly websites/blogs

GROUP 2 Genre/History of Genre

The Bond canon belongs to the genre of the spy novel—but also, arguably, to the history of pulp fiction, thrillers, and adventure novels. How do you see this novel fitting into a genre history?

Useful Resources: Wikipedia, Gale Virtual Reference Library, Johns Hopkins Guide to Lit Theory and Criticism (http://litguide.press.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/search.cgi), scholarly websites/blogs

GROUP 3 Adaptations

The Bond canon has been adapted into many media, including radio, television, film, and comic books. Explore different adaptations of From Russia with Love or other Bond novels and report to the class your findings.

Useful Resources: Wikipedia, YouTube, Google

GROUP 4 Consumer Culture

James Bond is a popular character in consumer culture (that is, culture revolving around things we buy). From video games to artwork to memorabilia, Bond is alive and well in the marketplace. Find objects of consumer culture throughout the history of Fleming’s novels to present to the class, especially objects related to From Russia With Love.

Useful resources:

Google image search, Ebay, Amazon, Etsy

GROUP 5 Reception and Publication History

How was From Russia With Love received? Did it remain in print? How do different printings differ (for instance, how does the cover art change)? Did audience attitudes toward the novel change over time? Find some original reviews and later commentary that tells you something about the reception history of the text.

Useful Resources: Use the Newspaper/Reviews tab here to find original reviews: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/subject/english/index.html

Amazon, Google, Goodreads

I then briefly present Dipity and Prezi to the class and encourage them to use these tools to create an informal presentation in the latter half of class. I also suggeted that Google Docs might be a useful tool in collaborating on the materials they researched to better ease the translation of that material into a final product. I then divide them into five groups--with a full class, this means three or four students per group. Be sure to instruct the class on how long you will give them to complete their presentation and give warnings as that time elapses. Our class is 70 minutes, and so I allowed 35 minute for assembly and 35 minutes for presentations.

In a shorter class, you may ask students to prepare presentations in class one day and present them during the next class period. In a classroom where each student does not have a lab computer, you may ask them to bring their own laptops or give this assignment out in advance, asking students to compile their materials as homework (over Google Docs and/or Prezi, a web-based collaborative presentation software) and present them to each other in class.

As they worked on their presentations, I walked around and checked their progress, answering questions or offering suggestions. When 35 minutes elapsed, I invited groups to the main proctoring station to access their projects and present them to their classmates.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

You may want to have some materials ready to suggest for each category in case your students get stuck--but letting students express their own contextual interests in their presentation is crucial to this exercise.

Instructions For Students:

Students need only be familiar with the text they are contextualizing, although you might ask students to familiarize themselves with the visualization softwares above before class.

Evaluation Suggestions:

Because empowering student research and presentation is central to this exercise, be cautious to criticize what students find; rather, praising innovative or clearly relevant material helps demonstrate to them that the details they present are appropriate.

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

If students feel rushed, emphasize that the exercise is informal and encourage quality collaboration over quantity of information.

Course Type:

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.

Tags:

Using Debates to Teach Rhetorical Analysis

Sloan — Wed, 04 Dec 2013 16:19:55 +0000

Author:

Casey Sloan

Image Credit:

Image Credit: Short Excursions Into Allyson's Mind

Brief Assignment Overview:

This assignment asks students to watch a debate and evaluate the participants' use of ethos, pathos and logos given their goals and their audience. It then asks students to select a debate “winner,” construct an argument justifying their position, and debate the issue with other students, incorporating concession, refutation and rebuttal.

Type of Assignment:

Class Discussion

Homework Assignment

Assignment Length:

One-Two Class Periods

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Literature:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Media Requirements:

Media Console/Projector

Timeline for Optimal Use:

Full Assignment Description:

This assignment has students evaluate speakers' use of ethos, logos and pathos, perform a rhetorical analysis on the effectiveness of that use, and debate their own conclusions with their classmates by relying on concession, refutation and rebuttal. Ideally, this assignment will help students solidify their understanding of rhetorical appeals and allow them to practice calling upon argumentative strategies to persuade a skeptical audience. The debate chosen can be a fantastic hook to catch student interest in rhetorical analysis. Presidential debates or heated public debates could be introduced for a class that seems particularly politically conscious, but I personally used a semi-humorous debate between comedian Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly, television host and social commentator. The debating then required of students should help them develop their own use of persuasive strategies.

Students will first watch a debate in class. A classroom equipped with a computer and screen is necessary for this assignment. While viewing the debate, students should take notes on both (or one, if you want to divide your students neatly into two camps) speakers' use of ethos, logos and pathos. Ask them also to think about the audience for this debate and whether or not the rhetorical moves made by the speakers would be received well by that audience. This should take up one class period.

For homework, have your students write up a brief report arguing why one speaker “won” the debate. They should use the notes taken during the debate and focus on the use and effectiveness of rhetorical appeals.

During the next class period, ask students to share their arguments. Go back and forth between the two camps, asking students to use various combinations of concession, refutation and rebuttal to answer one another.

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

Be sure to pick a debate video that will fit neatly in with your available class time. Decide whether you want to assign students to a single debater or offer them the option of picking their own side. If you assign students to a single speaker, you can ask them to focus solely on her while watching the debate video.

Instructions For Students:

Ideally, before performing this exercise students should already be familiar with rhetorical analysis and refutation, concession and rebuttal. I used this assignment as an end-of-semester wrap-up to synthesize various ideas and skills.

1) For the first class period, students should closely watch this debate video. They should focus on both speakers' (or a single speaker's) use of ethos, pathos and logos. Instruct them to take detailed notes, citing specific examples. Ask them to pay special attention to these questions: what kind of ethos do the speakers establish? How? When do they use pathos and why? When do they use logos and why? Also, define the audience for this debate.

2) For homework, students should write up a 1-2 page argument about why one debater "won" the argument by more effectively using rhetorical appeals to convince her audience.

3) For the next class period, ask a volunteer on each side summarize why her debater won. Then, ask opposing sides to use various combinatinos of refutation, rebuttal and concession to argue against one another.

Course Type:

Technology-Based Classroom (computers for each student)

Course Description:

I used this assignment for Rhetoric 306, an introductory course.

Tags:

"Creating" Visual Rhetoric Through Student-Designed Flash Games

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

Author:

Lily Zhu

Image Credit:

Mars Cafe

Brief Assignment Overview:

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

Type of Assignment:

Major Course Project

Semester-long Project

Assignment Length:

Semester-long Project

Pedagogical Goals - Rhetoric:

Pedagogical Goals - Writing:

Pedagogical Goals - Digital Literacy:

Collaboration

Video Games

Visualization

Additional Pedagogical Goals:

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

Media Requirements:

Media Console/Projector

Required Materials:

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

Timeline for Optimal Use:

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

Full Assignment Description:

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

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

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

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

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

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

How to begin:

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

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

3. Experiment with as many components as you can.

To earn a C+

Your game must have:

1. At least 2 complete levels to your game.

2. An observable and understandable message

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

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

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

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

Your 500-word essay must have:

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

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

3. One section covering how group work was divided.

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

Hints:

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

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

Student samples from Fall 2013:

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

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

Suggestions for Instructor Preparation:

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

Instructions For Students:

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

Evaluation Suggestions:

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

Notes on Reception, Execution, etc.:

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

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

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

Course Type: