Lesson Plans
Dying Speeches & Bloody Murders: Exploring 18th-19th Century Crime Broadsides Online
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.
In this 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 at http://broadsides.law.harvard.edu/.
In-class computers with internet access and a course blog.
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 at http://broadsides.law.harvard.edu/. 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 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.
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 at http://broadsides.law.harvard.edu/. 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.
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.
I have not graded the assignment.
Rhetoric Midterm (AgainstHealthCover.jpg)
This image was uploaded with the post Rhetoric Midterm. Rhetoric Midterm
Health Rhetoric
What is “health”? The goal of this course is not to answer this question (you probably already have an answer), but to understand the available answers. You will enrich your understanding of “health” by expanding your understanding of health rhetoric, that is, the different answers people have, or the different arguments people make about health. You will find that the complex concept of “health” takes on very different meanings in different contexts, for different audiences, at different times, and within different communities. We aim not to decide the ultimate meaning of health, but to pay attention to the different ways the concept is employed in argument.
Synthesis
This assignment uses the occasion of an in-class midterm to prompt students to synthesize course content, and to give them a chance to make an original argument. As a midterm, this assignment is indicated and scheduled on the course syllabus. However, the assignment could be used on shorter notice as an extra-credit assignment, or as a lower stakes writing assignment to be assessed by peers.
Students are given an assignment prompt (see below) that asks them to take and argue a position in relation to formative article for our class. Students are permitted to prepare outside of class and to use the primary source(s) in class for reference. They are required to compose their essay on word-processing software on the class computer, and encouraged to use that software to proofread and revise their writing on the fly.
One class period. Students had the full 75 minutes to complete this assignment.
Individual copies of assigned reading. Individual computers.
As a midterm, we spent half the semester preparing for this assignment. But the only requirements are that students have read several assigned texts from which they can draw, and at least one assigned text that makes a strong argument with which they can engage. My students were given the assignment prompt on their original syllabus, and I took questions from them in the week preceding the midterm.
It was necessary to explain to students that they were being asked to make an original argument, and to employ all the rhetorical figures and appeals we had been learning. Before this assignment, they had written an article summary and a rhetorical analysis, so this was the first time they were asked to make an original argument in writing.
Midterm: “Against Health?”
[The following prompt appeared in our course syllabus and on our class website.]
You have one class period to write an essay responding to the assigned article, “Why ‘Against Health.’” [We read this article in the second week of our course, and all students were required to summarize it in their first writing assignment. In the article, Jonathan Metzl argues that health has become a "new morality" and that the term distracts from and conceals logics of sexism, racism, and capitalism when used in argument. The article was foundational for our course.]
Your essay must take a position in relation to Metzl’s position and must make a convincing argument using the rhetorical strategies you have learned and using at least 3 assigned readings. Your essay could potentially
- agree with Metzl’s position and extend it using the 3 sources as further evidence;
- complicate Metzl’s position (that is, begin by agreeing with Metzl’s position but modify it to make it more complex) and introduce the 3 sources as new evidence which your more complex position accounts for;
- take issue with Metzl’s position or one of his claims, develop an alternative position or claim, and show how your alternative is supported by evidence in the 3 sources, while Metzl’s is not.
No matter the relationship between your position and Metzl’s, your essay must fairly and accurately summarize Metzl’s position (this should be easy, since you already did it in your first essay) and must argue a position that is as sophisticated and as convincing as the one in the original article.
For this in-class writing assignment, you may use the 4 sources (Metzl’s article and the other 3 sources you choose) for reference. You are welcome to prepare outside of class, but the midterm you submit must be written inside of class during the allotted time period. To receive a passing grade, your midterm must include the required sources, cite them properly, and include your name and class information. You have 1 hour, 15 minutes to write the midterm during the class period.
Students took the midterm very seriously even though it was worth only 10% of their final grade. They studied and prepared outside of class. I think the process of completing a midterm not only forces the intellectual synthesis of course content, but provides psychological substantiation that convinces students that learning is happening.
Most students scored well on this exam, and I provided feedback about how they could do better on the final (a similar in-class writing assignment).
Midterm Rubric
The midterm is scored from 0 to 2 on each of the five criteria below. This adds up to 10 possible points.
1. Rhetoric
How well does the student make use of rhetorical strategies we have learned? Does the student go beyond logos? Is there a credible ethos? Is pathos used appropriately?
2. Summary / Counterargument
How well does the student engage Metzl’s argument? Is it fairly and accurately summarized?
3. Use of Sources
How well does student make use of the three required sources? Are they used to support the student’s argument? Are the quotations appropriate and correct?
4. Organization / Editing / Persuasiveness
How well is the essay organized? Is it free of errors? Is the student’s argument persuasive overall?
5. Requirements
Did the student include name, date, and course? Is there complete citation information? Does the student use Metzl’s article and at least three other sources?
How to advocate a course of action
RHE 306 – Rhetoric and Writing is a course in argumentation that situates rhetoric as an art of civic discourse. It is designed to enhance a student's ability to analyze the various positions held in any public debate and to advocate his or her position effectively. Work in this course will help the student advance the critical writing and reading skills he or she will need to succeed in courses for the university degree.
To advocate a position within a controversy with recognition of strongest arguments against it; to understand difference between advocating opinion and advocating policy; to craft a policy proposal that considers questions of feasibility and implementation; to answer or appeal to skeptics and opponents by means of anticipating, refuting or conceding to their claims; to understand important organizational, rhetorical and logical features of a policy proposal or statement; to gain awareness of ethical considerations inherent in policy advocacy.
Students will use a combination of rhetorical analysis and Microsoft Excel formatting to brainstorm and write a two-page policy proposal that advocates a particular course of action. Students will watch and discuss a presidential speech and read a short literary essay to generate ideas, and use Microsoft Excel to draft an outline for their own policy proposal before writing it.
Three 50-minute class periods.
Computer work stations with Microsoft Office and an Internet connection. Optional: access to Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO), an electronic database.
On Day One, students will come to class already having written papers both summarizing and analyzing different arguments in a particular controversy in an impartial manner, and aware that they will now need to choose a side of the debate and advocate it. I familiarized them with the concept of rhetorical stasis, and basic questions arising from stasis such as conjecture, definition, quality, and especially policy. But even if an instructor has not spent time teaching rhetorical theory, the students should come to class already having formulated their own opinion about the controversy they are investigating and having decided their answer to the question “What is to be done?”
On Day Two students should come to class having read Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal." On Day Three students should come with a typed draft of their own two-page proposal.
Day One:
The class begins with a video clip showing a rhetorical moment devoted to advocating a policy: President Barack Obama’s speech requesting Congress to vote for his proposed jobs act. The video is located here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30SELbKTfOU&feature=relmfu . Students watched a brief introduction to the speech (3:08-3:35) and then a section covering education (7:35-9:45), since education is the broad theme of the course to which all students’ writing topics relate.
After the video, we held a discussion. I asked students what policy or course of action the president proposed, and what he proposed in particular for education? Then they discussed a series of general questions that I raised. I made it clear that they should ask these questions when analyzing any policy:
- Is the proposal desirable? Is it possible? Is it feasible?
- What are the pros and cons of the proposal?
- Would the proposal require formal (official) or informal (unofficial) action?
- Would the proposal reinforce the status quo or change it?
- Qui bono? Who would benefit (or suffer) from the proposal’s adoption?
Following discussion, I asked students to go to their work stations and begin writing a draft of their own policy proposal by applying these questions to their stance. I instructed students to put emphasis especially on (1) making sure that their proposal addresses the strongest arguments against their own position and (2) ways in which their proposal demonstrates compromise with at least one major objection. I also told them to recognize obstacles to implementation, whether economic, political, ethical, or otherwise.
I asked students to come to class on on Day Two having read Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal," showing them how to access it through ECCO's facsimile or (in modern type) Project Gutenburg's version. I warned students that although the essay is short, the slightly archaic language and drawn-out sentence structure can make it a challenge to read, and I made it clear that nevertheless they were responsible for reading it closely and preparing to discuss it.
Day Two:
Day Two was devoted to making use of the reading assignment, Swift's essay. The purpose of this session was to discuss the logical, rhetorical and organizational aspects of policy proposals by showing the greatest parody of one. My goal was to teach the lessons of Swift's satirical policy proposal in an accessible way, so I started the class by clarifying problems with comprehension. We then discussed students' general responses to the essay, and I guided discussion to make sure that we adequately addressed the essay's demonstration that there are ethical implications for every political or economic policy, and also that intentions (however "good") do not ensure ethical or effectual policy.
One of the indispensable mechanisms of the satire is Swift's successful appropriation of the organization of a genuine policy proposal. Working through the text section by section, I asked students to identify the purpose of each section, and we arrived at the following outline:
- Identify main problem and need for solution
- Define scope of problem and group of people to be most affected by proposed solution
- List minor problems to be solved or averted by upcoming proposal
- Present policy proposal itself, explaining how it solves main problem directly
- List additional benefits of proposal
- Consider anticipated objections, refute them
- Explain willingness to consider other proposals, but insist that they address root of problem
- Disavow any conflict of interest on part of author
Finally, I asked students to identify the use of logical and rhetorical figures in the essay. Some examples included the three chief rhetorical modes, the lesser of evils, the law of unintended consequences, Ockham's razor, reductio ad absurdum, etc.
After discussing the essay's organization, and logical and rhetorical methods, I encouraged students to review genuine policy proposals (from think tanks, corporations, NGOs, and other organizations) to think about they could utilize these methods in their proposals for non-satiric purposes.
Day Three:
Students arrived at class with the draft of their policy proposals. I had them pair up and conduct a peer review of each other's proposals, with the specific purpose of probing the series of questions outlined on Day One, identifying objections to the policy or difficulties in feasibility that the writer had not considered, and analyzing the organization and rhetorical style of their argument, as discussed on Day Two.
In order to solidify these lessons, I asked students to create a short (one page) spreadsheet on Microsoft Excel that contained three columns (see image below). First, in the left column, students named the organizational components of their partner's essay, section by section, so that the entire structure would appear in sequence in that column. Second, in the middle column, students paraphrased each section of their partner's text, being careful to cover the key arguments or rhetorical figures. Third, in the right column, students explained their response to the section, for instance by stating an objection or qualification to the argument or evaluating the success of a particular rhetorical figure. After completing the Excel sheet, each student emailed it as an attachment to each partner, so that the partner could use it to help revise the draft.
Students responded variously to each component of the assignment. Day One was easy and trouble free. Day Two was more difficult because it focused on Swift's essay, which (as expected) was a challenge for student's reading comprehension abilities. However, students responded enthusiastically to having a prototypical structure to use for their own policy statement. Day Three was successful: students did not generally have trouble using Excel and could assist each other as needed, and the process of laying out each paper in the three-part format (organization-argument-objection) seemed helpful in visualizing it and preparing for revision.
Clearly my decision to use Swift led to complications that some instructors might wish to avoid. Another way to execute this lesson plan would be to draw the reading assignment from a sincere policy proposal published by credible think tanks, institutes, corporations, NGOs, or other organizations. My reason for avoiding sincere proposals is that I think parodies of policy proposals make for better and more enjoyable reading, which is helpful when talking about organizational and stylistic principles and makes the lesson more memorable. If an instructor wanted to use a parodic form without bothering with Swift's slightly archaic diction and numerous subordinate clauses, he or she would find ample material from the Onion, or even the local satirical paper (UT has the Texas Travesty, which, for instance, recently featured an article entitled, "Congress Discussing Failure as an Option.")
The best way to evaluate the assignment is to compare the students' first draft of their policy proposal with the revised draft. Excel sheets are sometimes cumbersome to print off, although in this particular case it is feasible since they are short (see image below). But the important evaluation is whether the assignment was helpful in giving each student a clearer mental picture of the organization of their paper in a way that will help them anticipate objections to their argument or to their rhetorical techniques in specific sections. The only way to evaluate that is to compare the revised draft.
Facebook Ethos and Analysis
College students today are engaging in public writing far more than any previous generation, largely thanks to social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Using Facebook as both a medium and an object of analysis, this course will examine the ways in which Facebook affects our everyday writing and thinking. How does Facebook challenge traditional notions of privacy, authorship, and intellectual property? How does the medium establish new methods of dialogue, debate, and cultural engagement? What can Facebook tell us about audience and argument in a hypertextual world? By writing about and through Facebook, we will learn to think critically about reading and writing in the 21st century. Over the course of the semester, students will engage critically with Facebook as both a cultural phenomenon and a means of writing and social engagement. To do this, the class will progress through three modes of engagement with the website. Students will first be asked to research and objectively describe the history and current state of a controversy arising from Facebook. The class will then learn to analyze and interpret pages and profiles within the Facebook network. Finally, students will make their own arguments through the website, using a heightened sense of audience and rhetorical strategy.
For this weekly Facebook assignment, each student creates a new Facebook persona for themselves with a (secret) audience and rhetorical goal in mind. They do this by adding photos, "likes," and posting status updates throughout the week. The other students in the class then try to guess what the other students' rhetorical goals and audiences are, and make their guesses public via Facebook wall posts. These guesses must not only assert the audience and argument but must also give evidence of the rhetorical startegies that the classmate used to achieve these goals.
Facebook (with a class network of student "friends")
A class computer lab (or at least a projector in the classroom for group analysis)
A week before the in-class discussion, give students the assignment to remake their Facebook page for a specific audience with a specific goal in mind. Tell them that their job over the next week is to become the persona you assign them, using all of the Facebook tools at their disposal (pictures, posts, links, "likes," events, etc). They are not to tell the other students directly what they are trying to do via Facebook, but should make it clear by the way they behave on the site. Then privately distribute (via Facebook message?) each student's audience or persona. Example personas: "a college guy trying to get a date," "a college graduate anticipating a job application board to check their profile," "a college partyer trying to seem cool to her friends from high school."
Over the following week, each student should inhabit this persona via posts, etc. On the evening before the class day, each student must write on two other students' walls, guessing what the target audience and goal of each is. They must support this with evidence from the profile in question. They should then each send a message to the instructor (you), voting for who did the best job. The student receiving the most votes gets an extra credit point on the next writing assignment.
In class, go through several examples as a class, performing rhetorical analysis on different profiles. Begin with the class winner, and work on how you can infer audience as well as audience values. Consider how photos and posts might help make arguments differently. Emphasize that every Facebook profile is an argument with an audience. Go through as many example profiles as you have time for.
"For this week's FB assignment, you will each "make-over" your Facebook profile to appeal to a different audience: a potential employer, a potential romantic partner, or a group of college friends. Use all the Facebook tools at your disposal: pictures, page "likes," posts, apps, whatever. I will notify each of you via message who your target audience is. Then, for you "comment," select TWO students who seem to have different audiences, and post on their walls explaining what rhetorical strategies they use to appeal to their audience. We will work with these profiles in class on Thursday, so don't post anything you don't want to discuss. Also, we will hold a vote to decide who did the best make-over; the winner gets a bonus point on their next research summary!"
This was one of the most successful assignments of the semester, and served as a great way to introduce the students to performing rhetorical analysis on Facebook pages. They had fun "performing" on Facebook, and the performances led them to be a bit more self-aware of the rhetorical strategies they used. They particularly enjoyed the Facebook strategies related to sex and dating, and did a good job analyzing the nuances of online dating. Next time I plan on making the audiences and rhetorical goals more specific and diverse, giving them more specific roles to play.
The assignment was just one of a weekly required Facebook assignment in the class, which accounts for 20% of the semester grade. I made notes on how engaged each student was, and "liked" the comments they made on Facebook to show that I had read/acknowledged them. I also made occasional comments when something was unclear or I had a question.
EEBO Show and Tell
Hamlet is one of the most recognizable texts in literary history. In this class, we will use Shakespeare's
remarkable tale of violence, madness, and revenge as the framework in which students will be introduced to the various principles and methodologies of literary and textual studies. The course helps
students prepare for upper-division English classes by focusing on close reading and critical writing, and by introducing formal, historical, and cultural approaches to literary texts.
contextual analysis
In this two-period assignment, students explore the context of Shakespeare's life and works, by using the EEBO digital archive to investigate an early modern document in its original form.
in-class computers; access to Early English Books Online (electronic database)
Previous discussion of Shakespeare's works should have situated the plays within the early modern cultural moment.
To begin the assignment, put students in small groups, and ask them to brainstorm issues of cultural and political relevance to the play currently under discussion. (In my class on Hamlet, this included concepts like ghosts, revenge, suicide, marriage, etc.) After reconvening and compiling a class list, inform students that their task is locate and interrogate a document from early modern England that addresses one such idea.
With students at their computers, offer a tutorial of how to use Early English Books Online (EEBO). One of the most important (and widely used) electronic resources for scholars and teachers of the early modern period, EEBO hosts complete digital reproductions of over 125,000 works printed in England between 1450-1700. (Many include a corresponding searchable text transcript.) Because the powerful interface can be complex for new users, it is especially helpful to give students hands-on instruction in using the site.
After some introductory exploration, ask students to seek out a contemporary document in EEBO that speaks to one of the issues previously brainstormed – in the next class period, they will present their findings to their peers. The remainder of the class is devoted to finding a document through keyword and subject searches; if available, show students how to access EEBO remotely, so they can continue their search at home.
In period two of this exercise, each student gives a brief presentation on their document, introducing its broad features and discussing its potential relevance to the play in question. To make the assignment more formal, ask students to prepare a piece of writing on their document.
[As verbal or written instructions.] For next class, please locate a document from EEBO that helps us think about the early modern context of Hamlet. You will present this document to your peers: be ready to explain what it is, how you found it, and why it can inform our understanding of Shakespeare's play. You are not required to read the entire document—some works, you will find, are hundreds of pages long—but you should investigate it as thoroughly as possible. At the very least, print out the cover/title page of your document; you will show this as part of your presentation. Feel free, however, to share whatever other parts of the document will help us best understand it.
Students ultimately enjoyed (and seemed to appreciate) the opportunity to investigate the unedited texts. This exercise was very successful in my class; I intend to repeat it in the future.
This exercise was not graded -- though it could be, of course.
Text Analysis with Voyeur
Why do we read literature? What, if anything, do we get out of literature that makes it important? What cognitive faculties to we use when we read and how do those faculties effect or even determine our interpretations? In this course, we will explore these and related questions in order to introduce students to the study of English literature through criticism focused on how the mind works. We will emphasize, in particular, the rapidly growing field of cognitive literary studies, which applies the findings of contemporary cognitive science and neuroscience to traditional humanities questions about the nature of literature, the practice of reading, and the possibilities of interpretation. We will read selections from some of the leading cognitive scientists and cognitive literary theorists and test their theories and methods through our own interpretations of primary literary texts. We will also discuss the history and practice of psychoanalytic critical approaches like Freudian, Lacanian, and feminist theories. We will read an eclectic mixture of literary works including contemporary science fiction, classic novels and short stories, and medieval and Renaissance poetry.
As an introduction to the study of English literature and preparation for upper-division English courses at UT, this course will also focus on developing the fundamental skills of close reading, critical writing, research, and critical analysis. In other words, this course is not primarily about psychology. Instead, that is the lens through which we will view our primary object of study: literature. We will receive an introduction to various formal, historical, and cultural approaches to literary texts, all of which will use some form of psychology. We will also learn how to use the Oxford English Dictionary and other resources central to literary studies.
This assignment uses Voyeur to analyze of word frequencies and word distribution in literary texts and/or student writing.
Web browser, Internet connection, and a text to analyze.
If used for purposes of revision, students should have a draft of their papers available in digital form to upload or copy and paste.
If used for analysis of a literary text, you need a digital copy of the text.
Download the file containing your essay.
Go to http://voyeurtools.org/
Upload the file via the "Upload" link.
Hit "Reveal".
Select the gear icon in the upper left box titled "Cirrus". Select the "Taporware (English)" stop words list to remove common words like "the", "a", "and", etc. from the word cloud.
Shrink the text-view window by clicking the arrows on the bar on the far right. This action will reveal several new windows, including a word frequency chart.
Explore various word frequency combinations to see if the most common words in your paper match your thesis, to see how different, important words vary in frequency throughout the paper, and how word combinations appear (or do not).
Have a peer look at the graphs you've created and see if they can determine the main topics of your paper from them. Trade places with your peer; explore one another's texts using Voyeur to see if you can get an idea of the paper's thesis and how the argument progresses without reading the paper.
What can you determine about your paper's organization?
What words are most common? What words would you expect to be most common based on your thesis?
What words rise and fall (or do not) in frequency together? Would you expect them to do so?
How can you revise your paper so that the most important words to your argument appear more frequently or in more effective combinations?
A more advanced text analysis tool is at TAPoR (Text Analysis Portal for Research): http://portal.tapor.ca/portal/coplets/myprojects/taporTools/?tab=
I did not grade the exercise. It was meant to introduce students to using digital tools for textual analysis and to provide another way of viewing their papers as they revised.
Mapping an argument with Novamind
This composition course provides instruction in the gathering and evaluation of information and its presentation in well-organized expository prose. Students ordinarily write and revise four papers. The course includes instruction in invention, arrangement, logic, style, revision, and strategies of research. Instructors use textbooks chosen from a list approved by the Department of Rhetoric and Writing faculty, including a handbook provided for supplementary instruction in grammar and mechanics.
Computer-Assisted Sections:
Students taking computer-assisted sections of RHE 306 will be writing papers, evaluating others' papers, and communicating with their instructor and other students by means of networked personal computers. These special classrooms are part of the Department of Rhetoric and Writing's Digital Writing and Research Lab (DWRL).
After choosing a controversy and reading the first text (usually newspaper editorial) about it, students apply basic terms (stakeholder, context) to their controversy and put them together in a mind map. This will help them understand the terms and will get them thinking about issues they will need to address in paper 1.
Novamind (could also be done by hand), Critical Situations textbook.
Students should have read chapter 1 and 2 of Critical Situations at home and bring the book to class. They need to familiarize themselves with Novamind which should not take longer than 5 minutes.
Students fill out the Critical Situations worksheet first, writing down definitions of the terms they will use in their mind maps. We talk about them briefly. Then they start working on the computers, following the instructions in the Novamind worksheet.
NB: The instructions attached work for the Mac version of NM, the Windows looks very different. I just tell my students to boot the computers as Macs.
They seemed to like it. Some students will be done before others, but most of them got creative and changed background pictures, fonts etc in their mind map.
No
I made them email their mind maps to me and I just looked at them and made comments if there were mistakes. No grade.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Critical Situations Worksheet.docx | 10.19 KB |
| Novamind Worksheet.docx | 487.31 KB |
Applying Rhetorical Analysis
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.
Address the needs to a few students still struggling with basic research skills. Show students how to analyze rhetoric via ethos, pathos, and logos with a more creative vocabulary than just those words.
When wanting to refer to Aristotelian rhetorical categories, my students seem to think that just because they’re repeating the same Greek word several times in one paragraph they’re saying something constructive. Therefore, this lesson plan works to get a group of students arguing about an issue and critiquing one another's arguments in creative ways. Students are asked to pick an on-going public controversy, then split into two groups that generally represent the various sides of the chosen controversy, given time to research their side's position, and then spend the remainder of the class arguing with their colleagues, all the while basing their arguments on Aristotelian rhetorical categories without actually using any Greek words.
I have 21 students in my course, and they each wanted a computer to complete this task.
After welcoming everyone to class and asking if there are any questions, comments, or concerns, I outlined what I see to be a common problem in their writing. When wanting to refer to Aristotelian rhetorical categories, my students seem to think that just because they’re repeating the same Greek word several times in one paragraph they’re saying something constructive. First, reminding everyone what ethos, pathos, and logos refer to, I ask them to invent other ways in which we might talk about these things. I try to avoid giving them any examples, as I’d rather they come up with options themselves. If they’re struggling to come up with examples, as I ask them to think about how they talk about (or make) arguments with their friends and family.
Students are told that for the rest of the period they’ll be recreating the trial of Amanda Knox. Before separating them into the prosecution and defense, I ask if anybody has a preference for which side of the case they want to argue. The students are then separated into the prosecution and defense.
I advise each side that they should try to research the other side’s argument online, that way when we come together and argue they’ll be prepared for what’s thrown at them. I suggest that they think about the other side’s argument in terms of ethos, pathos, and logos, for my expectation during the mock trial will be that they critique and exploit their rival’s usage of said terms. We break for 20 to 25 minutes and each side researches and prepares their arguments.
For the remaining 40 or so minutes of class, we come together and argue the case. Each side has picked a couple students to deliver opening arguments. The prosecution goes first, and the defense follows. After this introduction it’s open season and all students are invited to join in. If any student seems to be referring to one of Aristotle’s divisions of argumentation without actually realizing it, I’ll ask for clarification until it’s clear they’re thinking in terms of ethos, pathos, and logos. Just before the end of class I judge which side has won, and then give everyone their homework assignment for the following meeting.
The students really liked this activity. We did it on a day they were turning in a major writing assignment (and thus coming to class without having done any major reading for the day), and it offered a fun alternative to all the serious work we'd been doing up to that point, while also providing myself an opportunity to emphasize deficiencies in their writing.
Participation in this assignment counted towards students' larger class participation grade.
Criteria List Blog Post Assignment (suburbsandslumsblog.png)
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Depending on who you ask, London can be a cultural mecca or a den of vice, Los Angeles can be a palm tree paradise or a polluted suburb, and Lagos can be a dangerous slum or an exciting place where residents reclaim space for their own uses. In this course, we will identify and analyze the discrepant ways that we think and feel about cities (and their respective suburbs and slums) around the world. We’ll begin our exploration by looking at explicit arguments made about (sub-)urban places by urban planners, architects, and citizens. With a firm grasp of the various arguments made about these places, we’ll then move into uncovering implied arguments made about cities, suburbs, and slums by artists, musicians, writers, and filmmakers. We’ll end our journey through these locales with you and your peers adding to the conversation. For better or for worse, with the rapid urbanization of our planet, cities, suburbs, and slums are here to stay. What we say about the nature, value, and future of these places is just as important.
Peer Review
This assignment asks students to start working on their evaluation paper by writing a blog post describing the criteria they will use to evaluate a text in a specific category. Once every student has posted their criteria list on our class blog, students will comment on at least two of their peers' posts. Essentially, this assignment is a mini peer review assignment using our class blog.
Computers with internet access.
Students should be familiar with blogging before starting this assignment. To make sure all students are familiar with blogging, I suggest having students compose and publish an introductory blog post before assigning a criteria list blog post.
Students should also be very familiar with the concepts of criteria, category, and evaluation before turning in this assignment. I spent two weeks of class time describing these concepts in detail before students turned in this assignment.
Instructions about the actual blog post:
Write a blog post of at least 500 words discussing the category you will use to evaluate your text. Make sure to:
- Introduce your text and the category (the genre) that you’ll use to evaluate your text. So, if you’re writing on Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind,” are you looking at Jay-Z’s video as a rap video, or as a video made by Jay-Z? Write a sentence like “I’m going to evaluate Jay-Z’s ‘Empire State of Mind’ as a rap video. Some criteria that I might use to evaluate his video are A, B, C, D, and E.”
- Come up with a list of at least five different criteria that you deem important to your text’s category. The following are some examples of general criteria to consider:
- Rhetorical Appeals (pathos, logos, ethos?)
- Visual Elements
- Style (how do they construct their story? Is the text richly detailed, flowing, barely controlled, sparse, or minimalist?)
- Tone (what attitude does the story create toward its subject matter? Does the text take a humorous, serious, academic, artistic view on the matter?)
- Narrative/Descriptive Elements (what’s the point of view? Do they switch between views?)
- Plot/Argument Progression
- Argument Type (does it get us to think, feel, or do?)
- Diction (word choice)
- Next, add adjectives and descriptive verbs to specify what criteria you will be using to evaluate your text. What makes this category different from other categories? What is special to this category? Then, order your criteria from most to least important.
- Once you’ve come up with an order, describe each criterion. What makes you think that this particular criterion is important to the purpose or function of the category of your text? Why is this criterion more or less important than the others? Will your audience of classmates agree with your criteria? Defend your criteria as necessary.
- And lastly, for each criterion, preview whether or not your text meets or falls short of your stated criteria. A sentence or two should do.
Instructions about commenting on their peers' posts (given to them the day that their blog post was due):
Write at least 6 sentences in response to the blog posts above and below your own post. Consider these aspects of your peer's post:
- Is the criteria specific to the category? What can they do to tailor the criteria to their specific category?
- Is the criteria justified as necessary? What can they add to adequately justify their criteria?
- Is the criteria list in the order you think works best? Would you change the order? How?
- Can you think of anything that your peer might have overlooked? What criterion is missing, if any?
- Where do you foresee problems in your peer's evaluation?
My students loved this assignment. They worked on commenting on their peers' posts for about an hour during one class period. We spent the rest of the class period talking about their experience reading the criteria lists. This assignment was definitely successful because my students ended up notifying their peers of potential setbacks before they began drafting their evaluation papers. They also learned from each other.
Both Everything's an Argument and Writing Arguments informed this criteria list assignment. I used the textbooks to come up with my requirements for the evaluation paper to follow this assignment.
I did not assign a grade, since I use the Learning Record to assess student performance in my course. For those who assign grades for each assignment, I can see this assignment taking the place of a Research Summary in a later unit.
Distributed Peer Review
Are you well? Are you healthy? The answers to these questions reveal much about your sense of self and your experience of the world. But this class argues that the answers reveal much also about the rhetoric of health in the world around you. Doctors aren't the only ones who decide what mental, physical, and sexual health mean; TV commercials, internet ads, e-mail spam, drug companies, and public officials do too (or try to) through persuasive arguments about health. In this course we will examine those arguments with the goal of learning both about rhetoric and about health in our society and history. One major premise of this class is that arguments made by medical texts throughout history have not shared a common definition of health and that the definition of health remains a site of controversy. Another major premise is that even non-medical texts often make implicit arguments about this controversial concept. Therefore we will work with texts as varied as ads for Zoloft and Viagra, news on Obama-care and H1N1, and works by Freud, Hippocrates, and Pasteur.
Peer Review
This assignment is a typical rhetorical analysis. The innovation is that everyone's analysis is due on different days, and everyone's analysis is public writing—on our class blog. When students can review their peers' attempts at an assignment before it's time for their own attempt, they inevitably critique other students' work and incorporate the best writing strategies into their own.
Class blog in which each student is a contributor.
This assignment works best once a blog has been established, that is, once students have become familiar with it by writing required posts and comments for at least one class unit. In preparation for the rhetorical analysis post, students were given a detailed assignment prompt, and the freedom to choose their own rhetorical document (an advertisement) to analyze.
The rhetorical analyses were posted over the course of 5 class meetings, with 4-5 students posting each day. Posts were due by midnight before our class meeting, and students who did not post that week were required to leave a comment on one post per week in the morning before our 12:30pm class. This ensured that students who were not writing that week were reading—at the very least, one post by another student.
(500-900 words) due by midnight the night before class.
Write a summary and analysis of an advertisement you found in your research that makes an argument about health. Your blog post should include an image of the whole or part of the advertisement and should also explain the context of the ad and its audience. In this post you will analyze how the ad makes its argument (its rhetorical strategies including logos, ethos and pathos) and why it makes the argument in this way. Basically, you must describe how the advertisement makes its argument, and you must explain why the advertisement is persuasive (or not) for its particular audience.
To be successful, your post must include basic elements including:
- a clear and brief summary of the ad's argument
- enough description of the ad so that your reader can follow your analysis
- a discussion of the ad's intended audience
- a discussion of the venue or location in which the ad originally appeared
- your explanation of how the ad uses specific logical appeals to lead its audience to specific conclusions
- your explanation of how the ad uses specific pathetic appeals to evoke specific values or emotions from the audience
- your explanation of how the ad uses specific ethical appeals in order to appear credible to its specific audience
- your argument about the ad's effectiveness for its specific audience
What to Find
Many advertisements make arguments about health, not just ads for prescription drugs. Of course, an ad for a prescription drug to treat depression, sexual disfunction, or some other disease or disorder would work for this assignment, but you can think more broadly than that. You could choose an ad that
- makes an argument about health in order to sell a medical product (drug, supplement, treatment)
- makes an argument about health in order to sell a non-medical product (deodorant, a car, food, anything)
- uses health or illness as a metaphor to sell anything
- makes an argument about health to convince its audience to do, believe, or feel something.
Where to Find it
Look around you: in magazines and on TV, on billboards or on the web. If you find a print ad, scan it; a poster or billboard, take a picture of it; an online ad, take a screenshot. If your ad is a video, you need to find the video online so you can watch it as many times as you need. Search YouTube using keywords including the product name.
From the first batch of blog posts, the writing was at a surprsingly high level. Each student had already posted a summary on our blog of one required text. Now they had the chance to write a post about a text of their choice, on a blog that already had an archive and a following. From there, things only got better. The blog took on a life of its own, outside the classroom, and it not only sparked intellectual conversations, it also became an unexpected writing resource.
My class uses the Learning Record for student evaluation. For the rhetorical analysis blog post, students were given aproximately one page of written instructor feedback within a week after posting. They also received comments from their peers on the blog which responded to their ideas rather than reviewed their analysis.
Analyzing Logos: Enthymemes and Missing Premises in "Lean on Me"
RHE 306 – Rhetoric & Writing is a course in argumentation that situates rhetoric as an art of civic discourse. It is designed to enhance students' abilities to analyze the various positions held in any public debate and to teach them how to advocate their own position effectively. Their work in this course advances the critical writing and reading skills they will need to succeed in courses for their major and university degree.
This class activity continues our work with rhetorical analysis--focusing on how to analyze logos by mapping the elements of logos. After mapping the elements that form an enthymematic chain and answering questions about enthymemes and unstated premises, I modeled the ways to outline logos in a clip from the film, Lean on Me. This modeling work was facilitated by questions that I asked the students about the argument in the clip. We also discussed what questions we should ask when taking apart a complicated argument--or one in which the claims are not always overt.
In our last class meeting, we focused on analyzing situated and invented ethos, and we began analyzing logos by looking for the missing premises/unstated commonplaces in a paragraph from Diane Ravitch's The Death and Life of the Great American School System. Because we were analyzing the logos in a paragraph that primarily establishes credibility, my aim was to show that the rhetorical elements of logos and pathos operate even in those sections that most apparently rely on ethos. We ended that class with the definition of an enthymeme, or “the sequence of premises by means of which you engage audiences; enthymemes appeal to both reason and to shared belief” (Crowley and Stancliff 104).
In analyzing the logos/determining the unstated commonplaces, we were beginning to analyze the enthymeme of Ravitch’s paragraph. As enthymemes appeal to both reason and shared belief, they often operate on these commonplaces/shared beliefs, so I explained that this was one place to start analyzing the logos of a rhetorical argument.
I also explained that it is helpful to determine the main premise/argument and then to distinguish this main premise from the supporting premises and the conclusions that one can derive from these premises. I reminded the students that conclusions could also be left unstated, so enthymemes, or the sequence of premises, may often rely on the involved audience to draw their own conclusion. We also discussed how their knowledge of various viewpoints should help them analyze how diverse audience members (who hold contrasting positions) may or may not be convinced by certain arguments and how leaving the conclusion unstated may lead the diverse audience to different conclusions.
So, in a prior class, we hit the goals of 1) analyzing the credibility of a source with relation to the ethos within a rhetorical argument; 2) distinguishing situated from invented ethos; and 3) analyzing logos by examining enthymematic premises (whether they are overt or implied--relying on "missing" commonplaces).
In this assignment's continuation of our discussion of rhetorical analysis and logos, we shifted our focus from analyzing logos in a print text to that of a film clip (in which several premises are unstated). We watched this clip with three goals in mind: 1) Analyze logos by identifying the main premise of an argument, the supporting premises, and devices such as analogies and rhetorical examples; 2) Distinguish deductive from inductive enthymematic lines of reasoning; and more practice with 3) Analyzing logos by examining enthymematic premises (whether they are overt or implied--relying on "missing" commonplaces).
Before we watched the clip, we revisited Chapter Seven, "Reasoning with Audiences: Logic on the Ground of a Critical Situation," in Critical Situations to answer some of the questions in students' tweets. We focused particularly on reviewing the explanation of enthymemes and their logical function (Crowley and Stancliff 106) and pages 120-121 (in the same text) for the discussion on unstated/"missing" commonplaces.
Following our general discussion, we viewed the clip and began outlining its logos with the opening questions, "What is one rhetorical argument this clip makes? What is at stake? What is the controversy?"
Internet connection; sound system; projector; LCD screen; computer; Lean on Me clip; transcript of the clip (attached); Critical Situations: A Rhetoric for Writing in Communities with Additional Material by Sharon Crowley and Michael Stancliff; white board/chalk board
Before class, students need to read "Reasoning with Audiences: Logic on the Ground of a Critical Situation," in Sharon Crowley and Michael Stancliff's Critical Situations, or a chapter like it so they have an introduction to the rhetorical terms used to analyze logos.
The instructor should also prepare an analysis of the clip chosen for class--whether it is the clip I used from Lean on Me--or another film better suited to your class. This preparation should give the instructor a better idea of the level of complexity of the argument(s) and help with determining the time allotments needed for in-class analysis of the logic.
Here are my notes on the three arguments in the clip (two from the parents and one from Mr. Clark, the school principal).
Look for:
1) The main premise of an argument & 2) the supporting premises and conclusions:
A. Parents/Ms. Barrett:
1) The kids that were thrown out deserve a chance at a future (which education provides); they should be allowed to attend school.
Premises that support argument one:
a. (unstated) Only criminals should be on the street.
b. A “disruptive”/“bad” student is not a criminal.
c. Students are disruptive when they become discouraged.
d. The environment that the students live in is discouraging.
e. These disruptive students do not think they have much of a future, which is discouraging them.
f. If students are thrown out of school, they will have no chance at a job.
Conclusions:
1. Throwing kids out of school is wrong; they belong in school, not on the street.
2. Children who are discouraged will have no chance at a future.
3. The students should not be thrown out.
2) Clark does not listen to others; he’s a “fascist.”
Premises that support argument 2:
a. Clark’s reform methodology is outrageous.
b. Clark doesn’t care about the futures of the kids he threw out because they are not his kids.
c. Clark is against his own people because he threw out the disruptive students and “insulted the black football coach” and because he talks down to the parents when he addresses their SES.
d. Unstated: Clark is not one of us (he can’t be because he’s “against” us). He has money (image) & insults the families on welfare.
e. Clark is sidestepping the issue with his religious rhetoric.
Conclusions:
1. Clark is a bad principal and does not deserve what he’s paid for.
2. (unstated) Dictatorial principals will not address the issues that parents are concerned about.
3. (unstated) Dictatorial principals know how to sidestep an issue in order to further their agenda.
B. Clark’s argument:
1) (unstated) The “tough love” approach (from both administrators and parents) is the best way to reform education/help students.
Premises that support Clark’s argument:
a. We can help these students who need to pass the test by throwing out the “bad apples.”
b. Parents can do more to help.
c. Parents can help by making their kids study.
d. (unstated) Families who are on welfare will have kids who do not succeed in school.
e. (unstated) Children who come from poor families are discouraged because they are embarrassed; they have no pride.
f. Parents who want to help their kids should get their families off of welfare.
g. Parents who get their families off welfare will see their kids’ self-esteem increase; their kids will have pride.
h. Parents need to straighten out their kids’ priorities.
i. (unstated) Priorities must be in order before students can do well in school.
j. We cannot help kids by being polite.
k. (unstated) Parents who do not discipline their kids or help out or get their families off welfare are doing a disservice not only to their child, but to the school because “one bad apple spoils the bunch.”
Conclusions:
1. Disruptive students detract from the education of those who want to learn—those who want to try to pass the standardized test and improve themselves.
2. To improve the school, we must throw out those students who do not care.
3) Devices such as analogies and rhetorical examples:
rhetorical example: 2,700 students do not have the basic skills to pass the state test.
analogy: one bad apple spoils the bunch. 300 bad apples rot the bunch.
4) Determine whether the rhetor presents deductive or inductive enthymematic lines of reasoning.
Parents: (inductive) for both arguments. 1) specific premise: “this morning: an outrage” 2) specific: Clark is a “fascist” leading to 1) general conclusion: children who are discouraged will have no chance at a future & 2) general conclusion: (unstated) Dictatorial principals know how to sidestep an issue in order to further their agenda.
Clark: deductive (general to specific)—from the general apple analogy as a starting premise to the specific conclusion: To improve the school, we must throw out those students who do not care.
5) What stasis points do the two primary speakers agree and differ on?
Agree: The motivation of the kids is affected by their poor socioeconomic status and their discouraging neighborhood/future prospects.
Disagree:
1. What should be done to help the students (let them stay in school/throw them out vs. give them a taste of “tough love”).
2. What is important to the school (football & ALL the kids vs. tests & the students who are not disruptive).
6) What fallacies of argument are present (if any)?
Sentimental fallacy: “The arguer manipulatively overuses strong emotions to persuade an audience of a claim that is otherwise unsupported” (Crowley and Stancliff 123). (both sides do this—Clark perhaps more so with his religious rhetoric)
Ad Hominem: “The arguer attacks the opponent’s character rather than his or her opinions” (Crowley and Stancliff 123). (both sides do this—the parents perhaps more so—at least more overtly.. Clark’s attack is implied).
Argumentum ad personam (appeal to personal interest): “The arguer appeals to the audience’s personal preferences and prejudices in order to persuade” (Crowley and Stancliff 123). (both sides do this—“fascist/war” & w/ religious rhetoric)
False authority: “The argument is based solely on the arguer’s or another party’s authority” (Crowley and Stancliff 123-124). (Clark: his position as principal is exploited as is his message from God who apparently gives him this authority to “do whatever he has to.”)
Begging the Question: “The arguer uses implicit, unproven assumptions within the argument to validate the argument. Begging the question is a kind of circular argument” (Crowley and Stancliff 124). (Clark: apple analogy), which is also a
Faulty analogy: “The arguer uses a misleading or inappropriate comparison” (Crowley and Stancliff 125).
Red Herring: “The arguer diverts attention to another topic to avoid addressing the issues at stake in the argument” (Crowley and Stancliff 125). (Clark: instead of addressing the criticism or issues of children who are thrown out of school & what to do with them, Clark diverts attention to the state test and how students need to master basic skills for the test. He also diverts attention to the message from God & to his authority as the one chosen both by Dr. Napier & God). (Ms. Barrett also throws in a red herring with her complaint about Clark’s insult to the football coach, which diverts attention from her own argument, so it hurts her more than it hurts Clark—although here she’s also falling back on the Argumentum ad personam, or appeal to personal interest).
In analyzing a film, we need to remember that both the filmmakers and the actors are using ethos, pathos, and logos to persuade the audience of which attitudes are correct and incorrect. We need to distinguish between how the filmmaker/screenwriter/actual rhetor participates in the rhetorical argument and how the speaker/actor works to persuade the audience. To make these distinctions, we need to analyze how the film creates logos, pathos, and ethos. Today, we will focus our analysis on outlining the clip's logos.
To analyze logos, you should:
1) Look for the main premise of an argument (whether stated or implied)
2) Look for the supporting premises and conclusions (whether stated or unstated)
3) Look for devices such as analogies and rhetorical examples
4) Determine whether the rhetor presents deductive or inductive enthymematic lines of reasoning
5) Determine what stasis points the two primary speakers agree and differ on
6) Determine what fallacies of argument are present (if any)
Students were engaged when it came to determining the premises, but I had to help them determine whether a premise was stated/unstated and to provide prompts/cues to help them find the missing premises. They also had trouble recalling all the logic from the clip, which is where the transcript of the clip came in handy. It provided static print text, which was easier to engage with in the time allotted. The ball started rolling more quickly once students proposed an argument. From there, we worked to determine all the supporting premises.
However, students seemed to forget the main premise/argument once they were absorbed in figuring out all the unstated premises, so I had to guide them back to the main argument and to have them question whether that was the main premise. As it turned out, the proposed main premise/argument was really a conclusion that the film wants to lead you to, which proved to be confusing for the students.
Next time, I would spend more time on helping students find the actual main premise, but, at the same time, I wanted to make it clear that as they outlined the logic of an argument, they may find that what they thought was the central premise may actually be a supporting premise, or even a conclusion--which our work showed. Perhaps, next time, I would warn them of this caveat--that outlining the logic of an argument cannot always start from a main premise because as they go along, they may realize that the "minor" premises do not all support what they thought was the main premise.
We only had time to analyze Clark's argument, so we did not even begin to discuss the parents' arguments. Students also seem surprised/overwhelmed at the number of fallacies in the clip. Next time, I would want to plan another class session so that students could find the fallacies themselves. Since I ran out of time for modeling/guiding students along the analysis of logos, I ended up telling them what all the possible fallacies were.
The upside of the "overwhelmed"/"amazed" student is (I hope) that she is better able to see how close analysis works: a short clip is able to produce so many premises and fallacies upon critical thinking and analytical work.
Another clip that would be fun to analyze: (from Freedom Writers). The transcript to this film is also attached.
I informally evaluated student understanding by the level of participation and questions asked during class discussion, but the more formal evaluation of student understanding of rhetorical analysis will occur when I read and assess their Rhetorical Analysis Essay.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Transcriptions of film clips.docx | 81.84 KB |
Approaches to Analyzing Poetry (images.jpg)
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“Introduction to Reading Poetry” provides a general overview of British and American poetry, and focuses more broadly on the analysis and appreciation of “poetic form.” The current assignment occurs in the context of a sub-unit on British Romanticism. These lessons belong to a larger unit on neoclassical and romantic poetics. The assignment pertains to a three-class cycle on the “Lake Poets,” William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The lesson described below occurred on a Friday preceding a close reading assignment due on Monday. This assignment will be extended into an essay with the help of research tools. The purpose of this lesson below is to begin introducing students to the use of research databases and tools, but also to demonstrate the relationship between several approaches to analyzing and researching poetry.
The lesson plan aims to incorporate and reinforce a range of analytical, technological, and participatory skills. It also achieves a specific purpose of introducing students to methods of research and analysis needed for upcoming writing assignments. Finally, it strives to engage the students in an interactive project, which pools our technological and human resources. Through a division of labor, this lesson aims for a multi-level analysis in a relatively brief period of time.
Relevant Technological Skills/Tools:
Prezi: Only a week ago, the students delivered group projects in class, which made use of this dynamic presentation interface. Several of the students set up accounts and gained basic proficiency in the construction of presentations, which incorporate text, image, and video.
Wordle: I introduced the class to this tool of quantitative analysis in a previous lesson comparing Alexander Pope’s Essay on Man and The Dunciad. In that class, we discussed how quantitative word clouds to bring out patterns of repetition and emphasis (especially in lengthier strings of text). We also considered pitfalls of using this tool to replace expertise or qualitative analysis.
Oxford English Dictionary: This resource is at the core of introductory pedagogy in the Department of English. Having previously introduced this resource to the class as a whole, I wanted them to experiment with its several unique features.
Library Databases Online: In my experience, students need considerable guidance with academic databases. One excellent way to facilitate experiment with the UT’s databases is to introduce students to the “Search by Subject” function. There is no replacement for practice, however. In this case, I guided the students to a group of sites and helped them as they searched.
Syllabus-Related Design:
Close Reading/Paper Two: Over the weekend, students will be composing close readings, which will be expanded into research papers over the next two weeks. On one hand, this lesson introduces some of the tools needed for effective research. On another, the lesson highlights opportunities and limitations for specific quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis, and it also shows how each of these approaches to interpretation yield slightly different results.
Reinforcement of Prezi Skills: Since students recently worked together on group presentations using the internet site Prezi.com, several were familiar with the tool. This lesson reinforced such technology-related skills in an interactive setting, but also ensured each student’s direct participation in the creation of the Prezi.
The lesson plan breaks students into three research groups, each of which pursues a unique approach to comparing the two poems. The groups are responsible for translating their research findings onto the skeleton of my Prezi, which contains a transcription of William Wordsworth’s “Tintern Abbey” (1798) and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Frost at Midnight” (1798).
Group 1 collaborated together on a close reading and comparison of the two poems. I encouraged this group to emphasize the role and significance of poetic form. I asked them to be precise about their interpretations. For example, if they notice that a poem does not involve a clear rhyme scheme, they ought to describe the scheme as “unrhymed verse” (as opposed to “there is none”). Based on this recognition, they might ask questions such as: why would the poet make this formal choice? How does this choice help the poem achieve a desired effect or objective? This group focuses entirely on concerns that are “intrinsic” to the text itself.
Group 2 was also asked to perform a close reading and comparison of the two poems, but their interpretation was supposed to target the most notable words in two separate word clouds generated on wordle.net. I asked this group to make use of the Oxford English Dictionary (on the University’s library databases) in order to isolate important historical developments and variations in the meaning of particular words. I urged this group to also think about how the words repeated most often in these poems might provide a lens into important conceptual elements of the poems. This group’s reading of the poems was thus sparked by a quantitative “heat map,” “tag cloud,” or “word cloud.”
Group 3 undertook to round up and summarize as much secondary criticism and primary source material as possible by consulting a range of scholarly databases (see below). This being the largest group, I instructed them to devote several members to secondary research on MLA International Bibliography, JSTOR, and Project Muse, to leave one member to research biographical data and portraits on the Dictionary of National Biography and to employ another in detailed research of primary archives on Eighteen-Century Collections Online. I also urged them to leave two members to the task of synthesizing research and constructing the Prezi. This group was focused on how others have read the poems, and how these readings contribute to or suggest a broader series of conversations.
The final segment of the exercise brings all of the groups together in three brief presentations of their research and analysis. One leader in each group was responsible for editing the skeleton Prezi I emailed the night before. This Prezi contained four separate sub-units: two for each poem, one for a comparative summary (an empty frame), and one for hints to classmates on successes/failures/opportunities/difficulties. I asked students to add their own contributions to the prezi on a separate “path” (a series of slides linked with scrolling capabilities) and with arrows connecting the slides they added to specific lines of the poems. Do this by going to the “Insert” /”shapes” in the upper left, and the arrow function will appear). The lesson ends with three three-minute presentations and we a six-minute discussion comparing the findings of each group.
Computers with Internet Access
Text
I sent the students an email outlining the assignment in brief. The practical purpose of this email was to find out who had opened accounts with Prezi. I divided the groups such that at least one person in each could access and operate Prezi.
Shortly afterwards, I sent a second email outlining the assignment in depth. This email laid out the expectations for each group’s method of analysis and a (tentative) set of members.
Since the exercise involved several complex components and a relatively unconventional design, I briefly described to them the basic motives and rationale for the project. I coupled this second email with a lengthier explanation of our upcoming transition from close-reading two to paper two. By placing “Paper #2” first in the email heading but last in the body of the email, I compelled students to read in detail my opening explanation of the in-class assignment. In the email’s description of paper two, I included a brief review of the relevant databases for the assignment/upcoming paper. First, I reminded them how to access databases online. Then I gave a list of possible databases. Here is a transcription of the list as it appeared in the email:
17th and 18th Century Burney Collection Newspapers: Useful if your argument is time-specific & extremely focused, since this source contains original newspapers & a searchable database.
C19 Index: This one may seem relevant, but it’s very specific & involves dealing with & archives. Keep this one in mind for future research projects!
Dictionary of Literary Biography/ Dictionary of National Biography: Each of these sites are excellent for bios of famous authors & people. They will be indispensible for your upcoming essay.
Eighteenth-Century Collections Online/Sabin Americana: These are two of my favorite databases. Both of them contain fully word-searchable eighteenth-century British/early American texts, and they also allow you to view the images of the original documents. Have fun with these and choose your word searches thoughtfully.
The Johns Hopkins Guide to Literary Theory and Criticism: Not only is this site entertaining to browse for its general summaries of major thinkers, but it will help out if you read a secondary essay that focuses on a critical theorist you’ve never read.
JSTOR/MLA International Bibliography/Project Muse: All your secondary criticism needs can be found here. These are your best resources for the upcoming research paper.
Oxford English Dictionary: Not only the gold standard of academic dictionaries, the OED contains helpful information pertaining to word usage, etymology, and variation (both in terms of multiple definitions and in terms of historical development).
Web of Science: You’ll find a very cranky site/clunky interface design, but the WoS may possibly be helpful if you want to take the time to figure out who/how many essays and books have cited/responded to a given scholar/argument. Go to “Cited Reference Search” and follow the specific instructions as to how to search a given scholar’s name/work(s).
Finally, I explained which of these databases would be useful to each of the groups and asked students to email me if they had any questions or confusions about the in-class assignment.
When students arrived in class, we immediately logged into our computer accounts and broke into groups. There were five members of group one, three members of group two, and eight members of group three. As students worked on the assignment, I floated from group to group, addressing questions and guiding students to appropriate resources.
Friday’s assignment follows as such. We’re going to break up into three groups. Group one does a thorough close reading and comparison of “Frost at Midnight” and “Tintern Abbey.” Group two does a close reading/comparison of tintern abbey vs. frost at midnight that employs the OED to bring out a word cloud of the two poems. Group three does a close reading/ comparison with the help of the library’s online databases. Within each of these groups, one person is going to make the prezi that their group will present at the end of class. This prezi is going to be an edit of one I’ll send out, but you will modify it to explain your group’s specific points. The assignment should give us a comparative sense of the limits and opportunities for analysis as we head into our second papers.
Paper Two is going to be based on your close reading, but it will involve a research component. What I want you to do is to begin looking for relevant articles about the author you’re writing on. Consult the university’s academic databases: these can be accessed on the UT Library webpage by going to “Research Tools” in the menu bar and clicking “Find Articles Using Databases.” When you get to the “Databases” page, you can either select “Subject” on the left hand bar (and then navigate to “English Literature”) or you can search by individual databases (by the first letter on their title). [The rest of the email is cited above in the databases list].
Overall, the students’ feedback was positive. While one student in the Databases group seemed unsatisfied at the end of the exercise, this response seemed more germane to her difficulty navigating than to the lesson itself. The students next to her may also have impacted this affect, because these two were enthusiastic. One of them especially liked the link to the National Portrait Gallery, which can be found on individual pages in the Dictionary of National Biography. Another student was amazed that Eighteenth-Century Collections Online has been so successful at making images of texts word-searchable. I helped him through advanced search techniques and also explained the uses of a “fuzzy search.” The Wordle group seemed to have a great time mixing the word cloud and the OED search, and the close reading group didn’t speak much because they were listening intently to the poetry audio.
Prior to the in-class exercise, I targeted aspects of the design worthy of attention and concern:
1. To what extent would we be able to complete the task in the allotted time?
2. Would the Databases & Research group feel overwhelmed?
3. Would the students succeed in integrating multiple technologies in the exercise?
4. How well would the students incorporate the poems in the skeleton Prezi with their own research?
5. Would the students enjoy this activity?
6. Will I be surprised by anything that happens as the lesson unfolds?
Time Frame
- If I were attempting this lesson plan again, I would get rid of the comparative component, or I would devote two separate class periods to the exercise.
- Prezi allows students to save their additions and return to them later, but it also allows them to access the slides outside of class. Instead of requiring in-class presentations, one might think about requiring the students to review their classmates’ presentations outside of class. This level of engagement might allow for a more individualized approach to integrating styles of research (as opposed to the planned group discussion. In my class, we did not get to the group discussion in time, because the groups hit a stride around the time of transition. I decided to begin next Monday’s class with the planned summaries/group discussion.
Databases & Research
- Here I was pleasantly surprised. Not only did the members work extremely well together, but they communicated well and seemed excited about the project. One member expressed her frustration with the databases at the end of class, which goes to show the degree of oversight and affective management necessary for this group.
Integration:
- The database and Wordle groups did a great job with their primary technology, but the communication of this analysis into a Prezi proved more difficult. On one hand, the design may have addressed this concern. On another, this integration has proven an ongoing challenge and is not necessarily a failure in this specific lesson model. As a note, I’d recommend identifying who are the Prezi-makers in advance to give more specific instructions on how best to use their time.
- The close reading group benefitted from my inclusion of audio readings into the skeleton Prezi, so they could continuously hear the poems being read that they were in the process of analyzing. These readings played in the background while the students worked. This not only allowed them to listen while they worked, but it also provided a constructive/appealing background ambience.
Incorporation of research and Prezi:
- This portion was particularly weak, possibly due to the time crunch and possibly due to the fact that the students did not make effective use of the arrow function. Therefore, the final product consisted of chunks of interpretation without specific attribution of points to lines of the poem. One challenge for this particular lesson is that students need to simultaneously pursue individual research and also communicate together for the purpose of a coherent analysis. Conversation online might facilitate this difficulty, but it would add yet another technological component to an exercise that already is overloaded with technology.
Enjoyment:
- The students seemed to have a good time. The conversation in the Wordle group was active and involved, and it gained in intensity as they became more adept at navigating the OED. The Wordle/OED combination opened up surprising connections. For example, in “Tintern Abbey,” the word “pastoral” is vivid on the heat map/word cloud. In “Frost at Midnight,” the word “ministry” is prominent. By consulting the OED, students realized that “pastoral” doesn’t only describe an aesthetic genre, but it carries a moral significance akin to that of “ministry.” The Databases group realized a several isolated moments of recognition and/or enthusiasm, as students individually realized the potential research opportunities. The close reading group seemed comfortable with their task, both because we’ve been practicing close readings all semester and because they each had already expressed a particular enthusiasm for romantic poetry in the previous class.
An Unexpected Surprise:
- The most interesting unexpected surprise involves a Prezi function of which I was previously unaware. When several groups simultaneously edit the same Prezi, each one appears as an individual character that floats across the screen in relation to task currently being performing. What this means is that each group was simultaneously personified as individual characters on the same Prezi. This struck me as an interesting prospect for possible course designs involving collaboration.
Final Self-Assessment: The design of this course was too complex for the amount of text the students were asked to analyze. As a rule of thumb, I would either encourage one poem per class period or break the lesson into a two-class project. Another strategy might be to ask students to perform their task prior to arriving in class so that the period could be devoted to discussion and collaboration on the Prezi. I have opted to extend the lesson into the first half of our next class, since the students seemed to become more immersed in the project as the period progressed. After the class ended, there were more students than usual who wanted to carry on the conversations that had developed during class. On one hand, I attribute this to their experiments with new research tools. On another, I think it helped that the students were pursuing their own line of research and that I was able to discuss this with them as I was moderating the exercise. To sum up: a narrower set of expectations and a more thorough preparation of the Prezi operators would have made this a very successful class. This preparation, moreover, might take advantage of the collaborative function on Prezi in order to address the segmentation of individual groups (the Database group), or possibly to unite the three separate units into more of a team.
