Rhetorical Appeals Poster

CLICK ON THE POSTER TO SEE A LARGER IMAGE

Okay, I need some suggestions from you all on this poster. I feel like I've been working on it for so long that I can't quite look at it from an outsider's perspective. I want to make something that will help students understand logos, ethos, and pathos more effectively.

I'm not sure if the wording is strong enough, or if the examples I have given are helpful or not. I'm bugged that my lists aren't parallel, but, for example, if I write "cause-and-effect statements" instead of just "cause and effect" the poster layout gets ugly. Sheesh. I'm not completely sold on what my lists include (and exclude), either. Also, I'm not sure if the colors or the graphics are working as well as a different theme or color scheme would. The main title font has been impossible to choose. I sort of think that the overall display of the poster is amateurish, but I'm not sure what exactly is bugging me or how to approach revising it. Any and all comments will be immensely helpful.

Also, a huge thanks to Dr. Rice for helping me get the poster to this point. He helped me organize the layout to be readable and organized--my first draft looked pretty chaotic. However, I am a little worried about the red words (CHARACTER, REASON, EMOTION) overlapping the black headings (ETHOS, LOGOS, PATHOS) as much as they are. I'm afraid they won't be as eye-catching or as readable. But every time I try to mess with the titles, I just seem to be making things worse. My original poster had ETHOS, LOGOS, and PATHOS as a much bigger font than the above title, RHETORICAL APPEALS. I think the title probably should be bigger than the subtitles, but I'm worried that the subtitles are too drowned out now. Ugh, I just have to stop looking at it for a little bit. Thank you in advance for any and all suggestions you all have.

Writing "About Something"

Dwight Atkinson's post-process theory article was excellent, and I particularly liked it when he said, "I have rarely encouraged self-discovery as the primary purpose of writing assignments; quite to the contrary, these assignments typically asked students to write 'about something'--some social issue or concern beyond their purely personal, individual lives" (1537). I'm interested in self-discovery in writing, and writing for therapeutic purposes. But I also believe that writing for the sake of composing yourself can be misleading, inauthentic, and egotistical. I am reminded of a woman I met in Louisville, Kentucky, a few years ago; she was an artist who displayed a new self-portrait every summer for tourists and art-lovers in a small studio downtown. Her only project for the entire year was to reconstruct a new image of herself; then, at the end of the year, she would begin to paint over it with a new construction of herself. It seemed.....pointless? Cocky? Strange? I had a sudden empathy for students who hate to freewrite for the sole purpose of bringing their subconscious to the forefront. Ultimately, who cares?

It made me think about the visiting Chinese scholars that came to our class on Thursday, and how their students were enthusiastic about studying different cultures. I wondered if my own students knew about American current events, let alone worldwide ones. I realized that self-discovery can come about best by what Atkinson proposes: writing "about something." What better way to invite the underlives and cultures of students to a classroom than by inviting them all collectively to step outside of their backgrounds and explore new territories?

I only lived in Japan for 15 months, but I did have the opportunity to move between the east coast and the west coast, to live in the city as well as the country. It was exciting to live not as a tourist in these different places, but as a Japanese person. I lived with Japanese girls, ate only Japanese food, and learned the Japanese language. I realized what it was to be an American by living someplace different. I remember when I finally came home, everyone seemed huge (huge bodies, huge voices, huge cars, huge purses and bags), and places like WalMart really creeped me out.

Thomas Friedman recently wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times called "Too Many Hamburgers" about how China, despite its governmental differences, has managed to work together and successfully create and implement great advances in their cities and economy. America, on the other hand, is quickly sliding away from whatever strengths we boast the democracy gives us. The article ended in patriotism and optimism, but with a strong warning that unless politicians spend more time working for the people and less time working to get their votes, we're screwed.

While I don't think that our students are incredibly dumber than students in China or Japan (it was apparent from some of the comments from our visiting scholars that Chinese college students slack off and disappoint their teachers just as much as our student do here), the multicultural influences these students have in other countries make them much more marketable and self-realized than the students who only know about their own hometowns. Bilingualism teaches a person more than just a second language.

I think our students need to be pushed to step outside of themselves more. I think every writing assignment should include research, even personal narratives. The syllabus that I am working on for this class is research heavy. I don't want students to be afraid of research--I want them to crave it. We need more curiosity and less pride. I'm grateful to be entering the field of composition during a paradigm of post-process theory.

Identity in the Online Classroom (including onling grading, portfolios, and peer reviews)

I will resist from giving any plot spoilers, but everyone ought to go see Catfish. It's not a perfect documentary, but it is worth seeing. See A. O. Scott's New York Times film review if interested. What I will say is that the documentary reveals what kinds of perfectly convincing fake identities the average person can make on the internet. When I think about the online classroom, I question the authenticity of the student/teacher relationships as well as the final grades.

Dr. Rice related an interesting incident in class about a situation where an online classroom and a face-to-face classroom were both assessed by online graders, and that the online students resulted with better grades than the face-to-face classroom. I question this situation, and I admit that without further details, I can't determine my own conclusion about this circumstance. I question the teachers of the face-to-face classroom as well as the curriculum of the face-to-face classroom vs. the online course. My beef with online classrooms that I have experienced is that many (not all) online classrooms are designed to learn only specifically what they are going to be tested on (or graded for). I wonder if the face-to-face classroom from the story above had different strengths and weaknesses in their writing than the online students. Then again, perhaps it was only the online students who did their readings, since the readings WERE the class.

Perhaps I feel defensive because if online classrooms do end up being the better choice, there will be even less job opportunities for me tomorrow.

But ultimately, I can't get this film Catfish out of my mind. If online classrooms, online assignments, and online grading become the status quo, won't it be so much easier for students to have their friends or partners write everything up for them? Won't plagiarism be so much easier? How would anybody be able to ensure that what was posted was posted by the student getting credit for the assignment? Perhaps we haven't seen (or caught) much fraudulent behavior in online classrooms now, but if they became the status quo, I think we could be in trouble. Someone's mom who worries about her sons' successes may do all of their homework for them. Someone who learns a fellow student's password will find a new way to torment them by hacking into the victim's account and spouting embarrassing, offensive phrases into their essays. Friends will cheat for each other. Online friendships will be formed only to result in confusion when the 19-year-old boy ended up being an 80-year-old woman. I'm drifting into hyperbole, but the possibility remains.

I'm dubious that a face-to-face classroom is less effective.

It isn't that I hate technology, either, or that I don't know how to use it. I met my husband in person, but our courtship was almost entirely online--David was going to school in Athens, Ohio, and I was teaching in Rexburg, Idaho. We had Skype dates and sent emails every day. We talked on the phone and read each others' blogs. I understand the opportunities that the internet can bring.

However, even in our courtship, David and I were very careful. We made great sacrifices of time and money to take turns flying out to each other and remembering who we were in person. We realized how easy it was to appear different via the internet. We agreed, repeatedly, that our relationship wouldn't be fully realized until we lived in the same town. It is too easy to fill in the blanks for someone you never meet in person.

But perhaps it is okay to have blanks in student/teacher relationships. I'm dubious.

I DO understand the opportunities available for a classroom that is both online and face-to-face. I mentioned in an earlier blog that when I incorporated a class blog in my literature survey course, some students who had difficulty chiming into class discussions found it much easier to comment on the class blog. However, I question how our classroom blog would be different had the students not met each other twice a week in class or met up outside of class to watch films together.

I will say this: grading my students' participation on the blogs for that survey course was much more gratifying than grading these 1301 freshman students who have no faces. And I'm almost positive that my comments meant more to them than my comments here mean to the 1301 students.

I have to think about all these things for much longer. In the meantime, I am going to be haunted by the science fiction futures as portrayed in Surrogates, Blade Runner, Not Quite Human, and Alien. And I swear to all of you right now that if universities become solely online realms, I'm starting my own educational commune in the woods where we will study in log cabins and dance to banjo music around a fire at night. And then we'll see who's the most intelligent! Then we'll see who survives the zombie apocalypse!