Day 14: Field Trip!

(Again, I'm sorry that Clemson has us meeting on a Saturday, but today's post will be really fun okay?  Promise.  And you've got until Monday at noon to get this post in.  Sundays are a day for resting people!)


So, I'd like to keep pushing your concepts of what's rhetorical.  A tough question to answer is what isn't rhetorical.  When dogs bark, are they communicating?  So, we've got magazines and websites and essays and books and videos and conversations and and and...


But today, I'd like to show you one other kind of rhetoric, sculpture.


Art is communicative, so is architecture.  Heck, a path in the woods is rhetorical in that it persuades you to go a specific way.  So, there are all sorts of very immersive forms of rhetoric that craft experiences for us, and that is really interesting.


What does this statue communicate?





Or how does the long dark wall of the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC designed by Maya Lin use pathos, and convey a certain ethos?





So, today, I'd like for us to go on a field trip together!  Find a rhetorical space (on your own).


Normally, during the semester I take my students to the structure on the cover of the DK Handbook...  I won't give away its secret, but you should check it out sometime.  It's a silo on campus.





So, go... explore.


Grammar Review:


It's summer, so many of you have lied out in the sun...


http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/lay-versus-lie.aspx


Your Daily Assignment:


Blog Post:  Today, go take a walk somewhere.  Or a drive.  Find a sculpture or some other kind of rhetoric that we haven’t discussed yet.  Consider how that new form is conveying its message, its argument.  Take a picture of it, and post it to your blog along with a few sentences of your thoughts about this different form of rhetoric.

Day 13: Interviews

So, the “Cultural Differences” was... well, about cultural differences.  You can actually listen to it here since it was put together by NPR, my favorite radio station:


http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4536230


But what about it?


Was it funny?  How did the interviewer make it interesting?  What kinds of questions did he ask?  How is this different from your own essays?  I mean, all of your essays are okay... (grades coming soon to a theatre near you)... but they're not like this.  They're still very formal.  And formality is good!  But it doesn't mean that the content needs to be uninteresting.  On top of all that, the essay is probably one of the least likely forms of rhetoric that you'll use to persuade in your future career... so how's that five paragraph theme working for you?


But getting back to the NPR interview, interviews are a great resource for adding a little flair to your content.  And think about who you're interviewing.  If you're writing about environmentalism, it's different interviewing your mom as opposed to interviewing the head of the Land Management Program at Clemson University.  So, think about that.


And you've got to think about your questions.  And often, when you ask a question, you might get crazy answers like this:

Poor girl.  But then there are masters of interviewing, people who do it for a living.  And I'm not like a Lady Gaga fan, but Ellen does an amazing job of talking to her here like she's a real person, and it surprised me the first time I saw it.  How does Ellen do such good interviews?

Then, there's this scenario...  Joaquin Phoenix appeared on the Letterman show like this, and Dave Letterman, the master of wit, handles a failure like a pro. 

This was a huge deal when it came out.  People were confused.  Then... Phoenix came back on the show, and here's the result...

Turns out it was a farce for this move: http://www.imstillheremovie.com/.  Crazy right?

Terry Gross, from NPR, is THE JEDI MASTER OF INTERVIEWS.  You can listen to an interview with Jay-Z here.  It's long, and I don't expect you to listen to all of it; I'm giving you a lot of content here, but it's good.

And sometimes, with interviews you get really weird responses, like the examples below, but you've got to keep asking questions...

 Is it serious?  Humorous?  Reliable?

So, how can you get good interviews?  You've got to be able to maneuver people, and plan ahead with good questions.  There's an art to it...  and make sure you always thank your interviewee!!!

This would be a good source for an alternate "form" for your upcoming research paper.

Grammar Review: 


Who versus whom:


So, in favor of interviews... I figured I'd give us multiple perspectives on our grammar lesson today.  The answer often depends on whom you ask!

And then, of course, there's "For Whom the Bell Tolls."  (Sorry, I got carried away with video embedding today...)

http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/who-versus-whom.aspx

Your Daily Assignment:

Think of two questions that you could use for your paper.  Jot them down on your bloggy-blog-blogs.

Day 12: Digital Rhetorics.

So, as we think about what rhetoric is, and what it does, we need to think beyond writing with text alone.  We make arguments with all kinds of media.  We've looked at print ads, cartoons, videos, magazines, and more.  Today, I'd like to talk about digital rhetorics a bit.

Mainly, I'd like to look at web design and how it can be very rhetorical.  Just as the design of an argument is very important for making your case, the design of a website is also important for being persuasive when your audience isn't right in front of you.  And sometimes websites can really suck, and sometimes they're amazingly attractive.  So, here are a few from each category.


So, it's more fun to start with the bad.  There's a website called http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/ that seeks out notoriously bad websites.  Here's a few of my favorite from that collection.  I won't post screenshots since you just need to experience them for yourself.  Try to figure out what the sites are trying to communicate!


Bad Design:


http://www.dokimos.org/ajff/


http://yvettesbridalformal.com/


http://www.georgehutchins.com/


http://anselme.homestead.com/AFPHAITI.html


All right.  Funny.  But there's a lot of great web design out there.  Google.com has all that clean whitespace, and a lot of functionality.  You may not have thought about the way Facebook looks before you log in, but that blue color is becoming a common one in well designed sites.  The website for the Whitehouse, whitehouse.gov, is wonderfully designed.  It's amazing, really.  But, it's interesting that the government site is presenting itself as a news source.  I mean, how can we trust that?

Let's see, think about the design of other good sites: youtube.com, yahoo.com, msn.com, or even mcdonalds.com.  McDonald's is frighteningly good at design.

So, now you look for some sites yourself!  I'm sure you'll discover something interesting.


Grammar Review:


Active Verbs:


How many of you as you're writing have gotten the green squiggly line from Microsoft Word telling you that you've written a sentence in the passive voice, and that you've been very naughty for doing that?


Most of us.  Unless your the type that doesn't write with the grammar checker on, then you're just plain nuts.  But what about that green squiggly line?  Why is the passive so bad?


Well, to explain, I'd like for you to stand up and jump up and down for a minute.  Just do it for a second.  Come on; it gets blood going to your brain and makes you smarter.


All right. Good.


Now, to talk about active voice versus passive voice, I want you to think about a sentence where you are the subject and the floor is the object.  Something like this:


Mr. B was jumping on the floor.


Fine.  Wonderful.


Now what if we rewrote it and made the floor the subject?  Like so:


The floor was being jumped on by Mr. B.


So what?  What's the difference?  The active verb has the subject doing the action.  The passive verb has the subject of the sentence receiving the action.  Simple.


So, why does Microsoft Word get on your case about this one?  Well, usually, the active voice is better; it's more direct and, well, more active.


But sometimes you need the passive.  Just don't use it all the time.  You might need the passive if you don't know who did the action, like in this sentence:


The cute, little puppy was killed.


Science writing also uses the passive to take out the human factor (they don't actually take out the humans, they just make it seem like the humans aren't there... see, science is very rhetorical...).


The beaker was placed on the burner for one hour at 100 degrees Celsius.


Got it?  Good.




Note:  No little puppies were harmed in the making of this blog post.




Your Daily Assignment:


Find a website that sucks and one that looks good.  Get a screen capture of them (If you don't know how to do that, Google how to get a screen capture...), post them to your blog, and briefly explain why they suck or don't suck.


Read EID, “Cultural Differences” (p. 293-296).  Come on.  It's three measly pages!

Day 11: Cover Stories

Okay, so we were supposed to talk about incorporating quotations based on that powerpoint I gave you from last week, but we already covered that because we're awesome.  But we can practice it.  Now, you guys all have books to quote from and germinating research paper ideas.


I'd like for you to look at a magazine cover and incorporate some quotations from the corresponding cover story.  


So, if i were to write about the magazine cover below, I'd talk about the nice use of white space, and the reference to the sacred heart (shown below...), and the connection between technology and religion, and the simplicity of the sentence, "Pray."  Then, I'd include some quotation, maybe from Steve Jobs if there is one, in my discussion, and what Wired really thinks of Apple in this issue.  Not too bad.  Now, you try it.

Grammar Review: 

So, we've talked about fragments and run-ons by looking for subjects and verbs.  A comma splice can be explained in those same terms.

Comma splices sound really foreign, but they're simply when you forget to add the conjunction to hold your two sentences together.  A conjunction can't hold two independent clauses together on its own, and neither can a comma.  They've got to work together or transform into a semicolon.

So, this is wrong:

The ninjas fought bravely together after the war, the pirates were lazy slackers.

We can correct this comma splice simply by adding a conjunction:

The ninjas fought bravely together after the war, but the pirates were lazy slackers.

Your Daily Assignment:

Get a magazine, any magazine.  Look at the visual rhetoric used on the cover of the magazine and then read the cover story that corresponds to that image on the cover.  Write a paragraph about how the two texts relate, visual and the literate.  Incorporate two quotations from the cover story as you talk about the cover image.  Add the MLA works cited entry for your magazine article at the end of your paragraph.

Day 10: The Adventuresome Library Scavenger Hunt...

Today, I'm sending you out.

It's crazy, but many students get to my class, and they've never been to the library on campus to get an actual book...

So, today, you're going to get an actual, real, made-of-paper book.

Physical books are the same as digital books (only heavier).  But there's just something about doing it the old way.  There's something valuable about moving your body and getting that into your writing.

So, go get a book today (actually, you need to get two) that might be good resources for your upcoming research paper.  If you're still unsure about a topic, you can just look for a book on visual rhetoric, anything that you might pull a quotation from.  But, go research!

If you're not in Clemson, go to your local library.

If you're on a beach vacation with your family and can't get to a library, then you fail...

not really, but as a last resort, you can use Google Books, which is actually a really handy resource.

Just post the MLA works cited entries for your two books on your blog and a sentence or two about how they might be helpful.  So, go!  Venture forth!  Discover knowledge!



Grammar Review: 

Ah, the if/then conundrum...

Any time you have an "if," there should probably be a comma and a "then."

If you give me fifty dollars, then that would be considered bribing your teacher.


If you go to school, then you might get smarter.

See?  People forget that comma all the time though, and that is sad because commas don't like to be left out, just like most people.

Lots of times we'll just drop the "then," but we still need that comma.

If you dump your girlfriend, you'll need to find a new one.

So, there you are!  If ---, then ---.


Your Daily Assignment:

Go get your two books!  Post the works cited entries for them in MLA formatting on your blogs!  Have an adventure along the way!

Day 9: Freewrites

So, you're done with your first papers!  That's wonderful!  I should have them back to you within a week, give or take.


Now, we continue on with the next paper ideas, which I'd like to talk a bit more about.  You began thinking about topics by mindmapping, and that's a fine way of brainstorming.


However, another good tactic for coming up with ideas--ideas of any kind--is to just write about them.  Writing is a way to argue, but it's also a way of thinking, of getting your ideas out on paper (or on the screen).


Freewriting sessions aren't pretty, just like brainstorming sessions aren't pretty, but they can be really productive.  


Now, you've got a longer paper to write, and it's got to have an amazing topic.  Boring topics don't earn A's, so you need to discover a really fantastic topic to ace this next paper (and pretty much any paper you ever write).


So, how are you going to come up with a good topic?  It takes some time, and a little sitting down to work things through, just like with any project that you want to do well with.


So, today I'd like you to freewrite.  Explore possible topics and write about what needs to happen to write about those topics successfully.  What moves can you make in your next essay that will make my jaw drop?  Take some time and think it out, then tomorrow, we'll move toward getting it done.

And there are a few ideas, or genres of ideas, that I'd like for all of you to stay away from.


Abortion.  Abortion is a really overdone topic.  I've read many papers on it, and the arguments are always the same.  There's nothing interesting about reading the same argument over and over again.  The problem with the pro-life and pro-choice arguments is that they haven't reached stasis.  They're talking at cross-purposes.  Stasis is a Greek rhetorical term that we didn't cover in the beginning, but it's important.  It is the Latin word for "stand," and refers, in rhetoric, to the point at which two opposing arguments come to a standstill.


With the abortion issue, both parties are speaking at cross-purposes, not the same points, and cannot reach stasis.  The Pro-choice folks say that a woman has the right over her own body, not the government.  The Pro-life folks say that a baby has the right to life.  These are two different points.  To reach stasis, either a woman has the right over her own body, or she does not.  Or, a fetus has the right to life, or it does not.  


So, find your own unique argument.  Write about the use of beanies in advertisements, or how frowns are strangely persuasive.







Whatever you do, think about some strange, wonderful, interesting, persuasive topic that will just astound me and earn yourself a big, beautiful A!

Grammar Review:


Dangling Modifiers:





Dangling modifiers are hilarious. They are wrong, but they're often funny.  Simply, they're when a phrase is modifying the wrong thing.


Dangling, or misplaced, modifiers are how Groucho Marx can make a joke like this:


"One morning I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I'll never know."   –Groucho Marx





The misplaced modifier is "in my pajamas."  The closest noun is elephant, so it modifies elephant.  But, of course, that isn't what we'd normally mean to say.


So, here's another example:


Walking down Main Street, the trees were beautiful.



The phrase, "Walking down Main Street," is modifying the nearest noun, which is the subject of the sentence, "the trees."  But, we know that trees don't walk, though it's funny to think about.


How would you fix this sentence to make it correct?


This problem in our language also involves the incorrect use of hopefully, which means full of hope.  So, the sentence: "Hopefully, the sun will be shining tomorrow" is grammatically incorrect because the sun can't hope...


So, how would you fix these misplaced modifiers?


I saw the trailer peeking through the window.


Having finished the assignment, the TV was turned on.


Climbing up the wall, my mother admired the green ivy on the house.




Your Daily Assignment:


***On your blogs, force yourself to write about potential ideas by freewriting for 5 minutes straight for your next paper.  (You can use the online stopwatch to time yourself, or your other favorite method for keeping time... i.e. the sundial?)