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FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC 2019-2020 Humanies Center Brown Bag Series Tuesday, October 8, 2019 12:30PM—1:30PM Rm. 2339 Faculty Administraon Building Valerios Wall: Visual Rhetoric,Vulnerability, and Basic Wring In basic writing curricula at the university level, the literacy narrative is a common assignment in which undergraduate students tell a story about their relationship to reading and writing, in hopes of situating themselves at the beginning of the course and opening a space for self reflection and metacognition as they grow as writers and readers. While the literacy narrative has important resources and affordances, it may have significant drawbacks in that students with an overwhelmingly negative relationship to print based literacy may find the experience of narrating it upsetting and counterproductive. In this lecture, I will argue that by engaging visual rhetoric and literacy at the beginning of the student's academic career, we can work around their potentially negative affective and emotional relationships to reading and writing, and open a space for them to engage their own rhetorical agency beyond print based or even discursive forms of communication. Drawing on Ralph Cintron's book Angel's Town and his discussion of how a young man labeled "learning disabled" was able to use visual literacy to make sense of his world, I will argue that we can better serve students in basic writing courses by providing them with a more diverse and capacious sense of their own rhetorical capabilities. Walter Lucken IV English Graduate Teaching Assistant Walter Lucken IV is a doctoral student studying Rhetoric and Composition at Wayne State University and Vice President of Graduate Employees Organizing Committee, the labor union which represents graduate student workers at that institution. Along with trauma informed pedagogy and related issues, his research interests are basic writing, critical theory, and aesthetics. Alongside his work teaching composition courses at Wayne State University, he organizes courses and events with Hamtramck Free School, and facilitates a writing workshop at a local prison. In his free time, he enjoys watching boxing and world cinema. For more info about the Humanies Center, call (313) 577-5471 or visit www.research2.wayne.edu/hum Photos credit: (top photo) © 2015 Visual Journal Entry, Cathy Malchiodi. (boom photo) Collecon Rob Alderlieste hps:// www.amsterdammuseum.nl/fr/node/325

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Page 1: 2019 2020 Humanities enter rown ag Series

FREE AND OPEN

TO THE PUBLIC

2019-2020 Humanities Center Brown Bag Series

Tuesday, October 8, 2019

12:30PM—1:30PM

Rm. 2339

Faculty Administration Building

Valerio’s Wall: Visual Rhetoric,Vulnerability,

and Basic Writing

In basic writing curricula at the university level, the literacy narrative is a common assignment in which

undergraduate students tell a story about their relationship to reading and writing, in hopes of

situating themselves at the beginning of the course and opening a space for self reflection and

metacognition as they grow as writers and readers. While the literacy narrative has important resources

and affordances, it may have significant drawbacks in that students with an overwhelmingly negative relationship to print based literacy may find the

experience of narrating it upsetting and counterproductive. In this lecture, I will argue that by engaging visual rhetoric and literacy at the beginning of the student's academic career, we can work around

their potentially negative affective and emotional relationships to reading and writing, and open a space

for them to engage their own rhetorical agency beyond print based or even discursive forms of

communication. Drawing on Ralph Cintron's book Angel's Town and his discussion of how a young man

labeled "learning disabled" was able to use visual literacy to make sense of his world, I will argue that we

can better serve students in basic writing courses by providing them with a more diverse and capacious

sense of their own rhetorical capabilities.

Walter Lucken IV

English

Graduate Teaching Assistant

Walter Lucken IV is a doctoral student studying Rhetoric and Composition at Wayne State University and Vice President of Graduate Employees Organizing Committee, the labor union which represents graduate student workers at that institution. Along with trauma informed pedagogy and related issues, his research interests are basic writing, critical theory, and aesthetics. Alongside his work teaching composition courses at Wayne State University, he organizes courses and events with Hamtramck Free School, and facilitates a writing workshop at a local prison. In his free time, he enjoys watching boxing and world cinema.

For more info about the Humanities Center, call (313) 577-5471 or visit www.research2.wayne.edu/hum

Photos credit: (top photo) © 2015 Visual Journal Entry, Cathy Malchiodi. (bottom photo) Collection Rob Alderlieste https://

www.amsterdammuseum.nl/fr/node/325