September 11, 2014

Today:1)Reminders2)Your Rhetors3)The Rhetoric of 9/114)Group work: the 9/11 5)Next time!

Remember:

Your first rhetorical analysis is due to your response blog tonight. This is in addition to your usual response. Make sure to mark the rhetorical analysis 1 as what it is (name it “Rhetorical Analysis 1”).

Your rhetors:Here’s what your groups came up with for us!

Danielle DeVoss“…86 percent of teenagers believe that writing well is important to success in life. But they don’t see most of the writing that they do in their lives as “real” writing, yet it is the writing in which they find the most pleasure, that they do most eagerly, and, arguably, that they do most successfully.”

Teenagers in today’s society are more likely to spend more time fixing their grammar and re-reading blog posts, tweets, facebook statuses, and instagram captions than their written papers for class.

Education

BIO

Publications

• (in press & in process)

– Purdy, J., & DeVoss, D. N. (Eds.). (In process). Making space: Writing instruction, infrastructure, and

– multiliteracies.Rife, M., & DeVoss, D. N. (Eds.). (In process). Cultures of copyright. Peter Lang.

– Garcia, E. M.; DeVoss, D. N., & Choffel, E. (In process). Document design in/and the writing center. Manuscript in process for submission to Writing Center Journal.

She Likes Her Cat

Lev Manovich

Why is it important

Quote

In short, the cultural tactics evolved by people were turned into strategies now sold to them. If you want to “oppose the mainstream,” you now had plenty of lifestyles available – with every subculture aspect, from music and visual styles to cloves and slang – available for purchase.Manovich, Lev. The practice of Everyday (Media) Life. 2008.

What it means • People buy thing, but they are not 100% sure on what it does • In order to be accepted you must be in the main stream of

products• No matter what you want there is something and someone out

there for you • The quote gives the reader the idea that they need to be a part of

time and that it is important for them to be a part of the new generation.

• No matter what you do or what you want to get you can get it.

Background• Author of books regarding

new media• Professor in computer

science at City University of New York, Graduate Center

• On the list of 25 people who are shaping the future of design

Lev Manovich“In short, the cultural tactics evolved by people were turned into strategies now sold to them. If you want to “oppose the mainstream,” you now had plenty of lifestyles available – with every subculture aspect, from music and visual styles to cloves and slang – available for purchase.”

The meaning• Even when you oppose the idea, you are still

involved. • Culture and technology changes over the years

based on what people want.• For any subgroup you want to be apart of, there

specific array of things for that lifestyle (music, clothes, language, etc.)

Stuart A. Selber

Some have laptops, some do not. This is an example of distraction as well because the student is clearly on Facebook, instead of listening to the instructor.

“Whereas teachers of writing and communication have increasingly called for reflective approaches, conventional programs rarely dwell on social, political, and economic contexts. As a rule, then, students are not encouraged to ask important questions when it comes to technology development and use: What is lost as well as gained? Who profits? Who is left behind and for what reasons? What is privileged in terms of literacy and learning and cultural capital? What political and cultural values and assumptions are embedded in hardware and software?”

• Technology can be both good and bad. Good in the sense that you have a lot of accessible knowledge at your fingertips, but at the same time it can cause distraction and diminish that art of searching for knowledge.

• Technology can have different levels of accessible based upon who you are and where you are from, economically.

• Technology requires privilege to use because it is not equal to all in the same ways.

Stuart SelberStudents of writing with a new media focus, too, should be able to “confront the complexities associated with computer use.” Instead of believing that a computer is an instrument that can solve all problems, “A functionally literate student is alert to the limitations of technology and the circumstances in which human awareness is required.”

Explanation• Selber is saying that while computers are capable of almost

everything and anything, we, as students, need to realize that technology can only do so much, and we are responsible for doing the things that technology cannot.

• Technology doesn’t define itself, rather the people who use it execute what the technology does. In order to understand this, we need to be technologically literate while also ensuring that we are not technologically dependent .

Lisa Nakamura

Quote

On cybertyping: “distinctive ways that the internet, propagates, disseminates, and commodifies images of race and racism.”

Explanation

The Internet in a way promotes racism through use of Website names, addresses, and brands that represent a smaller culture, race or population than the overall general public. i.e. AsianAvenue.com, BlackPeopleMeet.com, ChristianMingle.com

Keith Gilyard

Keith Gilyard

● Prominent writer and teacher at Penn State● Discusses race, ethnicity, language, writing and

politics● Looks for authentic and genuine voices amidst the

general conformed opinion

Keith Gilyard

● “Writing is not an activity that features social responsibility as an option. Writing is social responsibility. When you write, you are being responsible to some social entity, even if that entity is yourself. You can be irresponsible as a writer, but you cannot be non responsible. (Let’s Flip the Script, 21)

“Writing is social responsibility.”

● You are responsible for what you sayo Everything comments on something

● Important to understand how your writing is received by yourself and other audiences

● Responsibility to give an informed unbiased opiniono It’s possible to be irresponsible but that doesn’t mean

it’s okay

His Quote on Code Switching

“The ability to move back and forth among languages, dialects, and registers with ease, as demanded by the social situation” and that it is also a "strategy by which the skillful speaker uses his knowledge of how language choices are interpreted in his community to structure the interaction so as to maximize outcomes favorable to himself"

Gilyard is discussing rhetoric from the back interface. What he’s describing is rhetoric being created online. He uses his knowledge of code to generate beneficial responses for a specific community.

Adam Banks

“...anyone still attempting to argue that Ebonics is a problem for black students or that it is somehow connected to a lack of intelligence or lack of desire to achieve is about as useful as a Betamax video cassette player, and it's time for those folks to be retired, be they teachers, administrators, or community leaders, so the rest of us can try to do some real work in the service of equal access for black students and all students.”

-Adam Banks, Digital Griots: African American Rhetoric in a Multimedia Age

Why it Matters• This quote is a transformative take on how

contemporary society should view the use of ebonics as a lack of resources rather than a lack of intelligence associated with a specific culture.

• It’s important that all groups of people are given equal opportunities to access a better educational experience, regardless of race, gender, socioeconomic status, etc….

Example• A privileged white student shouldn’t be viewed as

more intelligent or affluent than a student who may use ebonics as a mode of language communication.

Quote

“ In the pursuit of greater equality in our education system, from K to PHD, technology access, print literacies, and verbal skill all collide as requirements for even basic participation in an information-based, technology-dependent economy and society.”

This quote is pulled from the Digital Griots: African American Rhetoric in a Multimedia Age. Banks exclaims that racial inequalities are becoming more present in different areas of society (technology and education). In the pursuit for greater equality, African Americans need to assert themselves into the digital story.

“School is often based not on problem solving, which perforce involves actions and goals, but on learning information, facts, and formulas that one has read about in texts or heard about in lectures. It is not surprising, then, that research has long shown that a student’s

doing well in school, in terms of grades and tests, does not correlate with being able to solve problems in the areas in which the student has been taught (e.g., math, civics, physics).”

― James Paul Gee, The Anti-Education Era: Creating Smarter Students through Digital Learning

“An academic discipline, or any other semiotic domain, for that matter, is not primarily content, in the sense of facts and principles. It is rather primarily a lived and historically

changing set of distinctive social practices. It is in these practices that 'content' is generated, debated, and transformed via certain distinctive ways of thinking, talking, valuing, acting,

and, often, writing and reading.” ― James Paul Gee, What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy

James Paul Gee

So what’s he talkin’ about?• Education in our society is built off of an agreement of

what skills are important.• We value facts more than actions. • Even though students learn more by problem solving,

the accepted social practice suggests the opposite: memorize formulas and facts.

• Education does not exist in a vacuum, rather an evolving environment of learning

LuMing Mao

“Therefore, the notion of “difference” “poses a problem because such differences are not absolute,” and they are “relative to the cultural practices of ethnographers and their readers”

LuMing Mao

Chinese Game ShowsWithout any cultural references or understanding, foreign media seems strange to us. Without rhetorical and cultural clues, an American audience would not understand the show.

“…what characterizes Native Rhetorical Traditions across tribes and across time is an orientation to

making that is attuned to carrying traditional values and ideas forward, but that is not trapped under the mistaken anthropological notion that new materials make them somehow corrupt.” –

Malea Powell

It’s a common notion that modern ideas and materials are erasing traditional values and ideas that have existed for centuries. In production, Native Americans include traditional values and ideas through symbols and specific processes that have rhetorical symbolism to those values. While it may be true that technology has eliminated some of the tedious work involved with Native American production, some of the materials are more difficult to obtain in order for the makers to follow through with their traditional process and make the rhetorical symbolism have the same meaning.

These baskets tell stories while maintaining traditional practices by Native Americans. Some of

the traditional material required are not available so they have to compromise

Judith Butler

Quote

“There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender... identity is performatively constituted by the very 'expressions' that are said to be its results.” (Judith Butler)

Explanation

Its not about who you are biologically, but more along the lines of how you can externally present your emotions via facial expressions, your mood, the way you dress, and how you carry yourself.

Jean Baudrillard

“We live in a world where there is more and more information, and less and less

meaning”- Jean Baudrillard in Simulacra and

Simulation

Importance

• The book seeks to “interrogate the relationships among reality, symbols and society”

• The quote relates directly to this:• Multitude of information• Aware of the truth, aware of the lies• Finding meaning among the noise

James Paul Gee• MA and Ph. D of Linguistics• Discourse analysis• Researcher and

educator

Key Quote• “After all, we never just read or write; rather, we always

read or write something in some way.”• Explanation: Gee researches rhetoric within social groups,

and defines 2 main types of rhetorical discourse– Discourse: language, within social group identified by certain

common social practices, which has certain significance due to the group setting

– discourse: language in use (doesn’t exist in reality)

Examples• Gee created the following categories in which different

types of Discourse are used– N-identity: natural born differences given importance by

society. Ex. Male, female– I-identity: set by authority or institution. Ex. Student, prisoner– D-identity: personal traits within social interaction. Ex. Caring,

stubborn– A-identity: shared experiences within affinity group. Ex.

Religious, nationality, hobby groups

LuMing Mao• Miami University English Department Chair

and Professor of English and Asian/Asian American Studies

• Researches and teaches rhetoric with a focus on global/ethnic studies (specifically in regards to Asia)

Quotation from Mao

“Togetherness will not lead to the erasure of differences, but rather, when togetherness takes place we should become more aware of our differences.”

Mao’s Words in Action

Cindy Selfe

• English professor at OSU• Tries to convince people who are

strictly humanist to use technology • Encourages the teaching of utilizing

technology in the classroom, especially for networking

General Information

“There are still a lot of humanists, who use technology, but don’t think about focusing on it in their classes—especially in terms of critically informed production. So while these folks use a cell phone and use scholarly databases and use a lot of websites, and use technology in their classes in terms of making multimodal texts available for consumption by students, teaching students to analyze and criticize mediated texts, I still know plenty of teachers who avoid teaching students how to compose or produce such texts because they personally don’t feel it’s their responsibility to compose, or to teach composition, in any modality except the alphabetic. composition.”

Transition

The Rhetoric of 9/11

You listened to a piece about 9/11 today. This is in part a flash-forward; later in the semester you will create an NPR style audio essay.

But what I want us to talk about a bit today is the rhetoric of 9/11. Many of you likely don’t remember the world before the attacks. Some of you might. It changed American culture dramatically.

Major changes1. We never thought

the US mainland could be attacked

2. We basically lost our privacy, at least at airports and events

3. That ticker showed up on the news

4. Patriotism surged5. We started military action in the middle east6. Fear of our borders ramped up7. Towers become a major symbol8. Rampant American identity confusion

ActivityForm pairs. The image below is the 9/11 Memorial logo. Using what we’ve learned about design rhetoric so far, make a better one.

For Tuesday: Read: The first 5 chapters of The Non-Designer’s Design Handbook (it’s not as long as it sounds).

In-class we talk about C.R.A.P.