Nice work today on considering a definition of "multimodality" for writing and editing in the public sphere, and starting to apply it to various genres! We will take up the concept and those genres again, but in the meantime, please feel free to send your questions about the <Public Argument> project my way. I am happy to answer any and all of them. (Reminder: the full assignment sheet is in BB.)
The Pinepoint project is linked <here> for your future interest, with some additional context found <here>, and the original commemorative website built by Richard <here> (the site that provided much of the content for the filmmakers' documentary).
Finally, for Tuesday's discussion, please read (thoroughly) the genre samples by Linzey, Lung, and Savio. We will grid again, similar to what we did in the first sphere, and I will probably also include Bullard and Obama in that grid, since we didn't get to finish our discussion of them. So, Tuesday will be a "gridding the public argument genre" day.
I offer you these questions in advance if it helps you to read the genres:
The Pinepoint project is linked <here> for your future interest, with some additional context found <here>, and the original commemorative website built by Richard <here> (the site that provided much of the content for the filmmakers' documentary).
Finally, for Tuesday's discussion, please read (thoroughly) the genre samples by Linzey, Lung, and Savio. We will grid again, similar to what we did in the first sphere, and I will probably also include Bullard and Obama in that grid, since we didn't get to finish our discussion of them. So, Tuesday will be a "gridding the public argument genre" day.
I offer you these questions in advance if it helps you to read the genres:
- places where you see conflict and perspective most clearly (esp. where you notice the conflict at one of Kaufer's 5 levels)
- places where you think you are either included or excluded as a reader
- places where you are convinced (as a believing audience) or not convinced (as a skeptical audience)
- places where one or more "ideographs" could be unpacked
- appeals to time (one of Killingsworth's four types)
- appeals to place
- demonstration of rhetorical velocity
- alternate ways that the argument might be communicated.
Please also bring Style and WWC (as usual) because I'm going to explicitly invite us to revisit Williams/Colomb's lesson on "Ethics of Style," and we might want to use Kessler and MacDonald's grammar section in the back of the handbook. In fact, those might occupy the first spaces in our grid.
Added on 2/26 for synthesis activity: Select one of the authors whose argument you analyzed in detail. What kind(s) of relationships do they construct between humans and their environment (where "environment" could be moral, physical, temporal, or spatial)? How do they promote empathy or shared identification, if they do? How does their argument avoid simplification, promote complexity, or otherwise make complex what has often been seen as a simple stalemate of perspectives?
Looking forward to it,
-Prof. Graban
Linzey places the human as seeing itself above its environment, which includes animals. He creates a shared identification by showing how disconnected they are from each other. By pinpointing this, it serves to make the readers empathize more readily with the animals. Linzey avoids simplification by not providing examples and keeping his argument broad. Yet, he attaches the human relation to animals to basic moral values that every person possesses, which causes the audience to more readily relate this to themselves.
ReplyDeleteCatalina, NIck, Alex, Catherine, Jordan:
ReplyDeleteObama's speech on race is one that encourages the reader to think about the complex issue of race, specifically because his main point is to argue that the nation needs to address these racial tensions in order for the union to progress and become a better nation. It constructs an environment that encourages the people of this nation to change and accept and move past racial tensions. He does this by putting personal anecdotes in context with political situations in order to appeal to the audience in both an intimate and authoritative manner. He brings the broad issue of race into a personal way to show how close it is to his heart and how it should be at the crux of the nation's focus in order to overcome it. He promotes shared identification of the constituents by encouraging others to put aside race because at the core of humans we are the same.
In the Obama article, the use of the historic aspect between humans and environment. The moral aspect is used to promote the unity by using the first person (i.e. "we"), and using words such as more caring, more free, more prosperous America. The use of the word "more" signifies a call to action.
ReplyDeleteThe argument avoids simplification by asserting that he [Obama] is a son of a black man, and a white woman -- indicating that he himself understands both cultural backgrounds and can synthesize with erratic emotions from both races. Obama writes in the article during his campaign that he himself has received commentary stating he was "too black" or "not black enough".
This article promotes both empathy and shared identification because of Obama's specific experiences that he portrays within the discourse.
-Joey Arellano
& Donovan Todd
Anneleise, Cassandra, Austin T., Morgan
ReplyDeleteObama addresses to moral and physical environments that construct a noticeable difference between nationality and morality. One can be of the same nationality and have opposing morals and vice versa. Obama’s argument is for those two environments to come together and form a more perfect union which would entail a more shared identification. So, to keep his speech from being redundant, Obama includes life experiences and examples that help support the argument.
We chose to analyze Linzey’s “Moral Solicitude”. The relationship between humans and the environment is moral and she constructs it through religion. Because she uses religion it complexes and ambiguous appeal and makes the argument complex. She uses the animal imagery and use of ideographs (innocence, morality) to promote empathy and complexity to show to that animals are not beneath humans. For example, “Accepting that it may be sometimes right to choose in the interests of humans is one thing; believing that we are justified in creating an institution that routinely uses and abuses animals is another”.
ReplyDeleteShay, Lindsay, Rachel C.
Bullard creates an environment of morality, linking the efforts of government relief efforts to the global values of race and discrimination. The physical environment is also one of the most important arguments, because the issue of race, discrimination, and socioeconomic class, all affect the decisions of rescue policy. The mistreatment of the lower classes is showed on a total scale. Bullard promotes empathy by mentioning the hierarchy of disservice to the wards. Not only does Bullard show the disservice of FEMA and the Red Cross, he includes a stasis of value about the good aspects of wards and poorer neighborhoods.
ReplyDeleteChris Menendez
Brittany Stephens
Erik Reed
Danae Vanportfliet
Jen Gaudreau