Paper Two: Visual/Textual Interaction
Requirements
7-8 pages, double-spaced
MLA Format
Hard copy turned in during class
Due Dates
Discovery Draft Due 10/3 – Must have a copy you can share with classmates
Rough Draft 1 Due At Conferences(10/8 - 10/12)
Final Draft Due 10/24 – Hardcopy in class
Goals Associated with Assignment
Focus on a purpose
Respond to the needs of different audiences
Respond appropriately to different kinds of rhetorical situations
Use conventions of format and structure appropriate to the rhetorical situation Adopt appropriate voice, tone, and level of formality
Use writing and reading for inquiry, learning, thinking, and communicating
Understand a writing assignment as a series of tasks, including finding, evaluating, analyzing, and synthesizing appropriate primary and secondary sources
Integrate their own ideas with those of others
Understand the relationships among language, knowledge, and power
Be aware that it usually takes multiple drafts to create and complete a successful text
Develop flexible strategies for generating, revising, editing, and proof-reading
Understand writing as an open process that permits writers to use later invention and re-thinking to revise their work
Understand the collaborative and social aspects of writing processes
The Assignment
For Paper Two, you will build on the observation and analytic skills employed in Paper One with the objective of exploring connections between written and visual texts. In achieving this goal, you will focus on how elements from both visual and written texts serve to interpret, emphasize, complicate, or mask one another. Think of your favorite magazine, for instance. Now imagine if it had no visuals in it whatsoever, no pictures or cartoons or ads. How different would your magazine be? The visuals that are included in your magazine serve a distinct purpose, and for this essay you will consider what that purpose is. You will be required to analyze elements of the visual text like image, layout, color, design, and lighting. You will also consider qualities of the written text, such as voice, tone, audience, and style. Through a comparison of the two texts and how they work with and/or against each other, you will make a specific claim about the media‘s ideas, values, and overall message and support this argument with details obtained through close observation and analysis.
Getting Started
Your first step should be to select a text with visual representations. Your choices are basically endless. If you are a fan of comic books/graphic novels, you might consider how the images in Art Spiegelman‘s Maus tell a story separate from that of the text, adding meaning to the relationship between father and son. Also significant is the choice to portray the characters as mice, which adds another layer of meaning to Spiegelman‘s memoir. In analyzing a text like this, you might consider elements of color, point of view, arrangement, movement, and style. Perhaps there is an illustrated storybook from your childhood that has always intrigued you, such as Green Eggs and Ham or Pat the Bunny. If this is the case, you could discuss the narrative and text alongside the book‘s images, looking again at the illustrator‘s use of things like color and style.
Options for approaching this topic:
Perhaps you could focus on one or more articles from magazines such as Newsweek or Time, examining the written texts and corresponding photos and illustrations. For example, you could look at the coverage of the war in Iraq or a primary election through the ―lens of writers and photojournalists. Or you might consider how ads in a magazine like Cosmopolitan typically compliment what is being said in an article. It‘s no coincidence that a shampoo ad would appear on the page next to an article about how to get great hair.
You might explore website text and graphics, observing sites such as college and university homepages and discussing things like mission statements and messages addressed to prospective students. You could then talk about the textual message in relation to corresponding graphics, layout, and design. Or you could consider how a particular movie or play deviates from its original screenplay (or perhaps from the book it was adapted from).
Another option is using a cultural icon as the visual element of your paper. An icon is an image, symbol, or idea that has become commonplace in a society. Cultural icons might be thought of as people, pictures, or events that have a powerful influence on our thinking. Often writers think of themselves as ―iconoclasts, which literally means to blow up icons or commonly held ideas. These writers cause us to see the world differently. All of the following are cultural icons: Seminoles, Bob Dylan, Meryl Streep, Hugh Heffner, Dr. Seuss, The Beatles, Alcoholics Anonymous, Woodstock, Pearl Harbor, Van Gogh, Shakespeare, and the Mona Lisa. Choose your own icon to write about (not necessarily from the above list). The idea of this paper is to write informatively about a cultural icon. As a byproduct of learning and thinking about this icon, you should also be able to analyze it. Make a specific claim or claims about the icon‘s ideas, values, and overall message. Support your claims as strongly as you can. In addition to writing about the icon, include a picture that helps readers understand the icon better. Don‘t just throw in any picture; choose one that goes well with your focus. Consider how elements from both visual and written texts serve to interpret, emphasize, complicate, or mask one another.
Some possible questions to consider while drafting:
Do I have a clear message, argument, or thesis? Do I need one?
What role does this icon play in our culture?
What effects does this icon have on the way we think?
What kind of readers do you envision? What would they want to know?
Include at least one primary source (the textual component). Feel free to also incorporate secondary sources; for example, the controversy surrounding media‘s manipulation of how its viewers understand the Iraq war.
Rough Drafts, Workshop and Revision
For this paper, we will complete a discovery draft, rough draft, and final draft. The final draft will be graded as-is, with the opportunity for revision. If you do not turn in a draft, your final grade will be penalized 10 percent for each missing draft. Likewise, missing peer review will cost your final grade 10 percent. This means that a paper missing a draft can receive, at most, 90 percent. A paper that misses a workshop will also receive, at most, 90 percent.
If you choose to revise your paper, you’ll need to draft a revision memo to accompany your new draft. The memo should detail the changes you made and why and, perhaps more importantly, the changes you chose not to make and why you chose not to make those changes. Remember: this is your work. Own it and take the opportunity to defend your writing choices and to recognize weaknesses and engage in self-critique. While you are not guaranteed a better grade after a revision, your grade will never be lowered after revision.
Image from http://harlotofthearts.org/issues/issue_2/mccorkle/obama-poster/
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