Days 11 and 12: Portraits of Justice and Commerce
Reading assignment: Barbara Ehrenreich, Dirty Laundry; Benetton’s ‘We, On Death Row’ Campaign
This essay can be discussed in one fifty minute period using either the paragraph by paragraph breakdown OR the mapping exercise, but I recommend spending two days discussing it. It was one of my students’ favorite reading assignments because it was accessible and thought provoking and led to fascinating discussion on a number of different issues. There are benefits and drawbacks to doing the paragraph by paragraph breakdown on the first day. I stressed to my students that engaging in thorough academic work would be rewarded the next day with exciting and enjoyable debate on the issues that interested them, and that helped motivate participation during the paragraph by paragraph breakdown.
Day 11:
In class:
- Ehrenreich’s essay lends itself well to a paragraph by paragraph breakdown on the chalkboard: what content is in each paragraph, what function does it serve, what rhetorical strategies does Ehrenreich employ?
- Hand out the relevant Benetton press release. The class can discuss issues of intentions, access to power to advocate at a global level, and rhetorical choices employed in the text (e.g., the phrase “Worldwide communication campaign” where we might expect to see the term “advertisement”). How do these rhetorical strategies compare to Ehrenreich’s strategies?
Day 12:
In class:
- A mapping exercise guides student engagement with larger issues of capital punishment and the relationship between politics and consumer choices. Students individually indicate a level of agreement with relevant statements, and then are randomly given another student’s sheet. Students map each statement by physically moving into groups according to the level of agreement indicated on their new sheet and attempt to develop a compelling argument for this position.
- Hand out and discuss the assignment for the essay, negotiating a conflicted relationship with a media text.
Teaching Notes:
Ehrenreich builds a complex argument against both the death penalty and Benetton’s anti-death penalty advertising campaign; the essay raises questions of capital punishment, the politics of consumption, and what (if any) ethics guide advertising. Additionally, Ehrenreich’s detailed discussion of the portraits themselves and the assumption that looking another human being in the eye generates empathy provide a previously unexplored path into visual texts. At this point in the unit, we are moving to a more complex interaction with visual texts, and beginning to think about what might be at stake for multiple communities invested in an issue. Attending in class to issues of composition and close reading helps students start thinking about their own invention and composition processes and provides one model for writing that negotiates conflict and tension. While my students were initially resistant to the idea of the mapping exercise and complained about having to generate arguments that in many cases were not positions they were inclined to advocate, this ended up being another exercise that they were still talking about weeks later. Many described feeling frustrated and challenged but also ultimately developing a more complex understanding of the issue and why people disagreed about it. Their positions seemed self-evident; arguing someone else’s position provided the opportunity to see what values and assumptions and investments might be at stake.
Day 13: Portraits of Violence
The readings assigned for today are rich in possibility and can be connected to many of the themes and issues discussed earlier in the unit. While I outline a fifty- minute plan here, two class periods could easily be spent on these readings.
Reading Assignment: Joseph Rodriguez, photo essay on gangs; Richard Rodriguez, Gangstas
In class:
- Ask students if they think J. Rodriguez and R. Rodriguez feel the same way about gangs and gang violence. What elements of the photos suggest J. Rodriguez’s position?
- Consider the issue of rural and urban differences and stereotypes in the U.S., particularly regarding guns, drugs and violence. The photo of a child with a handgun is likely to provoke harsh judgment from students; would they respond similarly to photos of a young boy learning to hunt?
- Contrast the composition strategies used by R. Rodriguez to those used by Ehrenreich. How does he negotiate his conflicting relationship with gangs?
- Remind students that they will need to bring a hard copy of their rough draft to class the next day in order to participate in the workshop.
Teaching Notes:
As with Ehrenreich and Mann, students are working through both visual and verbal texts, though the Rodriguez negotiation becomes more complex as the texts appear to work at cross-purposes. R. Rodriguez offers an indictment of gangs and the mainstream dominant culture that enables and romanticizes them; the photos function to illustrate aspects of the argument while also offering a humanized, complex image of gang members. The reading provides another model for negotiating conflict in an essay; students can easily identify composition strategies and rhetorical devices that are quite different from those employed by Ehrenreich. This discussion was difficult because we had to negotiate assumptions and stereotypes about race, ethnicity, and crime; I offered the rural/urban question as one way of challenging their assumptions about the people in the photographs. While this heightened the tension for some students, it did so in a way that encouraged them to think in new ways about issues of race and class.
Day 14: Workshop essay
In class:
- Assign students in pairs or small groups and have them follow workshop guidelines for providing peer feedback on a draft of the essay.
Day 15: Synthesis and review
In class:
- Let students have a final opportunity to ask questions about the essay assignment (probably due Day 16).
- Briefly recap the major themes and link them to the next unit.
- Consider filling in any remaining time with an impromptu speaking exercise or other activity that builds community.
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