English 680V: Visual Rhetoric in a Technological Age (Purdue)

From a project on the history of pop culture in comp classes for 591, I’ve got a wealth of information about how ads have been used and specifically discussed throughout history. Not surprisingly, the 50's and 60's were a time of relative hostility towards any pop culture in the classroom, with ads having the most base and ludicrous potential for pedagogy. By the 70's, highbrow distinctions were beginning to break down. Journal articles from Frank D’Angelo, Daniel Dieterich, and D.G. Kehl stand out as specifically focused on ads (a focus not found in the journal articles of our field very often). Some of these articles see no harm in ads while others use them as purposeful bad examples; what they share is a sense that students will not be harmed by using less “highbrow” materials and that there is value in using “texts” of everyday life in the classroom. There is enough range of assignment suggestions in this literature for me to have formed my categories for ad usage, mentioned in my previous post about this project. I also hope to soon look at some old text-books for even more examples.

The 80's and 90's see a rise of ads in the classroom, linked to the subsequent rise of critical culture studies. Writings from the likes of Berlin and Trimbur helped usher in a very popular discourse for looking at ads– predominantly involving a Marxist/semiotic approach that sought to deconstruct ads (and other pop culture texts) to show how their sign systems suggest all manner of unequal power distributions and value-laden suggestions. Although a wealth of literature (McComiskey, Fulkerson, Farmer, Hooks, etc.) have subsequently found many problems with the CCS approach (cynicism building, too much focus on reception over production, condescension and privileged ways of knowing), the approach still finds use in some of the most recent works on ad use in the classroom (including Purdue graduate, Lynn Burley’s, article in a recent collection on pop culture pedagogy).

By combining the literature of such culture studies critics with emerging literature on visual rhetoric (George, Goodwin, Hocks, and of course, some of our course readings!) I believe an ad pedagogy focused on production and critique through participation and re-assembly (ala Jenkins) can be formed.

Below are the citations for some of the articles I’ve mentioned above, along with other articles that will likely be incorporated into my argument.

Burley, Lynn. “Using Advertising in First-Year Composition.” Miss Grundy Doesn’t
Teach Here Anymore: Popular Culture and the Composition Classroom Ed.
Diane Penrod. Portsmouth: Boynton/Cook. 1997. 38-45.

D’Angelo, Frank J. “Advertising and the Modes of Discourse.” CCC 29 (1978): 356-61.

- - - “Subliminal Seduction: An Essay on the Rhetoric of the Unconscious.” Rhetoric
Review 4 (1986): 160-71.

Dieterich, Daniel J. “Public Doublespeak: Teaching About Language in the Marketplace.”
College English 36 (1974): 477-81.

Farmer, Frank. “Dialogue and Critique: Bakhtin and the Culture Studies Writing Classroom.”
CCC 49 (1998): 186-207.

George, Diana. “From Analysis to Design: Visual Communication in the Teaching of Writing.”
CCC 54 (2002): 11-39.

Goodwin, David. “Toward a Grammar and Rhetoric of Visual Opposition.” Rhetoric
Review 18 (1999): 92-111.

Hocks, Mary. “Understanding Visual Rhetoric in Digital Writing Environments.” CCC
54 (2003): 629-56.

Kehl, D.G. “The Electric Carrot: The Rhetoric of Advertisement.” CCC 26 (1975): 134-40.

McComiskey, Bruce. “Composing Postmodern Subjectivites in the Aporia between Identity
and Difference.” Rhetoric Review 15 (1997): 350-64.

Sharpe, Susan G. “The Ad Voice in Student Writing.” CCC 36 (1985): 488-90.

Smith, James Steele. “Pop Culture and the Freshman: Three Questions” CCC 10 (1959): 253-59.