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George, some responses (to posted questions and others)

I will frequently ask my students to analyze/critique advertisements. I think they provide a good backdrop for discussions about topics like the proofs, or rhetorical situation. Issues of audience or tone or style or subject or ethos or pathos really become visible in ways that, I think, other texts cannot provide. As George notes, this generation of students is very media-literate. They are targets of media in ways and through channels that our brains cannot even comprehend. So, my rationale for using ads is to provide a familiar frame through they can begin thinking about and discussing new concepts. Plus, they like the pretty pictures. Also, students’ varying degrees of textual literacy warrants consideration. Some people learn best through visuals, and others prefer to learn through visuals.

I don’t think that decisions should be made to choose visual “instead of” written texts; rather, I think there is a value to creating both visual and written texts. As George and Berger note, seeing occurs before words. Children recognize before they are able to articulate recognition, and adults perceive before the act of verbalization (22-3). Knowing this, I think we can forward a valid argument for the integration of visual and written texts, with visual preceding written.

Also, for the reason that visual thoughts precede those that are able to be articulated or written, I think that visual assignments should not be evaluated in the same way as written ones. If we accept the notion that images can speak a thousand words—and sometimes not even adequately—then I think we should also consider that visual texts can (and cannot) do things that written texts can, and recognize that evaluation of those texts must react properly.

And the ever-present question of what we should be teaching in our composition courses . . .

Submitted by Morgan S. on Wed, 2007-03-28 00:34.
Morgan S.'s blog

I agree
Ryan's picture
Submitted by Ryan on Thu, 2007-03-29 10:09.

I like your point, Morgan, that we shouldn't have to choose between the visual and the written. One reason for this is that we often forget how heavily the textuality plays into the visual. Print ads almost always contain interesting language, as do television commercials, and films and tv shows contain dialogue, music videos contain lyrics. Other than photographs, it is rare to see a visual text that doesn't incorporate language, which is why students need to be savvy about linguistic rhetorical moves. To separate the written and the visual is often a forced binary where visual rhetoric is concerned.


Ads and the Visual
mark p's picture
Submitted by mark p on Wed, 2007-03-28 08:32.

You're in the realm of my topic for the course paper here (re-imagining the use of ads in a way that makes sense with theories of visual rhetoric). So allow me to offer a counterpoint here. My problem with using ads to examine rhetorical concerns of logos, ethos, pathos, or proofs and claims, is that the nature of ads themselves can usually only point out poor uses of those elements. Meaning: ads aren't necessarily expected to be logical, ethical, accurate, or sincere. They operate in very different ways. And I think our students know this. I don't believe they are suckers or dupes-- for the most part, I think they know ads are largely bullshit. In other words, pit students against ads in a battle of rhetoric and it's a straw-man battle if there ever was one-- the student will win almost by default. We're asking them to look at ads with standards that they know ads don't have to stand up to.

There are many texts that could be used for rhetorical analysis in a classical sense. Ads seem more useful to look at as visual/textual hybrids of meaning-- as using techniques of design that students can use to produce responses/re-imaginations of ad culture that do make logical arguments, but in a form familar to the audience of ads (i.e. everyone).

Caveat: not a critique of your method, you just gave me a good chance to summarize my project for myself!


Ads and Discussions about the Visual
Morgan S.'s picture
Submitted by Morgan S. on Wed, 2007-03-28 14:29.

Mark, I agree with you. The lack of any monitoring system gives way to ads being able to play off irrationality or embellishment. But sometimes, I think, this lack of rationality, or measuredness—that is, the play on the unreasonable, or impossible—is what makes the ad “successful,” or at least noticed by its target audience. However, I think that despite these flaws, we can have good conversations about emotion, or color, or tone, or credibility, and I think students can feel empowered because they can critique a medium that is so common for them.

Your project sounds really interesting. I’d like to see it when you finish. I’m curious about how you posit that (if) we deal with ads in the classroom.