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Visual Success Story!

In response to the anxiety I think we've all been feeling which was articulated perfectly by Mark inhis post on "Real" Issues, I have a story to share.

When putting together my syllabus for this semester, I intentionally left the third major project open so that I could create a more organic assignment in response to what happened in the class up until that moment. For this set of students, I found that they're sense of themselves as political agents (almost half of my class considers themselves politically actiive) was undermined by thier sense of themselves as students and the roles they play. So for the third project, I decided to ask them to think critically about their simultaneous roles as students and citizens. The result, after conferencing and class discussion, we that they were to enter public discourse.

I've had to rewrite my lesson plans for tomorrow and next week because this project keeps leading them to questions of audience and ambiguity that relate to visual rhetoric and, specifically, design.

So my students brought visual rhetoric into the classroom through asking questions about the rhetorical canon. Awesome.

Submitted by Adryan on Thu, 2007-04-05 09:58.
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I Second That Motion
mark p's picture
Submitted by mark p on Sun, 2007-04-08 09:29.

That sounds awesome Adryan, so I'm just seconding Morgan's request for some more information-- it sounds very interesting. I'd also add that I too like to leave the end of the semester a bit fuzzy so I can make a more "organic" final project. I've yet to have students be bothered by this (at least vocally), although I know many people who think students like to have everything mapped out for them from day one. Have you ever experienced nervousness in them by flying in the moment at semester's end?


Students like structure
Adryan's picture
Submitted by Adryan on Mon, 2007-04-09 13:55.

I've found (in my years of experience, of course - ugh) that students want/need/love structure. I would never ask them to participate in the designing of a unit until the end of the semester. They grow to trust me and understand what it is that I expect from their projects. Also, there's the rebel effect of them seeing that I'm not just throwing caution to the wind, but I'm responding to their work and their interests. this semester, another crucial factor has been that I've repeated over and over that each grade will have to be negotiated on an individual basis (which gets them to attend those oh-so-painful last weeks of conferences). So they have a sense of control, a sense of cooperation and a sense that we can fall-back on a more traditional plan if this doesn't work.


Elaborate?
Morgan S.'s picture
Submitted by Morgan S. on Sat, 2007-04-07 15:57.

Adryan, this seems really interesting, but I'm wondering if you can explain it a bit more for me. How do they get from public discourse to design, and how do they bring the rhetorical canon into play?


Questions lead to vocab development
Adryan's picture
Submitted by Adryan on Mon, 2007-04-09 13:59.

Asking the right questions can get them asking the right questions. For instance: I always ask of any text from my students what the criteria are for the text to succeed. once they start thinking of texts as active, then they start asking about how to get the results they want. Design comes-up most organically when I start with purpose and then ask how they can design a "text" to respond to the rhetorical situation. Then we consider multiple formats for that text (why/how would this work as a bumper sticker, banner, t-shirt, flier, street theater or poem?) Because i'm not going to let them do a half-ass "Look I made a sticker" project, I then ask how these texts can work together as a campaign. This is when visual consistence comes up and when they start thinking about visual genre conventions.

Does that answer your question? a bit?