Getting Started 2: Logging in for the First Time

To get started with ENGL 680V, you'll also need to complete this second step:

Logging in for the first time

1. You should have received an email from the system that includes your new password. With that email handy, return to the course website at http://joe.english.purdue.edu/sp07/blakesley7/.
2. Enter your username and password in the "User login" box. Your initial password can be retyped or cut-and-pasted into the password box. If you cut-and-paste it, make sure you don't include any extra spaces before or after the password characters. The password is case sensitive.

   

3. Click on Log in. When you've successfully logged in, you will see a block of links in the left sidebar with your username above it as a title. This is a navigation menu that provides you with links to many services and content on the site. If you are unable to log in successfully, try re-entering your password. Remember that usernames and passwords are case-sensitve, so make sure you don't have Caps Lock turned on by accident and that (if pasting in your password) that you don't include extra spaces.

Getting Started 3: Editing Your Account for the First Time

To get started with ENGL 680V, you'll also need to complete this third step, which will take a bit more time than the previous two.

Editing your account for the first time

Once you've logged in successfully, you need to edit your account and provide some additional information about yourself.

1. Click on my account link in the navigation menu on the left.

   

2. On the next screen, click on the edit tab.

   

3. On the account settings screen, scroll to the Account information area.
   
4. Change your password by entering a new one into the password boxes. Choose a password that you can remember but that is secure. Remember that passwords are case sensitive.
5. Scroll to the Picture area.
   
6. Upload a picture of yourself or avatar (an image that represents you well) that you would use in a public context. You may have to find one and edit it in an image editor, so just try to have this step completed by the end of Week 2. If you need help editing an image, send a copy to your instructor for help. See Creating Avatars and Images for Your Profile for more information.
7. Next, scroll to the Theme configuration.
8. The default selection is Purdue47. You can select any theme you like and all pages will show up with that theme. Course content may sometimes be designed exclusively for the Purdue47 theme, so it may not always display correctly in alternative theme configurations.
9. Scroll to Contact settings.
   
10. Check the Personal contact form box.
11. When you have made your changes, click on the Submit button at the bottom of the page.

The following steps ask you to complete information for your profile. This will enable the instructor and fellow students to learn a little more about you and help the instructor tailor this class to your background and goals, as well as arrange collaborative projects.

1. Click on the edit tab again, then on the Personal Information link at the top of the next page.
   
2. Enter the required information in the boxes. If you don't have a home page, leave that box blank.
3. Click on Submit to save.

That's it! You have completed all the steps of the Getting Started process. If you ever need to change any of the information, you can always edit these pages again.

If you have any trouble along the way, please be sure to let your instructor know.

Creating Avatars and Images for Your Profile

Some of you may be in search of an avatar or image to use in the profile that you created for yourself when you registered. If so, here are some suggestions:

An avatar is just an image that "stands-in" for your picture and can be an object, artwork, a photo, or something else that might convey some aspect of your identity, personality, or interests. So, for example, someone interested in biking might use an image of a bike as an avatar rather than a personal picture. The image works best if it's in jpg, gif, or png format, and the dimensions should be (about) 85x85 so that it displays correctly (and doesn't get squished when displayed, for example).

To find an existing avatar to use for free, you could look at a site like these. If you have a Yahoo! ID (free to get, if not), you can get some nice ones:

http://avatars.yahoo.com/

or try

http://www.avatarity.com/

You could also take an existing image of yourself and then create a picture by cropping out the part you don't want. If you haven't used an image editing program before, that can be a bit tricky. But if you have, just use the crop tool to draw a box around the part of the image you want to use, crop it, and then resize it so that it's about 85x85 pixels.

If you have a larger photo and would like help to make it into an avatar, send it to your instructor as an email attachment. Your instructor can help you from there.

Week 1

Tuesday, January 9

• Introductions
• Review Course Description, Schedule, Course Texts/Films, and Getting Started steps.
• What do we mean when we ask, "Do you see what I mean?"

Thursday, January 11

• Complete the 3 Getting Started steps before class.
• Read
  • Guidelines for Responding in Networked Communities
  • Student-Generated Guidelines for Online Discussion
  • Examples: Keeping Online Discussion Lively and Focused
• Read "Visual Rhetoric" (Bernhardt, handout distributed in class on Tuesday).
• In class: Write and post your first blog message in response to the question, "What is visual rhetoric?" Select "what is visual rhetoric" as the category before you post your message. Just supply the best answer to this question that you can come up with this early in the semester, before we've spent much time discussing what we mean by "visual rhetoric."
• Topic for discussion/presentation: What is the scope of visual rhetoric? I'll give you a presentation, and you can follow along if you'd like. The topic is "From Writer to Auteur: What Is an Author in an Age of Visual Rhetoric and Multimedia?"

Week 2

Tuesday, January 16

• Read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, pp. 3-98. Post your first weekly reading response to your blog. Be sure to tag it as "Weekly Reading Response" when you select the category. Here are some questions to get you going. You don't have to respond to any of these in particular. They are meant to be generative:

1. What role does expectation play in the act of seeing? In judging and evaluating? Acting?
2. What exactly are "expectations"?
3. How are expectations related to predictions? Prophecy?
4. What do these questions have to do with Blink? With visual rhetoric?
5. What do prediction and expectation have to do with rhetoric? Persuasion? The strategic "bending of the will"?

Thursday, January 18

• Read, Walker Percy, "The Loss of the Creature" (PDF format; 125K). Blog response idea: Describe one incident when your expectations clouded your perception and experience of something you saw. What role does memory play in the perceptual process?
• Read the excerpt from Don DeLillo's White Noise, "The Most Photographed Barn in America" (PDF format)
  
  See also this FlickR image and discussion of “The Most Photographed Barn in America”

Week 3

Tuesday, January 23

• Read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, pp. 99 - end.. Post your weekly reading response to your blog. Be sure to tag it as "Weekly Reading Response" when you select the category. Here are some questions do get you going. You don't have to respond to this question in particular if something else worth writing about occurs to you.
  

  In the section on "The Theory of Mind Reading" (p. 197), Gladwell begins an interesting discussion of Tomkins and Eckman's work on Imagery, Affect, and Consciousness that ends up suggesting, among other things, that "[e]motion can start on the face. The face is not a secondary billboard for our internal feelings. It is an equal partner in the emotional process" (208). If emotions are primary and possibly expressed on the body first, with consciousness of emotion secondary, what might that suggest about persuasion? About consciousness of feeling as an interpretive process? About consciousness as rationalization or, even, as Burke puts it, "prophesying after the event"? (For more on this topic, check out this short piece by David Blakesley called "Prophesying after the Event" and Daniel Gilbert's "Illusion of External Agency" (PDF format) and his idea that "motivated human cognition" involves a process of subjectively optimizing outcomes."

• Group Project assigned and discussed.

Thursday, January 25

• Read: From Visual Intelligence by Ann Barry (PDF format; 925 kb)
• Read: Daniel Gilbert, "The Assent of Man: Mental Representation and the Control of Belief" (PDF format) and "How Mental Systems Believe" (PDF format).
• Due: A Contract Proposal in which you explain your subject, suggest some parameters for your research, and indicate why the subject interests you and how studying it will be beneficial. (Suggested length: 150-200 words). Post your contract proposal as a blog message. Be sure to select the category "Contract Proposal (1)."

Week 4

Tuesday, January 30

• Read Eye and Brain by Richard L. Gregory, pp. vii-98. Suggested prompt: Identify one astounding or unexpected idea about the eye, brain, or process of seeing that you learned from this section in Gregory's book. How does it help you understand writing (or rhetoric) differently or more complexly than before?

Thursday, February 1

• Read "What Is Rhetoric?" by William A. Covino and David Jolliffe (PDF format; download the article from the list at the bottom of this page).
• Read "All Living Things Are Critics" by Kenneth Burke (from Permanence and Change). (PDF format; download the article from the list at the bottom of this page).
• Read "Tales of the Unexpected" by Larry Ferrario, Judy Martin, and David Blakesley (PDF format; download the article from the list at the bottom of this page).

Week 5

Tuesday, February 6

• Read Eye and Brain by Richard L. Gregory, pp. 99-193. Suggested prompt: What does the physiology (or psychology) of seeing suggest to you about the nature of visual rhetoric, writing, or the teaching of writing? Why should (or shouldn't) this research be of concern to rhetoricians?

Thursday, February 8

• Read Eye and Brain by Richard L. Gregory, pp. 194-255.
• Read, "Total Eclipse" by Annie Dillard. (See the PDF attachment below.)
• A Clarification Project in which you explain what you already know about your subject, reflect upon your feelings and thoughts about the subject, and suggest how you might develop your understanding of the subject. (Suggested length: 250 to 300 words; due: Thursday, February 8.)

Week 6

Tuesday, February 13

• Read The Economics of Attention by Richard Lanham, pp. xi-129. Suggested Prompt: Address any of the questions that Lanham asks at the bottom of page 21 regarding the consequences of the new economy of attention, particularly as it implicates rhetoric.

Thursday, February 15

• Read the Introduction to Enculturation's special issue on visual rhetoric by David Blakesley and Collin Brooke.
• Read two additional pieces in this collection (you choose).

Week 7

Tuesday, February 20

• Read The Economics of Attention by Richard Lanham, pp. 130-190. Suggested Prompt: In Chapter 4, Lanham outlines some of the challenges and issues facing e-books, from pre-existing cultural biases, unfamiliarity, delivery systems, copyright, and more. What e-books have you seen? Read? What is an e-book, anyway? And how might an e-book figure into the economics of attention?

Thursday, February 22

• Explore some of these e-books to see a range of what's out there. All of them are free. Each employs a visual rhetoric in a unique way.
  • Digital Publishing F5 | Refreshed (TK3)
  • Looking for a Fight: Is There a Republican War on Science? edited by John Holbo
  • Peers, Pirates, and Persuasion: Rhetoric in the Peer-to-Peer Debates by John Logie
  • Operation Iraqi Quagmire (Institute for the Future of the Book)

In class, make an Adobe ebook in one hour. See Make a Book in One Hour Activity for all of the directions.

Week 8

Tuesday, February 27

• Read "Just Looking" from James Elkins's The Object Stares Back: On the Nature of Seeing. Please see the attachment listed below.
• Read "Strange Loops," Chapter 3 from Mark C. Taylor's The Moment of Complexity. Please see the attachment listed below.
• Watch the Strange Loops movie! (In class.)

Thursday, March 1

• Read from a draft of Illuminating Rhetoric: A Guide to Seeing, Reading, and Writing by David Blakesley (preface, intro, part 1, chapter 1). Please see the attachment below.
• Due date extended to next Thursday, 3/8/07!Research Project Step 3 due: An Information Project. Find out what is already known about your subject and communicate that knowledge concisely in 1,500 words or less. The form of this portion of the project could be an annotated bibliography, a bibliographic or informative essay (i.e., a review of the literature), or some other format conducive to conveying information. Your purpose at this stage will be to inform, not to take a critical stance. (Suggested length: 1,500 words)

Week 9

Tuesday, March 6

• Read Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture, pp. 1-130.
• Watch an episode of Survivor or American Idol on your own to see what you notice about either's visual rhetoric.

Thursday, March 8

• Read Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture, pp. 131-205.
• Research Project Step 3 due: An Information Project. Find out what is already known about your subject and communicate that knowledge concisely in 1,500 words or less. The form of this portion of the project could be an annotated bibliography, a bibliographic or informative essay (i.e., a review of the literature), or some other format conducive to conveying information. Your purpose at this stage will be to inform, not to take a critical stance. (Suggested length: 1,500 words)

Week 10 (Spring Break)

Tuesday, March 13

Spring Break; watch The Matrix if you have time (and parts 2 and 3, too, if possible)

Thursday, March 15

Spring break; watch The Matrix if you have time (and parts 2 and 3, too, if possible)

Week 11

Tuesday, March 20

• Read Henry Jenkins, Convergence Culture, pp. 206-260 (end)

Thursday, March 22

Your instructor will be at CCCC.

Week 12

Tuesday, March 27

• George, Diana. "From Analysis to Design: Visual Communication in the Teaching of Writing." CCC. 54.1 (2002): 11-39. A PDF copy and handout have been published here.
• Group Project: Oral Progress Report (1 or 2 groups can volunteer to present today).

Thursday, March 29

• Film: Vertigo (first half). Viewed in class.
• Reading: Blakesley, "Defining Film Rhetoric: The Case of Hitchcock's Vertigo" (see attachment below)
• Reading: Modleski, "Femininity By Design: Vertigo" (see attachment below)
• Reading: Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" (see attachment below)
• Due date extended to April 10!
  
  Research Project Step 4 due: The Exploration Project will be the stage when you foster intellectual "turbulence" by investigating the many facets and problems of your subject, asking a number of questions and offering a number of answers for each question, without feeling the need to present these questions and answers in a tightly organized essay. You may compose your Exploration Project as an exploratory essay or by answering more directly a set of questions that will be provided. You'll be given additional guidelines for this step. (Suggested length: 1,500 words)

Week 13

Tuesday, April 3

• Finish watching the film.
• Read the Foreword to Before and After: Page Design. In class, we will discuss additional sections to read in preparation for an in-class design project.
• Read selections from Writing the Visual: A Practical Guide for Teachers of Composition and Communication, edited by Carol David & Anne R. Richards (Parlor Press, 2007).
  
  "Fields of Vision: A Background Study of References for Teachers" by Carole David and Anne R. Richards (see attachment below)
  
  "Seeing Rhetoric" by Nancy Allen (see attachment below)
• Resources for the Exploration Project (Step 4). Choose one approach and run with it:
  
  Exploring a Topic from Multiple Perspectives (answer 10 more questions with expansion paragraphs)
  
  Developing Content and Elaborating Ambiguity: From Open Essay to Hypertext (step by step process of writing an open essay)
  
  Montaigne's "Of Coaches" (Read it and then write an essay that does something like it).

Thursday, April 5

• Read two additional sections from Before and After: Page Design. Work in class on a design project. (Business Documents gives some good advice on resume and portfolio development!)
• Group Project: Oral Progress Report (1 or 2 groups can volunteer to present today).

Week 14

Tuesday, April 10

• Read more selections from Writing the Visual: A Practical Guide for Teachers of Composition and Communication, edited by Carol David & Anne R. Richards (Parlor Press, 2007). These excerpts will be posted as attachments.
• Your instructor is on another trip, so you'll see a video in class and meet in groups. Please watch the movie and post your comments!
• Research Project Step 4 due: The Exploration Project will be the stage when you foster intellectual "turbulence" by investigating the many facets and problems of your subject, asking a number of questions and offering a number of answers for each question, without feeling the need to present these questions and answers in a tightly organized essay. You may compose your Exploration Project as an exploratory essay or by answering more directly a set of questions that will be provided. You'll be given additional guidelines for this step. (Suggested length: 1,500 words)

Thursday, April 12

• Read selections from Ways of Seeing, Ways of Speaking: The Integration of Rhetoric and Vision in Constructing the Real edited by Kristie S. Fleckenstein, Linda T. Calendrillo, and Sue Hum

Week 15

Tuesday, April 17

• Read selections from Ways of Seeing, Ways of Speaking:
  The Integration of Rhetoric and Vision in Constructing the Real edited by Kristie S. Fleckenstein, Linda T. Calendrillo, and Sue Hum

Thursday, April 19

• Read more selections from Ways of Seeing, Ways of Speaking: The Integration of Rhetoric and Vision in Constructing the Real edited by Kristie S. Fleckenstein, Linda T. Calendrillo, and Sue Hum

Week 16

On Tuesday and Thursday of this week, Prof. Blakesley will be at a the Chameleon Federation meeting in California. Class activies TBA.

Finals Week

Tuesday, May 1

Finals Week

Thursday, May 3

Finals Week. No class meeting today.

• Research Project Step 5 due: A Working Document Project where you will present the results of your inquiry in a format and with the depth that suits it. If you use a traditional format, think of your working document as the draft of a journal article. If another format, you'll just need to be careful to cover your subject matter effectively, given the medium and your purpose. A website or other multimedia presentation is encouraged. (Suggested length: open).

Guidelines for Responding in Networked Communities

These recommendations come from careful consideration of the typical rhetorical situation of discussion boards--public spaces where people with shared interests or values and special expertise gather to discuss the topics that interest them. The style and tone of posts is usually more formal than you might find in chat rooms, where the focus can be more on immediacy and fast give-and-take.

1. Read the user guidelines for the board or forum and be sure to follow them.
2. Read through all the messages in a particular thread before posting a response.
3. Provide enough context in your message (by quoting from a previous post, for example) so that all readers understand what you’re responding to or what you’re proposing.
4. If you can’t stay on topic, begin a new thread and give it a subject line that conveys the topic clearly.
5. If you want to reply to a person but your message seems too personal or might stray off topic, consider sending a personal message instead (through email or, if possible, using the board’s internal message server).
6. Take the time to preview and edit your messages before you post or publish them.
7. When your message is posted to the board or forum, open it and read it to see if it says what you intended. If it doesn’t, re-edit it.
8. Return frequently to the board or forum to see how others have responded to your post or how the thread has continued.
9. If people respond to your post, keep the discussion going with another message (if appropriate).
10. Don’t be so eager to reply to posts that you overwhelm everyone with responses to every message that gets posted. Give other people opportunity and time to reply.

Consider also these student-generated guidelines for a class forum, as well as examples of good (and not-so-good) discussion practices.

Student-Generated Guidelines for Online Discussion

1. No “Phaedrus” responses, such as “How true!” Elaborate on your responses, quote from a previous response, an dquote from a text (with explication) to help the discussion along.
2. No “sniper” shots. Avoid overly contentious posts that take a jab but don’t explain or elaborate.
3. Keep the discussion relevant to the whole class and, if a post refers to privately shared knowledge, give some context for other readers who may not know what you’re writing about.
4. Be a responsible reader of others’ posts, and don’t respond in a thread until you’ve caught the drift of the discussion.
5. Be concise, keeping your post to about 200 words or fewer. Longer posts are sometimes necessary, especially when quoting a text.
6. Stay on topic. Watch and follow the thread (in the subject line) of a discussion. If your topic is a new one, start a new discussion thread and see if you can get others to join you.
7. Sign your messages. (Drupal allows you to create a “signature” in your profile settings that will be automatically appended to your forum messages.)

If you would like to read some examples of these guidelines in action, read on to see how some students use them to create lively discussion: Examples: Keeping Online Discussions Lively and Focused.

Developing Content and Elaborating Ambiguity: From Open Essay to Hypertext

One of the purposes of the Exploration Project (Step 4) is to open up a subject, in much the same way that Montaigne manipulated his subject matter in his famous Essais.

In the open essay, you exploit the ways in which your subject is connected to other subjects. The "open" essay expands a subject into a general meditation, and reveals the ways in which ideas and information can be connected. When we "essay," we practice deliberative associative thinking.

According to philosopher David Hume, we can connect ideas in three ways, through resemblance, or contiguity (connectedness) in time or place, or cause and effect. Montaigne uses each of these methods in "Of Coaches." First, he builds most of the first part of the essay on the causes and consequences of sickness and fear (cause and effect). Second, he recalls "a chariot drawn by four oxen," then describes chariots drawn by other animals (resemblance). Third, he considers the role of coaches in a variety of cultures and ages (contiguity). These three ways of connecting ideas help us make associations among ideas that the conventional, formalistic essay may not allow.

The hypertext format is especially useful for composing open essays. Links from key concepts and actions in individual paragraphs help establish threads that can branch off in interesting ways. This assignment is adapted from William A. Covino’s Forms of Wondering.

Steps in the Process

Here's a four-step approach to composing an open essay or hypertext.

STEP ONE : Write a short, “closed theme” or five-paragraph essay that states a problem or thesis, offers three examples, explanations, or solutions, and closes with a recommendation. (See the sample in the attachment listed below.)

STEP TWO: The deliberate associative thinking that expands a closed theme into an open, hypertext essay is an intellectual tour whose "itinerary" includes the past, present, and future; personal and public; particular and general; native and foreign; causes and consequences.

To create this itinerary, pick a concept (a general or "abstract" word) in at least five paragraphs of your original essay. Plug each of these concept words into one of the following sentences, then write five expansion paragraphs. Keep these expansion paragraphs separate from your original essay.

1. Past uses of _________.
2. The role of ________ in a personal experience of yours.
3. The social, ethical, educational, psychological, or political consequences of _________.
4. What others who have written about _________ have said (quotations), with your own brief comments.
5. Another concept that is broader and more important than ________.
6. A particular instance of ________ occurring in public life.
7. How ________ is defined or understood in an other culture.
8. A variation of any of the above.

STEP THREE (Five paragraphs): Pick an action in at least five paragraphs of your original theme or Step Two paragraphs and write another paragraph that discusses each term in ways suggested by the topics listed below:

1. Past uses of _________.
2. The role of ________ in a personal experience of yours.
3. The social, ethical, educational, psychological, or political consequences of _________.
4. What others who have written about _________ have said (quotations), with your own brief comments.
5. Another concept that is broader and more important than ________.
6. A particular instance of ________ occurring in public life.
7. How ________ is defined or understood in an other culture.
8. A variation of any of the above.
9. An analogy to _________

STEP FOUR : Compose your open essay or hypertext by creating relevant and interesting links and transitions among the paragraphs you’ve written. If you create a hypertext, you’re likely to have each paragraph on its own node.

A good open essay or hypertext essay has a feeling of expansiveness to it, meaning that the author has let the reader “join in” as he or she ponders the ways in which ideas are connected to each other.

Some Samples

These directions and then some sample paragraphs from William A. Covino's Forms of Wondering are attached. You'll see at the end a whole essay built from the paragraphs.

Examples: Keeping Online Discussion Lively and Focused

* These examples--each illustrating the "student-generated guidelines for online discussion"--are hypothetical examples and aren't the words of real people. (Re-posting an online faux pas would just be even more embarrassing. . . .) They have been adapted with permission from a forthcoming book, The Thomson Handbook: A Writer's Reference for the Digital Age for the purposes of class testing. The authors are David Blakesley and Jeff Hoogeveen.

1. “No Phaedrus Responses”: Phaedrus was one of Socrates’s students and appears in the dialogue named after him, Phaedrus. Throughout the dialogue, Socrates does most of the talking, on such subjects as the nature of love, madness, and writing. When he chimes in, Phaedrus will say things like, “How true. Tell me more!” These kinds of responses don’t add anything new to the discussion (an important goal for most posts in online communities) and should be avoided. While they register agreement, these posts might better explain the basis for agreement. When you feel a Phaedrus response coming on, feel compelled to explain “Why” when you post it.

*** Example: “No Phaedrus Responses”***

Original Post:

Armand: . . . for these reasons, I think it’s important that we begin our project by first coming up with a good list of questions to ask our client.

Melissa:

Ineffective Response: Exactly!

Effective Response: Exactly! I have an idea for the first question we should ask: “What is the most important goal of your organization?” Do any others have some recommendations for possible questions?

Caption: Melissa’s first reaction was to agree, which she announced. However, that sort of response doesn’t add anything new to the thread except to register a vote—as if the original post were a poll. In her effective response, She develops the thread by coming up with a question and then asking others to do the same.

*** End of Example ***

2. No sniper shots”: The students thought they should avoid hit-and-run commentary, posts that offer a brief critique of someone else’s message but don’t bother to explain or justify the response, making it seem like a personal attack carried out in front of all participants.

***Example: “No Sniper Shots” ***

Original Post:

Andrew: Here’s another question that I think we should ask and that may tell us the motivation behind the client’s success: “Aside from earning a profit, what do you find most rewarding about your business?”

Toni:

Ineffective Response: That’s ridiculous!

Effective Response: Maybe not all of the people are in it for the profit in the first place. This question presumes that it’s a major “reward.” That doesn’t apply to nonprofit organizations, of course. Perhaps we could just leave off the “Aside from earning a profit” part and ask a series of questions. “What’s most rewarding . . . ?” “What else do you find rewarding?” Etc.

Caption: Toni’s first reaction was to disagree, and as with Melissa’s Phaedrus response, she simply registers her opinion without explanation. In her more reasoned response, she states her disagreement but then explains why she feels that way. Future posters will be more likely to react to here reasons than simply the fact of her disagreement, which can stimulate further discussion.

***End of Example***

3. “Keep discussion relevant”: Nothing can be more aggravating for participants than reading personal messages exchanged between two people in a public forum. (It feels like overhearing someone talking to a friend on a cell phone in a dentist’s waiting room on Monday morning.) Sometimes, of course, people accidentally send a reply to everyone on an email discussion list, much to their own horror. (If you ever do this, it’s common practice to send a quick, very short reply to the list expressing your apologies to everyone.)

*** Example: “Keep Discussion Relevant***

Original Post:

Nedra:

Our client is really busy, so it’s important that we are well prepared with our interview questions and thus don’t have to ask too many follow-up questions later.

Tom:

Ineffective Response: I was really busy this weekend, I can tell you that! I went to a great tailgater on Saturday . . .

Effective Response: Maybe we should also anticipate what our client’s responses will be so that we can ask follow-up questions on the spot. If, for example, the client says that she enjoys the work “because she likes helping people,” we should ask her to share a memorable example of when she made a difference in someone’s life and how it felt.

Can you explain how Tom’s response shifts the course of the conversation? What kind of posts do you think might follow his?

***End of Example***

4. “Be a Responsible Reader”: It is sometimes tempting to respond immediately to a particular post in a thread, but you should take the time to read ahead so that you understand the trajectory of the discussion. It’s likely, for example, that someone else may have already responded as you intended to, and so your response will not only interrupt the flow but may also show everyone else that you haven’t read very carefully (This same principle should be applied when you’re posting to an email discussion list; before replying to a particular message, make sure that you don’t have other messages in the thread already in your Inbox.) Naturally, you should also read the posts of others carefully so that you understand their meaning. In cases where you want to respond to a particular point in a previous message, it can be helpful to quote it in your own message.

***Example: “Be a Responsible Reader”***

Original Post:

Jose:

During our online interview in the “Field Research Thread,”, the client said that she saw community outreach as a major goal of the organization, but also that it posed a serious difficulty given her severely limited budget and time to devote to PR.

Allan:

Ineffective Response: I agree that community outreach is important for these kinds of organizations. Maybe we should recommend that she hire a PR firm to help?

Effective Response: Do you think, then, that we should bother tracking down information about how much it would cost to hire a PR firm or should we rather spend our time researching lower-cost alternatives?

In his ineffective response Allan seems to only respond to the first part of Jose’s message without noticing what Jose says at the end. What point does Allan miss? How does he incorporate his better understanding into his effective response?

***End of Example***

5. “Aim for brevity”: Keep your messages reasonably short. Excessively long messages are sometimes, even if they are very well written and introduce important distinctions or complexity. In the give-and-take of online communication, it can be difficult for people to respond to such messages because they usually make several points that could be picked up in the thread. It also makes it difficult for readers to indicate what part of a message they have responded to (they want to preserve the thread, but it already has unraveled in too many directions). Even in face-to-face (F2F) communication, most people know how it feels to try to have a conversation with someone who speaks in long monologues. When you write too much in an online forum, you pose the same difficulties for your readers.

Context can help you decide how long your messages should be. In asynchronous communication, when there is usually more time to read posts, messages are typically longer (or can get away with being longer) because readers have more time to read carefully. In synchronous situations—when people read on the fly—messages need to be very short so that others can follow the conversation. In our examples in this section, the students have composed short responses so that the give-and-take can help them reach concrete solutions in a hurry.

***Example: “Aim for Brevity”***

Original Post:

Angelica:

Our client has told us that the major aim of the organization is to assist people who have suffered discrimination because of unfair housing practices.

Mark:

Ineffective Response: Unfair housing practices fall under the purview of the Housing and Urban Development (HUD) branch of the federal government, specifically the code that legislates “Fair Housing Practices.” Those laws arose in the twentieth century to address widespread discriminatory practices that made it easy for wealthy landlords to exploit poor people who not only couldn’t pay high rent but also had unequal access to legal options because of the high cost of hiring a lawyer. In the 1960s, fair housing laws became a flashpoint for civil rights action, and the term “slumlord” became a popular term for people who charged high rent without fulfilling their obligations to maintain their rental property in livable conditions. In the 1990s, we saw the emergence of films like The Super, which starred Joe Pesci as a slumlord sentenced to live in his own housing as the penalty for not maintaining the property. Other films, like The Tenant and Duplex, show [. . . etc.]

Effective Response: I imagine that the client works with the local human relations organizations because they are usually the ones who intervene in claims of housing discrimination. Our local commission has a Website that contains information about the process of filing a claim. Maybe we should talk to someone who can share some ideas for how our client can help make this information more widely available to landlords, too, so that they don’t all end up like Joe Pesci in The Super!

Mark’s first response provides some good information, but the danger is that the thread will get lost if he also delves into films that show the consequences of unfair housing practices. If you feel compelled to share a long response, what could you do so that you don’t interrupt the current thread? Start a new thread? Upload a file attachment with “more details for those interested”?

***End of Example***

6. “Stay on topic to preserve the threads”: You should always try to preserve the thread of a discussion by staying on topic. Threads are topical subject matter identified in the subject line (either of an email message or in a bulletin board posting). One of the main benefits of online discussion is that it enables us to follow and develop a train of thought with others so that, in pooling our ideas, we arrive at new and deeper insights, or a more precise plan of action. If you intervene in such threads with posts that radically shift the topic, then you may seriously hurt that effort. In cases where you find it necessary to take the conversation in a new direction, you can always post a new message, with a new subject line (i.e., start a new thread).

***Example: “Stay on Topic to Preserve the Threads”***

Subject Line of Thread: Using visuals in our client report

Original Post by Quentin: Like Ann, I think we need to include visuals as more than fancy decoration in our report to our client. It would be helpful, for example, to give a screen shot of the parent organization’s Website so that the client can see what the catalog looks like, especially since they will have to develop their own.

Ineffective Response:

Subject Line: Using visuals in our client report

Kelly:

I think our report should use APA style because that’s what the client said she used in school and so she’ll be familiar with it. What are we supposed to do?

Effective Response:

Subject Line: Using visuals in our client report

Kelly:

How about a screenshot also, of a catalog produced by another local organization with similar goals? I’ve found a Website for an organization in Florida that provides people with a catalog of services that looks very nice and could be an excellent model. See http://fchr.state.fl.us/

How does Kelly’s effective response both preserve the thread and create opportunities for others to respond?

***End of Example***

7. “Sign your messages”: When you post messages to blogs, bulletin boards, and threaded discussion lists, they will often automatically contain information about the person posting the message, usually identifying him or her by “User Name.” Very often, a person’s user name is not his or her real name but a single word, sometimes with small and capital letters or numbers intermixed, for purposes of uniquely identifying the user on the system. (For example, on the WWWThreads forums, David Blakesley has a user name of “DaveB.” On the Moveable Type Weblog, he’s also “DaveB”) Signing off on a post also indicates to others that you’ve finished your message and haven’t, for example, accidentally clicked on “Post” or “Send” before you intended. Many bulletin board programs (and even MOO clients) will allow you to provide additional profile information so that people can click on your name to get further information about you or, if they choose, to send you a private message. You usually have options about how much information you’re allowed to provide. Sometimes, it’s acceptable for people to use “Screen Names” that keep their real identity private, especially in social forums where privacy concerns may be important.

Exploring a Topic from Multiple Perspectives

To fully understand a subject, it is important to consider it from alternative perspectives, ones that may not be immediately obvious. The prompts and questions below should help you think of ways to formulate new and interesting questions about your subject. For the Exploration Project (Step 4), answer at least 10 of these questions, with a variety of terms and a paragraph devoted to each.

Expansion Paragraphs

Select a key term or concept and/or action associated with your topic (not necessarily the main topic), and insert it into the blank. How would you answer the question? To generate more answers, simply use a new concept or action or use variations of these questions. Not all of the questions will be relevant to every concept or action.

1. What are some past uses of _________?
2. What is the role of ________ in a personal experience of yours?
3. What are the social consequences of _________?
4. What are the ethical consequences of _________?
5. What are the educational consequences of _________?
6. What are the psychological consequences of _________?
7. What are the political consequences of _________?
8. What have others who have written about _________ said (quotations)? What is your reaction to what they have said?
9. What is another concept that is broader and more important than ________?
10. What is a particular instance of ________ occurring in public life?
11. How is ________ is defined or understood in an other culture?
12. What is a good analogy to _________?
13. What is the future of _________ likely to be?
14. What might people gain if ___________ continues?
15. What might people lose if ___________ continues?
16. Why do people value _____________?
17. Why might people fear ____________?
18. What preconceptions or stereotypes do people have with regard to _____________?
19. What is ____________ a symptom of?
20. What are five things everyone should know about ____________?

Montaigne's "Of Coaches"

ESSAYS OF MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE

Translated by Charles Cotton

Edited by William Carew Hazilitt

1877

CONTENTS OF VOLUME 16.

VI. Of Coaches.
VII. Of the Inconvenience of Greatness.
VIII. Of the Art of Conference.

CHAPTER VI

OF COACHES

It is very easy to verify, that great authors, when they write of causes,
not only make use of those they think to be the true causes, but also of
those they believe not to be so, provided they have in them some beauty
and invention: they speak true and usefully enough, if it be ingeniously.
We cannot make ourselves sure of the supreme cause, and therefore crowd a
great many together, to see if it may not accidentally be amongst them:

"Namque unam dicere causam
Non satis est, verum plures, unde una tamen sit."

[Lucretius, vi. 704.--The sense is in the preceding passage.]

Do you ask me, whence comes the custom of blessing those who sneeze?
We break wind three several ways; that which sallies from below is too
filthy; that which breaks out from the mouth carries with it some
reproach of gluttony; the third is sneezing, which, because it proceeds
from the head and is without offence, we give it this civil reception: do
not laugh at this distinction; they say 'tis Aristotle's.

I think I have seen in Plutarch' (who of all the authors I know, is he
who has best mixed art with nature, and judgment with knowledge), his
giving as a reason for the, rising of the stomach in those who are at
sea, that it is occasioned by fear; having first found out some reason by
which he proves that fear may produce such an effect. I, who am very
subject to it, know well that this cause concerns not me; and I know it,
not by argument, but by necessary experience. Without instancing what
has been told me, that the same thing often happens in beasts, especially
hogs, who are out of all apprehension of danger; and what an acquaintance
of mine told me of himself, that though very subject to it, the
disposition to vomit has three or four times gone off him, being very
afraid in a violent storm, as it happened to that ancient:

"Pejus vexabar, quam ut periculum mihi succurreret;"

["I was too ill to think of danger." (Or the reverse:)
"I was too frightened to be ill."--Seneca, Ep., 53. 2]

I was never afraid upon the water, nor indeed in any other peril (and I
have had enough before my eyes that would have sufficed, if death be
one), so as to be astounded to lose my judgment. Fear springs sometimes
as much from want of judgment as from want of courage. All the dangers I
have been in I have looked upon without winking, with an open, sound, and
entire sight; and, indeed, a man must have courage to fear. It formerly
served me better than other help, so to order and regulate my retreat,
that it was, if not without fear, nevertheless without affright and
astonishment; it was agitated, indeed, but not amazed or stupefied.
Great souls go yet much farther, and present to us flights, not only
steady and temperate, but moreover lofty. Let us make a relation of that
which Alcibiades reports of Socrates, his fellow in arms: "I found him,"
says he, "after the rout of our army, him and Lachez, last among those
who fled, and considered him at my leisure and in security, for I was
mounted on a good horse, and he on foot, as he had fought. I took
notice, in the first place, how much judgment and resolution he showed,
in comparison of Lachez, and then the bravery of his march, nothing
different from his ordinary gait; his sight firm and regular, considering
and judging what passed about him, looking one while upon those, and then
upon others, friends and enemies, after such a manner as encouraged
those, and signified to the others that he would sell his life dear to
any one who should attempt to take it from him, and so they came off; for
people are not willing to attack such kind of men, but pursue those they
see are in a fright." That is the testimony of this great captain, which
teaches us, what we every day experience, that nothing so much throws us
into dangers as an inconsiderate eagerness of getting ourselves clear of
them:

"Quo timoris minus est, eo minus ferme periculi est."

["When there is least fear, there is for the most part least
danger."--Livy, xxii. 5.]

Our people are to blame who say that such an one is afraid of death, when
they would express that he thinks of it and foresees it: foresight is
equally convenient in what concerns us, whether good or ill. To consider
and judge of danger is, in some sort, the reverse to being astounded.
I do not find myself strong enough to sustain the force and impetuosity
of this passion of fear, nor of any other vehement passion whatever: if I
was once conquered and beaten down by it, I should never rise again very
sound. Whoever should once make my soul lose her footing, would never
set her upright again: she retastes and researches herself too
profoundly, and too much to the quick, and therefore would never let the
wound she had received heal and cicatrise. It has been well for me that
no sickness has yet discomposed her: at every charge made upon me, I
preserve my utmost opposition and defence; by which means the first that
should rout me would keep me from ever rallying again. I have no
after-game to play: on which side soever the inundation breaks my banks,
I lie open, and am drowned without remedy. Epicurus says, that a wise
man can never become a fool; I have an opinion reverse to this sentence,
which is, that he who has once been a very fool, will never after be very
wise. God grants me cold according to my cloth, and passions
proportionable to the means I have to withstand them: nature having laid
me open on the one side, has covered me on the other; having disarmed me
of strength, she has armed me with insensibility and an apprehension that
is regular, or, if you will, dull.

I cannot now long endure (and when I was young could much less) either
coach, litter, or boat, and hate all other riding but on horseback, both
in town and country. But I can bear a litter worse than a coach; and, by
the same reason, a rough agitation upon the water, whence fear is
produced, better than the motions of a calm. At the little jerks of
oars, stealing the vessel from under us, I find, I know not how, both my
head and my stomach disordered; neither-can I endure to sit upon a
tottering chair. When the sail or the current carries us equally, or
that we are towed, the equal agitation does not disturb me at all; 'tis
an interrupted motion that offends me, and most of all when most slow: I
cannot otherwise express it. The physicians have ordered me to squeeze
and gird myself about the bottom of the belly with a napkin to remedy
this evil; which however I have not tried, being accustomed to wrestle
with my own defects, and overcome them myself.

Would my memory serve me, I should not think my time ill spent in setting
down here the infinite variety that history presents us of the use of
chariots in the service of war: various, according to the nations and
according to the age; in my opinion, of great necessity and effect; so
that it is a wonder that we have lost all knowledge of them. I will only
say this, that very lately, in our fathers' time, the Hungarians made
very advantageous use of them against the Turks; having in every one of
them a targetter and a musketeer, and a number of harquebuses piled ready
and loaded, and all covered with a pavesade like a galliot--[Canvas
spread along the side of a ship of war, in action to screen the movements
of those on board.]--They formed the front of their battle with three
thousand such coaches, and after the cannon had played, made them all
pour in their shot upon the enemy, who had to swallow that volley before
they tasted of the rest, which was no little advance; and that done,
these chariots charged into their squadrons to break them and open a way
for the rest; besides the use they might make of them to flank the
soldiers in a place of danger when marching to the field, or to cover a
post, and fortify it in haste. In my time, a gentleman on one of our
frontiers, unwieldy of body, and finding no horse able to carry his
weight, having a quarrel, rode through the country in a chariot of this
fashion, and found great convenience in it. But let us leave these
chariots of war.

As if their effeminacy--[Which Cotton translates: "as if the
insignificancy of coaches." ]--had not been sufficiently known by better
proofs, the last kings of our first race travelled in a chariot drawn by
four oxen. Marc Antony was the first at Rome who caused himself to be
drawn in a coach by lions, and a singing wench with him.

[Cytheris, the Roman courtezan.--Plutarch's Life of Antony, c. 3.
This, was the same person who is introduced by Gallus under the name
of Lycoris. Gallus doubtless knew her personally.]

Heliogabalus did since as much, calling himself Cybele, the mother of the
gods; and also drawn by tigers, taking upon him the person of the god
Bacchus; he also sometimes harnessed two stags to his coach, another time
four dogs, and another four naked wenches, causing himself to be drawn by
them in pomp, stark naked too. The Emperor Firmus caused his chariot to
be drawn by ostriches of a prodigious size, so that it seemed rather to
fly than roll.

The strangeness of these inventions puts this other fancy in my head:
that it is a kind of pusillanimity in monarchs, and a testimony that they
do not sufficiently understand themselves what they are, when they study
to make themselves honoured and to appear great by excessive expense: it
were indeed excusable in a foreign country, but amongst their own
subjects, where they are in sovereign command, and may do what they
please, it derogates from their dignity the most supreme degree of honour
to which they can arrive: just as, methinks, it is superfluous in a
private gentleman to go finely dressed at home; his house, his
attendants, and his kitchen sufficiently answer for him. The advice that
Isocrates gives his king seems to be grounded upon reason: that he should
be splendid in plate and furniture; forasmuch as it is an expense of
duration that devolves on his successors; and that he should avoid all
magnificences that will in a short time be forgotten. I loved to go fine
when I was a younger brother, for want of other ornament; and it became
me well: there are some upon whom their rich clothes weep: We have
strange stories of the frugality of our kings about their own persons and
in their gifts: kings who were great in reputation, valour, and fortune.
Demosthenes vehemently opposes the law of his city that assigned the
public money for the pomp of their public plays and festivals: he would
that their greatness should be seen in numbers of ships well equipped,
and good armies well provided for; and there is good reason to condemn
Theophrastus, who, in his Book on Riches, establishes a contrary opinion,
and maintains that sort of expense to be the true fruit of abundance.
They are delights, says Aristotle, that a only please the baser sort of
the people, and that vanish from the memory as soon as the people are
sated with them, and for which no serious and judicious man can have any
esteem. This money would, in my opinion, be much more royally, as more
profitably, justly, and durably, laid out in ports, havens, walls, and
fortifications; in sumptuous buildings, churches, hospitals, colleges,
the reforming of streets and highways: wherein Pope Gregory XIII. will
leave a laudable memory to future times: and wherein our Queen Catherine
would to long posterity manifest her natural liberality and munificence,
did her means supply her affection. Fortune has done me a great despite
in interrupting the noble structure of the Pont-Neuf of our great city,
and depriving me of the hope of seeing it finished before I die.

Moreover, it seems to subjects, who are spectators of these triumphs,
that their own riches are exposed before them, and that they are
entertained at their own expense: for the people are apt to presume of
kings, as we do of our servants, that they are to take care to provide us
all things necessary in abundance, but not touch it themselves; and
therefore the Emperor Galba, being pleased with a musician who played to
him at supper, called for his money-box, and gave him a handful of crowns
that he took out of it, with these words: "This is not the public money,
but my own." Yet it so falls out that the people, for the most part,
have reason on their side, and that the princes feed their eyes with what
they have need of to fill their bellies.

Liberality itself is not in its true lustre in a sovereign hand: private
men have therein the most right; for, to take it exactly, a king has
nothing properly his own; he owes himself to others: authority is not
given in favour of the magistrate, but of the people; a superior is never
made so for his own profit, but for the profit of the inferior, and a
physician for the sick person, and not for himself: all magistracy, as
well as all art, has its end out of itself wherefore the tutors of young
princes, who make it their business to imprint in them this virtue of
liberality, and preach to them to deny nothing and to think nothing so
well spent as what they give (a doctrine that I have known in great
credit in my time), either have more particular regard to their own
profit than to that of their master, or ill understand to whom they
speak. It is too easy a thing to inculcate liberality on him who has as
much as he will to practise it with at the expense of others; and, the
estimate not being proportioned to the measure of the gift but to the
measure of the means of him who gives it, it comes to nothing in so
mighty hands; they find themselves prodigal before they can be reputed
liberal. And it is but a little recommendation, in comparison with other
royal virtues: and the only one, as the tyrant Dionysius said, that suits
well with tyranny itself. I should rather teach him this verse of the
ancient labourer:

["That whoever will have a good crop must sow with his hand, and not
pour out of the sack."--Plutarch, Apothegms, Whether the Ancients
were more excellent in Arms than in Learning.]

he must scatter it abroad, and not lay it on a heap in one place: and
that, seeing he is to give, or, to say better, to pay and restore to so
many people according as they have deserved, he ought to be a loyal and
discreet disposer. If the liberality of a prince be without measure or
discretion, I had rather he were covetous.

Royal virtue seems most to consist in justice; and of all the parts of
justice that best denotes a king which accompanies liberality, for this
they have particularly reserved to be performed by themselves, whereas
all other sorts of justice they remit to the administration of others.
An immoderate bounty is a very weak means to acquire for them good will;
it checks more people than it allures:

"Quo in plures usus sis, minus in multos uti possis....
Quid autem est stultius, quam, quod libenter facias,
curare ut id diutius facere non possis;"

["By how much more you use it to many, by so much less will you be
in a capacity to use it to many more. And what greater folly can
there be than to order it so that what you would willingly do, you
cannot do longer."--Cicero, De Offic., ii. 15.]

and if it be conferred without due respect of merit, it puts him out of
countenance who receives it, and is received ungraciously. Tyrants have
been sacrificed to the hatred of the people by the hands of those very
men they have unjustly advanced; such kind of men as buffoons, panders,
fiddlers, and such ragamuffins, thinking to assure to themselves the
possession of benefits unduly received, if they manifest to have him in
hatred and disdain of whom they hold them, and in this associate
themselves to the common judgment and opinion.

The subjects of a prince excessive in gifts grow excessive in asking,
and regulate their demands, not by reason, but by example. We have,
seriously, very often reason to blush at our own impudence: we are
over-paid, according to justice, when the recompense equals our service;
for do we owe nothing of natural obligation to our princes? If he bear
our charges, he does too much; 'tis enough that he contribute to them:
the overplus is called benefit, which cannot be exacted: for the very
name Liberality sounds of Liberty.

In our fashion it is never done; we never reckon what we have received;
we are only for the future liberality; wherefore, the more a prince
exhausts himself in giving, the poorer he grows in friends. How should
he satisfy immoderate desires, that still increase as they are fulfilled?
He who has his thoughts upon taking, never thinks of what he has taken;
covetousness has nothing so properly and so much its own as ingratitude.

The example of Cyrus will not do amiss in this place, to serve the kings
of these times for a touchstone to know whether their gifts are well or
ill bestowed, and to see how much better that emperor conferred them than
they do, by which means they are reduced to borrow of unknown subjects,
and rather of them whom they have wronged than of them on whom they have
conferred their benefits, and so receive aids wherein there is nothing of
gratuitous but the name. Croesus reproached him with his bounty, and
cast up to how much his treasure would amount if he had been a little
closer-handed. He had a mind to justify his liberality, and therefore
sent despatches into all parts to the grandees of his dominions whom he
had particularly advanced, entreating every one of them to supply him
with as much money as they could, for a pressing occasion, and to send
him particulars of what each could advance. When all these answers were
brought to him, every one of his friends, not thinking it enough barely
to offer him so much as he had received from his bounty, and adding to it
a great deal of his own, it appeared that the sum amounted to a great
deal more than Croesus' reckoning. Whereupon Cyrus: "I am not," said he,
"less in love with riches than other princes, but rather a better
husband; you see with how small a venture I have acquired the inestimable
treasure of so many friends, and how much more faithful treasurers they
are to me than mercenary men without obligation, without affection; and
my money better laid up than in chests, bringing upon me the hatred,
envy, and contempt of other princes."

The emperors excused the superfluity of their plays and public spectacles
by reason that their authority in some sort (at least in outward
appearance) depended upon the will of the people of Rome, who, time out
of mind, had been accustomed to be entertained and caressed with such
shows and excesses. But they were private citizens, who had nourished
this custom to gratify their fellow-citizens and companions (and chiefly
out of their own purses) by such profusion and magnificence it had quite
another taste when the masters came to imitate it:

"Pecuniarum translatio a justis dominis ad alienos
non debet liberalis videri."

["The transferring of money from the right owners to strangers
ought not to have the title of liberality."
--Cicero, De Offic., i. 14.]

Philip, seeing that his son went about by presents to gain the affection
of the Macedonians, reprimanded him in a letter after this manner: "What!
hast thou a mind that thy subjects shall look upon thee as their
cash-keeper and not as their king? Wilt thou tamper with them to win
their affections? Do it, then, by the benefits of thy virtue, and not by
those of thy chest." And yet it was, doubtless, a fine thing to bring
and plant within the amphitheatre a great number of vast trees, with all
their branches in their full verdure, representing a great shady forest,
disposed in excellent order; and, the first day, to throw into it a
thousand ostriches and a thousand stags, a thousand boars, and a thousand
fallow-deer, to be killed and disposed of by the people: the next day, to
cause a hundred great lions, a hundred leopards, and three hundred bears
to be killed in his presence; and for the third day, to make three
hundred pair of gladiators fight it out to the last, as the Emperor
Probus did. It was also very fine to see those vast amphitheatres, all
faced with marble without, curiously wrought with figures and statues,
and within glittering with rare enrichments:

"Baltheus en! gemmis, en illita porticus auro:"

["A belt glittering with jewels, and a portico overlaid with gold."
--Calpurnius, Eclog., vii. 47. A baltheus was a shoulder-belt or
baldric.]

all the sides of this vast space filled and environed, from the bottom to
the top, with three or four score rows of seats, all of marble also, and
covered with cushions:

"Exeat, inquit,
Si pudor est, et de pulvino surgat equestri,
Cujus res legi non sufficit;"

["Let him go out, he said, if he has any sense of shame, and rise
from the equestrian cushion, whose estate does not satisfy the law."
--Juvenal, iii. 153. The Equites were required to possess a fortune
of 400 sestertia, and they sat on the first fourteen rows behind the
orchestra.]

where a hundred thousand men might sit at their ease: and, the place
below, where the games were played, to make it, by art, first open and
cleave in chasms, representing caves that vomited out the beasts designed
for the spectacle; and then, secondly, to be overflowed by a deep sea,
full of sea monsters, and laden with ships of war, to represent a naval
battle; and, thirdly, to make it dry and even again for the combat of the
gladiators; and, for the fourth scene, to have it strown with vermilion
grain and storax,--[A resinous gum.]--instead of sand, there to make a
solemn feast for all that infinite number of people: the last act of one
only day:

"Quoties nos descendentis arenae
Vidimus in partes, ruptaque voragine terrae
Emersisse feras, et eisdem saepe latebris
Aurea cum croceo creverunt arbuta libro!....
Nec solum nobis silvestria cernere monstra
Contigit; aequoreos ego cum certantibus ursis
Spectavi vitulos, et equorum nomine dignum,
Sen deforme pecus, quod in illo nascitur amni...."

["How often have we seen the stage of the theatre descend and part
asunder, and from a chasm in the earth wild beasts emerge, and then
presently give birth to a grove of gilded trees, that put forth
blossoms of enamelled flowers. Nor yet of sylvan marvels alone had
we sight: I saw sea-calves fight with bears, and a deformed sort of
cattle, we might call sea-horses."--Calpurnius, Eclog., vii. 64.]

Sometimes they made a high mountain advance itself, covered with
fruit-trees and other leafy trees, sending down rivulets of water from
the top, as from the mouth of a fountain: otherwhiles, a great ship was
seen to come rolling in, which opened and divided of itself, and after
having disgorged from the hold four or five hundred beasts for fight,
closed again, and vanished without help. At other times, from the floor
of this place, they made spouts of perfumed water dart their streams
upward, and so high as to sprinkle all that infinite multitude. To
defend themselves from the injuries of the weather, they had that vast
place one while covered over with purple curtains of needlework, and
by-and-by with silk of one or another colour, which they drew off or
on in a moment, as they had a mind:

"Quamvis non modico caleant spectacula sole,
Vela reducuntur, cum venit Hermogenes."

["The curtains, though the sun should scorch the spectators, are
drawn in, when Hermogenes appears."-Martial, xii. 29, 15. M.
Tigellius Hermogenes, whom Horace and others have satirised. One
editor calls him "a noted thief," another: "He was a literary
amateur of no ability, who expressed his critical opinions with too
great a freedom to please the poets of his day." D.W.]

The network also that was set before the people to defend them from the
violence of these turned-out beasts was woven of gold:

"Auro quoque torts refulgent
Retia."

["The woven nets are refulgent with gold."
--Calpurnius, ubi supra.]

If there be anything excusable in such excesses as these, it is where the
novelty and invention create more wonder than the expense; even in these
vanities we discover how fertile those ages were in other kind of wits
than these of ours. It is with this sort of fertility, as with all other
products of nature: not that she there and then employed her utmost
force: we do not go; we rather run up and down, and whirl this way and
that; we turn back the way we came. I am afraid our knowledge is weak in
all senses; we neither see far forward nor far backward; our
understanding comprehends little, and lives but a little while; 'tis
short both in extent of time and extent of matter:

"Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona
Mufti, sed omnes illacrymabiles
Urgentur, ignotique longs
Nocte."

[ Many brave men lived before Agamemnon, but all are pressed by the
long night unmourned and unknown."--Horace, Od., iv. 9, 25.]

"Et supra bellum Thebanum et funera Trojae
Non alias alii quoque res cecinere poetae?"

["Why before the Theban war and the destruction of Troy, have not
other poets sung other events?"--Lucretius, v. 327. Montaigne here
diverts himself m giving Lucretius' words a construction directly
contrary to what they bear in the poem. Lucretius puts the
question, Why if the earth had existed from all eternity, there had
not been poets, before the Theban war, to sing men's exploits.
--Coste.]

And the narrative of Solon, of what he had learned from the Egyptian
priests, touching the long life of their state, and their manner of
learning and preserving foreign histories, is not, methinks, a testimony
to be refused in this consideration:

"Si interminatam in omnes partes magnitudinem regionum videremus et
temporum, in quam se injiciens animus et intendens, ita late
longeque peregrinatur, ut nullam oram ultimi videat, in qua possit
insistere: in haec immensitate . . . infinita vis innumerabilium
appareret fomorum."

["Could we see on all parts the unlimited magnitude of regions and
of times, upon which the mind being intent, could wander so far and
wide, that no limit is to be seen, in which it can bound its eye, we
should, in that infinite immensity, discover an infinite force of
innumerable atoms." Here also Montaigne puts a sense quite
different from what the words bear in the original; but the
application he makes of them is so happy that one would declare they
were actually put together only to express his own sentiments. "Et
temporum" is an addition by Montaigne.--Coste.]

Though all that has arrived, by report, of our knowledge of times past
should be true, and known by some one person, it would be less than
nothing in comparison of what is unknown. And of this same image of the
world, which glides away whilst we live upon it, how wretched and limited
is the knowledge of the most curious; not only of particular events,
which fortune often renders exemplary and of great concern, but of the
state of great governments and nations, a hundred more escape us than
ever come to our knowledge. We make a mighty business of the invention
of artillery and printing, which other men at the other end of the world,
in China, had a thousand years ago. Did we but see as much of the world
as we do not see, we should perceive, we may well believe, a perpetual
multiplication and vicissitude of forms. There is nothing single and
rare in respect of nature, but in respect of our knowledge, which is a
wretched foundation whereon to ground our rules, and that represents to
us a very false image of things. As we nowadays vainly conclude the
declension and decrepitude of the world, by the arguments we extract from
our own weakness and decay:

"Jamque adeo est affecta aetas effoet aque tellus;"

["Our age is feeble, and the earth less fertile."
--Lucretius, ii. 1151.]

so did he vainly conclude as to its birth and youth, by the vigour he
observed in the wits of his time, abounding in novelties and the
invention of divers arts:

"Verum, ut opinor, habet novitatem summa, recensque
Natura est mundi, neque pridem exordia coepit
Quare etiam quaedam nunc artes expoliuntur,
Nunc etiam augescunt; nunc addita navigiis sunt
Multa."

["But, as I am of opinion, the whole of the world is of recent
origin, nor had its commencement in remote times; wherefore it is
that some arts are still being refined, and some just on the
increase; at present many additions are being made to shipping."
--Lucretius, v. 331.]

Our world has lately discovered another (and who will assure us that it
is the last of its brothers, since the Daemons, the Sybils, and we
ourselves have been ignorant of this till now?), as large, well-peopled,
and fruitful as this whereon we live and yet so raw and childish, that we
are still teaching it it's a B C: 'tis not above fifty years since it
knew neither letters, weights, measures, vestments, corn, nor vines: it
was then quite naked in the mother's lap, and only lived upon what she
gave it. If we rightly conclude of our end, and this poet of the
youthfulness of that age of his, that other world will only enter into
the light when this of ours shall make its exit; the universe will fall
into paralysis; one member will be useless, the other in vigour. I am
very much afraid that we have greatly precipitated its declension and
ruin by our contagion; and that we have sold it opinions and our arts at
a very dear rate. It was an infant world, and yet we have not whipped
and subjected it to our discipline by the advantage of our natural worth
and force, neither have we won it by our justice and goodness, nor
subdued it by our magnanimity. Most of their answers, and the
negotiations we have had with them, witness that they were nothing behind
us in pertinency and clearness of natural understanding. The astonishing
magnificence of the cities of Cusco and Mexico, and, amongst many other
things, the garden of the king, where all the trees, fruits, and plants,
according to the order and stature they have in a garden, were
excellently formed in gold; as, in his cabinet, were all the animals bred
upon his territory and in its seas; and the beauty of their manufactures,
in jewels, feathers, cotton, and painting, gave ample proof that they
were as little inferior to us in industry. But as to what concerns
devotion, observance of the laws, goodness, liberality, loyalty, and
plain dealing, it was of use to us that we had not so much as they; for
they have lost, sold, and betrayed themselves by this advantage over us.

As to boldness and courage, stability, constancy against pain, hunger,
and death, I should not fear to oppose the examples I find amongst them
to the most famous examples of elder times that we find in our records on
this side of the world. Far as to those who subdued them, take but away
the tricks and artifices they practised to gull them, and the just
astonishment it was to those nations to see so sudden and unexpected an
arrival of men with beards, differing in language, religion, shape, and
countenance, from so remote a part of the world, and where they had never
heard there was any habitation, mounted upon great unknown monsters,
against those who had not only never seen a horse, but had never seen any
other beast trained up to carry a man or any other loading; shelled in a
hard and shining skin, with a cutting and glittering weapon in his hand,
against them, who, out of wonder at the brightness of a looking glass or
a knife, would exchange great treasures of gold and pearl; and who had
neither knowledge, nor matter with which, at leisure, they could
penetrate our steel: to which may be added the lightning and thunder of
our cannon and harquebuses, enough to frighten Caesar himself, if
surprised, with so little experience, against people naked, except where
the invention of a little quilted cotton was in use, without other arms,
at the most, than bows, stones, staves, and bucklers of wood; people
surprised under colour of friendship and good faith, by the curiosity of
seeing strange and unknown things; take but away, I say, this disparity
from the conquerors, and you take away all the occasion of so many
victories. When I look upon that in vincible ardour wherewith so many
thousands of men, women, and children so often presented and threw
themselves into inevitable dangers for the defence of their gods and
liberties; that generous obstinacy to suffer all extremities and
difficulties, and death itself, rather than submit to the dominion of
those by whom they had been so shamefully abused; and some of them
choosing to die of hunger and fasting, being prisoners, rather than to
accept of nourishment from the hands of their so basely victorious
enemies: I see, that whoever would have attacked them upon equal terms of
arms, experience, and number, would have had a hard, and, peradventure,
a harder game to play than in any other war we have seen.

Why did not so noble a conquest fall under Alexander, or the ancient
Greeks and Romans; and so great a revolution and mutation of so many
empires and nations, fall into hands that would have gently levelled,
rooted up, and made plain and smooth whatever was rough and savage
amongst them, and that would have cherished and propagated the good seeds
that nature had there produced; mixing not only with the culture of land
and the ornament of cities, the arts of this part of the world, in what
was necessary, but also the Greek and Roman virtues, with those that were
original of the country? What a reparation had it been to them, and what
a general good to the whole world, had our first examples and deportments
in those parts allured those people to the admiration and imitation of
virtue, and had begotten betwixt them and us a fraternal society and
intelligence? How easy had it been to have made advantage of souls so
innocent, and so eager to learn, leaving, for the most part, naturally so
good inclinations before? Whereas, on the contrary, we have taken
advantage of their ignorance and inexperience, with greater ease to
incline them to treachery, luxury, avarice, and towards all sorts of
inhumanity and cruelty, by the pattern and example of our manners. Who
ever enhanced the price of merchandise at such a rate? So many cities
levelled with the ground, so many nations exterminated, so many millions
of people fallen by the edge of the sword, and the richest and most
beautiful part of the world turned upside down, for the traffic of pearl
and pepper? Mechanic victories! Never did ambition, never did public
animosities, engage men against one another in such miserable
hostilities, in such miserable calamities.

Certain Spaniards, coasting the sea in quest of their mines, landed in a
fruitful and pleasant and very well peopled country, and there made to
the inhabitants their accustomed professions: "that they were peaceable
men, who were come from a very remote country, and sent on the behalf of
the King of Castile, the greatest prince of the habitable world, to whom
the Pope, God's vicegerent upon earth, had given the principality of all
the Indies; that if they would become tributaries to him, they should be
very gently and courteously used"; at the same time requiring of them
victuals for their nourishment, and gold whereof to make some pretended
medicine; setting forth, moreover, the belief in one only God, and the
truth of our religion, which they advised them to embrace, whereunto they
also added some threats. To which they received this answer: "That as to
their being peaceable, they did not seem to be such, if they were so.
As to their king, since he was fain to beg, he must be necessitous and
poor; and he who had made him this gift, must be a man who loved
dissension, to give that to another which was none of his own, to bring
it into dispute against the ancient possessors. As to victuals, they
would supply them; that of gold they had little; it being a thing they
had in very small esteem, as of no use to the service of life, whereas
their only care was to pass it over happily and pleasantly: but that what
they could find excepting what was employed in the service of their gods,
they might freely take. As to one only God, the proposition had pleased
them well; but that they would not change their religion, both because
they had so long and happily lived in it, and that they were not wont to
take advice of any but their friends, and those they knew: as to their
menaces, it was a sign of want of judgment to threaten those whose nature
and power were to them unknown; that, therefore, they were to make haste
to quit their coast, for they were not used to take the civilities and
professions of armed men and strangers in good part; otherwise they
should do by them as they had done by those others," showing them the
heads of several executed men round the walls of their city. A fair
example of the babble of these children. But so it is, that the
Spaniards did not, either in this or in several other places, where they
did not find the merchandise they sought, make any stay or attempt,
whatever other conveniences were there to be had; witness my CANNIBALS.
--[Chapter XXX. of Book I.]

Of the two most puissant monarchs of that world, and, peradventure, of
this, kings of so many kings, and the last they turned out, he of Peru,
having been taken in a battle, and put to so excessive a ransom as
exceeds all belief, and it being faithfully paid, and he having, by his
conversation, given manifest signs of a frank, liberal, and constant
spirit, and of a clear and settled understanding, the conquerors had a
mind, after having exacted one million three hundred and twenty-five
thousand and five hundred weight of gold, besides silver, and other
things which amounted to no less (so that their horses were shod with
massy gold), still to see, at the price of what disloyalty and injustice
whatever, what the remainder of the treasures of this king might be, and
to possess themselves of that also. To this end a false accusation was
preferred against him, and false witnesses brought to prove that he went
about to raise an insurrection in his provinces, to procure his own
liberty; whereupon, by the virtuous sentence of those very men who had by
this treachery conspired his ruin, he was condemned to be publicly hanged
and strangled, after having made him buy off the torment of being burnt
alive, by the baptism they gave him immediately before execution; a
horrid and unheard of barbarity, which, nevertheless, he underwent
without giving way either in word or look, with a truly grave and royal
behaviour. After which, to calm and appease the people, aroused and
astounded at so strange a thing, they counterfeited great sorrow for his
death, and appointed most sumptuous funerals.

The other king of Mexico,--[Guatimosin]--having for a long time defended
his beleaguered city, and having in this siege manifested the utmost of
what suffering and perseverance can do, if ever prince and people did,
and his misfortune having delivered him alive into his enemies' hands,
upon articles of being treated like a king, neither did he in his
captivity discover anything unworthy of that title. His enemies, after
their victory, not finding so much gold as they expected, when they had
searched and rifled with their utmost diligence, they went about to
procure discoveries by the most cruel torments they could invent upon the
prisoners they had taken: but having profited nothing by these, their
courage being greater than their torments, they arrived at last to such a
degree of fury, as, contrary to their faith and the law of nations, to
condemn the king himself, and one of the principal noblemen of his court,
to the rack, in the presence of one another. This lord, finding himself
overcome with pain, being environed with burning coals, pitifully turned
his dying eyes towards his master, as it were to ask him pardon that he
was able to endure no more; whereupon the king, darting at him a fierce
and severe look, as reproaching his cowardice and pusillanimity, with a
harsh and constant voice said to him thus only: "And what dost thou think
I suffer? am I in a bath? am I more at ease than thou?" Whereupon the
other immediately quailed under the torment and died upon the spot. The
king, half roasted, was carried thence; not so much out of pity (for what
compassion ever touched so barbarous souls, who, upon the doubtful
information of some vessel of gold to be made a prey of, caused not only
a man, but a king, so great in fortune and desert, to be broiled before
their eyes), but because his constancy rendered their cruelty still more
shameful. They afterwards hanged him for having nobly attempted to
deliver himself by arms from so long a captivity and subjection, and he
died with a courage becoming so magnanimous a prince.

Another time, they burnt in the same fire four hundred and sixty men
alive at once, the four hundred of the common people, the sixty the
principal lords of a province, simply prisoners of war. We have these
narratives from themselves for they not only own it, but boast of it and
publish it. Could it be for a testimony of their justice or their zeal
to religion? Doubtless these are ways too differing and contrary to so
holy an end. Had they proposed to themselves to extend our faith, they
would have considered that it does not amplify in the possession of
territories, but in the gaining of men; and would have more than
satisfied themselves with the slaughters occasioned by the necessity of
war, without indifferently mixing a massacre, as upon wild beasts, as
universal as fire and sword could make it; having only, by intention,
saved so many as they meant to make miserable slaves of, for the work and
service of their mines; so that many of the captains were put to death
upon the place of conquest, by order of the kings of Castile, justly
offended with the horror of their deportment, and almost all of them
hated and disesteemed. God meritoriously permitted that all this great
plunder should be swallowed up by the sea in transportation, or in the
civil wars wherewith they devoured one another; and most of the men
themselves were buried in a foreign land without any fruit of their
victory.

That the revenue from these countries, though in the hands of so
parsimonious and so prudent a prince,--[Phillip II.]--so little answers
the expectation given of it to his predecessors, and to that original
abundance of riches which was found at the first landing in those new
discovered countries (for though a great deal be fetched thence, yet we
see 'tis nothing in comparison of that which might be expected), is that
the use of coin was there utterly unknown, and that consequently their
gold was found all hoarded together, being of no other use but for
ornament and show, as a furniture reserved from father to son by many
puissant kings, who were ever draining their mines to make this vast heap
of vessels and statues for the decoration of their palaces and temples;
whereas our gold is always in motion and traffic; we cut it into a
thousand small pieces, and cast it into a thousand forms, and scatter and
disperse it in a thousand ways. But suppose our kings should thus hoard
up all the gold they could get in several ages and let it lie idle by
them.

Those of the kingdom of Mexico were in some sort more civilised and more
advanced in arts than the other nations about them. Therefore did they
judge, as we do, that the world was near its period, and looked upon the
desolation we brought amongst them as a certain sign of it. They
believed that the existence of the world was divided into five ages, and
in the life of five successive suns, of which four had already ended
their time, and that this which gave them light was the fifth. The first
perished, with all other creatures, by an universal inundation of water;
the second by the heavens falling upon us and suffocating every living
thing to which age they assigned the giants, and showed bones to the
Spaniards, according to the proportion of which the stature of men
amounted to twenty feet; the third by fire, which burned and consumed
all; the fourth by an emotion of the air and wind, which came with such
violence as to beat down even many mountains, wherein the men died not,
but were turned into baboons. What impressions will not the weakness of
human belief admit? After the death of this fourth sun, the world was
twenty-five years in perpetual darkness: in the fifteenth of which a man
and a woman were created, who restored the human race: ten years after,
upon a certain day, the sun appeared newly created, and since the account
of their year takes beginning from that day: the third day after its
creation the ancient gods died, and the new ones were since born daily.
After what manner they think this last sun shall perish, my author knows
not; but their number of this fourth change agrees with the great
conjunction of stars which eight hundred and odd years ago, as
astrologers suppose, produced great alterations and novelties in the
world.

As to pomp and magnificence, upon the account of which I engaged in this
discourse, neither Greece, Rome, nor Egypt, whether for utility,
difficulty, or state, can compare any of their works with the highway to
be seen in Peru, made by the kings of the country, from the city of Quito
to that of Cusco (three hundred leagues), straight, even, five-and-twenty
paces wide, paved, and provided on both sides with high and beautiful
walls; and close by them, and all along on the inside, two perennial
streams, bordered with beautiful plants, which they call moly. In this
work, where they met with rocks and mountains, they cut them through, and
made them even, and filled up pits and valleys with lime and stone to
make them level. At the end of every day's journey are beautiful
palaces, furnished with provisions, vestments, and arms, as well for
travellers as for the armies that are to pass that way. In the estimate
of this work I have reckoned the difficulty which is especially
considerable in that place; they did not build with any stones less than
ten feet square, and had no other conveniency of carriage but by drawing
their load themselves by force of arm, and knew not so much as the art of
scaffolding, nor any other way of standing to their work, but by throwing
up earth against the building as it rose higher, taking it away again
when they had done.

Let us here return to our coaches. Instead of these, and of all other
sorts of carriages, they caused themselves to be carried upon men's
shoulders. This last king of Peru, the day that he was taken, was thus
carried betwixt two upon staves of gold, and set in a chair of gold in
the middle of his army. As many of these sedan-men as were killed to
make him fall (for they would take him alive), so many others (and they
contended for it) took the place of those who were slain, so that they
could never beat him down, what slaughter soever they made of these
people, till a horseman, seizing upon him, brought him to the ground.

Visual Communication in the Teaching of Writing

Topic

Visual Literacy

Author of This Guide

Jessica Clark

Reading/Citation Information

George, Diana. "From Analysis to Design: Visual Communication in the Teaching of Writing." College Composition and Communication 54.1 (September 2002): 11-39.

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Article Abstract

"From Analysis to Design: Visual Communication in the Teaching of Writing." Diana George

Diana George claims that how we think about visual literacy and teaching writing limits the kinds and the scope of our composition assignments. This limitation arises because we continue to only ask our students to be critics instead of producers of the visual. George also addresses the confusion about the definitions of visual communication, visual rhetoric and the visual. This confusion leads to a tension between written and visual communication, but resolving this confusion and tension is not one of George’s goals for this particular article. Her intentions are to examine the results of what happens when the visual is consciously used in the classroom as something for students not only to analyze but also to produce.

To make her argument, George offers an historical account of how visual literacy has been perceived and taught in English classrooms since the 1940s. This history shows that the reason many have been and still are reluctant to ask students to produce visual instead of written communication is that they connect writing to high culture and the visual to low culture.

Analysis

I became interested in using the visual in my composition classroom because of Diana George and John Trimbur’s text Reading Culture. This text contains many useful readings and assignments that ask students to analyze different forms of visual communication. Before I began using this text, however, I had little experience with writing assignments that included the visual in any way. Subsequently, I was uncomfortable with these assignments, at first, but I eventually began to catch on. I had been analyzing literature for years. Surely, I could transfer some of that knowledge of analysis to the visual.

Now as an instructor of professional writing, I realize that I am also uncomfortable producing visuals and teaching others to produce visuals for their projects. When I began reading George’s article in CCCs, I was impressed but leery of the idea of asking students to produce visual arguments since I was only familiar with the analysis of the visual-a charge she levels at many composition instructors; however, she makes an effective argument, especially for novices like me, by using examples of assignments that call for visual arguments and examples of what students produce in response to these assignments. These specific examples give me a better understanding of how I might create an assignment for a visual argument. I think George also describes many sources that could be useful for someone interested in becoming more visually literate and teaching visual literacy in composition classrooms.

Although George does make a convincing argument for allowing students to produce as well as analyze visuals in response to composition assignments, I fear that many within the English Department and other disciplines across the university might not understand the how these kinds of assignments are relevant to composition. George encountered a similar reaction from fellow faculty members who thought that the only purpose of her visual argument assignments was to offer students "interesting projects" (28-9). Those who view introductory composition as course designed to teach writing in a manner that will serve other disciplines might be especially resistant. We need to be able to justify how the incorporation of visual communication into composition classrooms is becoming as important to our students' education as teaching them how to produce effective written texts. We may also have to address the issue of how many in our society continue to associate and privilege high culture with written text while equating visual communication with low culture which, in turn, decreases the important of teaching the visual.

Questions for Discussion

1. Do you require any assignments that ask students to analyze and/or produce visual forms of communication? Why or why not?
2. For those who do use visual communication as part of composition assignments, can you recommend any particular texts or strategies that have worked well for you?
3. How do we evaluate assignments that require visual instead of written products?
4. do you thnk that the high culture=written communication versus low culture=visual communication dichotomy still exists in the university? If so, then why and what can we do to resolve this split? Or, should we try to resolve it?
5. Can you suggest arguments we might make to the rest of the university and the general public to justify asking our students to create visual instead of written texts?

Expansion Question

1. Suppose that the issue is not really about how to most effectively incorporate visual communication into the composition classroom. Suppose that it's something less obvious, more complex. What IS the real issue?

Additional References and Resources

Print

• Brunner, Cornelia and William Tally. "Teaching Visual Literacy." Electronic Learning 14 (1994): 16-17.
• Handa, Carolyn. "Digital Literacy and Rhetoric: A Selected Bibliography." Computers and Composition 18 (2001): 195-202.
• Horton, William. "Visual Literacy: Going Beyond Words in Technical Communications." Technical Communication 39(1992): 447-51.
• .... "Visual Thinking and Creativity." Technical Communication 39 (1992): 685-9.
• Messaris, Paul. Visual Literacy: Image, Mind & Reality. San Francisco:Westview Press, 1994.
• Rose Gillian. Visual Methodologies. London: Sage Publications, 2001.
• Smith, C. Zoe and Andrew Mendelson. "Visual Communication Education: Cause for Concern or Bright Future." Journalism and Mass Communication Educator 51 (1996): 66-73.
• Wilde, Judith and Richard Wilde. Visual Literacy. New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 2000.

Group Project

For the group project, you will work in teams of 2 to 4 people to complete a scholarly or creative project that improves our understanding and appreciation of visual rhetoric in a technological age. A major part of the group project will involve the composition and production of visual or design content. You will be asked to keep short, weekly project logs in a group meeting space on the course website following the guidelines provided. During Week 10, your group will be asked to give an oral progress report that employs multimedia as some aspect of the presentation. (Collaborative; 20% of course grade)

Possible Topics

There are more ways to focus your group project than offered here. These are just suggestions that may help you judge what's possible.

1. Develop a book project for the Prospects in Visual Rhetoric series. You'd develop a prospectus first, then put together source text, an introduction, and a bibliography.
2. Create a virtual museum, exhibit, or demonstration that will teach people about some aspect of visual rhetoric.
3. Develop a Drupal-based theme and website/blog on visual rhetoric.
4. Develop a print-based book or journal and have it printed, using something like Blurb. The topic can be anything that allows you to put visual rhetoric into play as a critical component (topically or design-wise).
5. Create a series of informational posters or other type of display art that promotes a program, event, or idea.
6. Develop a new CSS theme for a Drupal site hosted at Purdue (The Writing Instructor, KB Journal, PW Program, any course, or . . .)
7. Make a short film on visual rhetoric and publish it to YouTube. Alternatively, you can broaden your topic to any subject, so long as you show alertness to the ambiguity and potential of visual rhetoric.
8. Develop a series of lessons or modules for visual rhetoric in composition or professional writing courses.

Steps in the Process

1. Topic development and group formation: post a blog message tagged as "Group Project Discussion" in which you toss out a topic/project or two that you might be interested in working on. You can work from the list of possible topics above or create your own to see if others might be interested. Post your message by Thursday, January 24.
2. Meet in your groups during class on Tuesday, January 30 to discuss your project and plan first steps. Every group member should post a short "project log" posting to the Group's Project site. (Categories for tagging your blog posts will be created after the groups and topics have been formed.)
3. Week 10: Give an oral progress report to the rest of the class in which you present your topic, describe the work you've completed thus far, and outline remaining steps. Utilize the presentation technologies available in Heav 227.
4. Week 15: Complete your project. Give a short presentation to the rest of the class in which you sum up your results.
5. Week 16: Submit individually to the instructor your "Peer Collaboration Evaluation Form," which you will see attached to the calendar for Week 15 and below.

Grading

Your grade for this project will be a composite of the project itself, your effective and consistent participation in the collaboration (as indicated in the project logs), and the Peer Collaboration Evaluation Forms.

Research Project

Throughout the semester, I would like you to work independently on a project, paper, hypertext, film, or visual project that examines or displays the nature and/or function of visual rhetori