Don't Live in a Bubble, But Don't Burn Your Books, Either

I was hoping to post a visual argument which would have the presidential candidates performing on the American Idol stage, but I don't have the knack with superimposing images that Tim has in his ingenious Twin Peaks album cover. I'm just such an old fart.

I do think it's an interesting activity to do in class. I think that many activities such as this one, and others in Wysocki and other books on visual media (one of which, Envision, I will do a text report on this Thursday), can be incorporated into a composition class that does not necessarily have to break the mold of what a college composition class should do. I find it hard to completely embrace the idea of focusing solely on visual arguments in a class that is designed to make the students better writers when they are on their own, and having to write actual academic papers for other classes. It seems we would be doing them a diservice by trying to go too much against the grain. Also, as teachers of English, it seems that we, of all people, should be encouraging the continuance in our culture of the printed word--we should actually like books, and want other people to like books, too.

However, we also should not be teaching in a bubble, unaware of all the other media that is assaulting the senses of our students. If anything, the connection I see between the college comp class and new media is that perhaps understanding these "older" forms of argument--the written and oral word-- can help the student make sense of the newer forms--visual and computer generated.

I think that a look at visual media can be used in two ways-- as the topic of papers, such as the papers many of us have already seen on looking at magazine advertising, which, really, is not a bad way of getting a student to consider how visual media is influencing him/her. And I think that visual media can be used as brainstorming activities; such as the "concept map" or other visual devices that can be used for brainstorming. I was thinking that, as a part of my first assignment (based on reading arguments) that I could assign the students to draw a cartoon that would be inspired by the article they read, one which, if the article were printed in a magazine or newspaper, could be printed beside it to help enhance its meaning. Ideally this activity would make them think a little deeper about the meaning of the article, and the audience it is trying to reach.

I certainly think that visual argument should be incorporated, in as many creative ways as we can think of, but not at the expense of the written word. Because until the day that a student can turn in a series of photoshopped pictures as a History term paper, we would be doing them a disservice not to focus our attention on the formal academic paper.