The Silent Eloquence of Photography

Read this passage from William Stott on the visibility of poverty during the Great Depression, as well as this passage from Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath.

For Class Take a minute to look at the image at right. Have you seen it before? What does it say to you? What are the three most vital details in conveying this message? Bring your answers to class — or paste into the comment space below.

Note: the image at right is a high-res scan of the original photo; if you click it, you’ll get a larger version that zooms in pretty far.

In Class Strand analysis. Two-column notes redux.

Essay Due

Turn in your essay (1) as an uploaded file in the comments and (2) by adding a new page to your ePortfolio. The full essay isn’t due until midnight, but you must prep a short passage from your essay in time to present it during today’s class. If you don’t have your full essay ready in time for class, add the essay later as a “reply” to the comment where you posted the excerpt.

1. Please use a standard Word format for your essay (.doc or .docx) and rename the file file prior to uploading, using your first and last names: For example, “Brody Brown.docx”
2. Choose your favorite passage from the essay and paste it into a comment. We’ll be reading these in class, so take time to rehearse!
3. Use the upload file option to include your essay file in your comment—or add a second comment that includes your essay file as a reply to your first comment.

1. Add a new page to the Rhetoric section of your ePortfolio with the title, “Unit Two: the Rhetoric of Advertising.”
2. Paste your essay into a Rich Text module on this new page.
3. You might want to include your ad along with your essay—either as media inserted in the Rich Text module OR as a separate Media module.

Introduction Due

Think of the intro as an effort to sell your essay to the reader. What does it offer that a typical reader might find valuable?

The first sentences of an essay should grab the reader. Sometimes authors will try to grab our attention with a joke, but generally the goal is to (1) specify the essay’s topic and (2) make clear why that topic should be of interest to us. A good option is to begin by introducing the ad you’re writing about. In considering what to say, think about what makes this ad unusual and therefore intriguing—or alternatively what makes it typical and therefore indicative of a broader trend.

Having introduced your essay’s topic, the second half of the intro should focus our attention on what you want to argue about that topic—your thesis. But before you tell us your core insight, you may want to prep us with some preliminary understanding of the topic—what your essay is adopting as its starting point. This is sometimes called the “counter-thesis,” in the sense that it is what you’re arguing against in arguing your thesis claim. It will turn out to be incomplete, partial, preliminary, but the preliminary understanding thinks it is a full and complete explanation for the essay’s topic.

In any event, the last sentences of a good intro should voice the essay’s main claim or thesis. Wording is crucial: a good thesis will immediately intrigue the reader by striking us as (1) not obviously true and (2) having significant implications for a topic that we care about. A strong preliminary understanding will help establish the first of these; a strong initial characterization of your topic will help establish the second. But everything depends on the wording of the thesis in making strike the reader as intriguing, compelling, perhaps even paradoxical.

For Class Write an introduction to the essay you’re planning and turn it in by pasting it into the comments.

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

As you gear up for writing your first essay, you should consider what makes your ad “newsworthy.” Assuming a reader who’s already interested in modern-day advertising, why is this ad of particular interest? How does it challenge or complicate what we already know about advertising from watching The Persuaders?

To help model this practice, I want you to consider the following ads, all of them cited early in the second segment of The Persuaders, titled “Emotional Branding”:

• Life Buoy soap
• Infiniti
• Nike “I can have impossible goals”
• Benneton
• Chinet paper plates
• Saturn “Homecoming”
• Apple iPod silhouette posters & ads

For each ad in this list, take note of

1. What important insight this example offers, according to the documentary’s narrator or one of its experts;
2. What prior understanding of the topic helped make this example interesting.

Bring your notes to class for discussion—and as HW to turn in.

Further Reading Download and read Thomas Frank, “The Marriage of Hip and Square,” an excerpt from the first chapter of his book, The Conquest of Cool, that ran fifteen years ago in Harper’s Magazine. As you read, consider the function of Frank’s central example, the advertising guru Bill Bernbach. What important insight does Bernbach offer? What prior understanding of the topic makes Bernbach interesting?

Problematizing Analysis: Discovering a Flaw in One’s Initial Account

Students generally try to write from a place of certainty at all times. But good writers develop their ideas, adopting initial understandings that are necessarily partial in order to leave room for growth. This allows them to guide their readers through simple stages into a complex understanding of a topic. Today I’m asking you to practice that by presenting an initial understanding and then casting that into doubt.

Taking your HW from class 8 as a starting point, write a first ¶ that summarizes your initial account of your ad’s appeal or sales pitch. Then complicate that understanding by deliberately casting it into doubt. Here’s a schematic outline of what I’m looking for:

1. ¶ summarizing the ad’s appeal or sales pitch—feel free to rewrite or reuse a ¶ from the HW for Class 8
2. ¶ introducing a problem or doubt about the account you just offered in ¶1. You should then go on to resolve that problem by achieving a new understanding of how the ad works, who it appeals to.
   • If you can present the “problem” in one sentence, you can do the problem and resolution in a single ¶.
   • On the other hand, if it takes several sentences to make the reader appreciate the problem, you’ll want to present your resolution as a separate paragraph.

The drama of this sequence will be enhanced if the first ¶ ends with attention focused on a aspect of the ad’s appeal that the next ¶ calls into question. For example, an essay on the “Slim Jim: Intensive Care” ad we saw for lecture might employ the following transition from ¶1 to ¶2:

… by these vigorous young interns. In this way, the ad invites potential customers to see themselves in the roles of the hospital’s patients, victims who are being rescued from emasculating women by the magic of bromance, mediated by a stick of meat.

This appeal seems stranger the longer one thinks about it—not just for employing a homoerotic undertone in a frat-boy context, but for inviting customers to think of themselves as losers….

The other question to consider in this example is whether the sentence opening ¶2 is in itself enough to make the problem manifest for readers. If so, one would finish that ¶ with analysis that grapples with the problem to achieve a deeper understanding of the ad’s method of appealing to viewers. On the other hand, one must often take a whole ¶ to flesh out a problem for readers, in which case the problem’s solution would have to come in a separate, third ¶.

Turn your ¶s in via the comment section, below.

The Persuaders

Watch Douglas Rushkoff’s Frontline documentary, The Persuaders. If you have the time to do it right, the best method would be to watch the movie through once, and then go back a day later and watch it a second time—after all, it’s easier to know what’s important on a second viewing.

Initial Reaction In the comments space below, write briefly about the most compelling moment from the documentary. If possible, call attention to an advertising keyterm referenced in that scene.

Three Column Notes (bring to class) I’ll be looking for a left-hand column full of direct quotations and keyterms, together with the NAME of the person speaking and the TIME signature in the video.

Fill the middle column filled with your paraphrase (your words only!) of ideas and concepts drawn from quotations and keyterms in the left-hand column.

In your right-hand column, I’ll be looking for insights and applications of those keyterms to ads you’ve encountered. Specify the ad and how your understanding of the ad is deepened or altered.

Looking Ahead

Introduce problematizing analysis: new discovery motivates reassessment and further writing

Binary Analysis as a Tool of Advertising

Reading HW
Download and read Mark Crispin Miller, “Getting Dirty,” a chapter from his 1988 monograph Boxed In. Pay particular attention to his vivid account of the advertisement he discusses—a description that takes up the first few pages of his essay. (If you’re curious to see the ad he discusses in that essay, I’ve uploaded it to YouTube.)

For class, be prepared to discuss the following: What do you like about Miller’s account? What’s his strong suit as a writer? What are his weaknesses, if any?

Viewing HW
Watch all of the following ads, looking for patterns: nothing fancy here, just what do you see happen over and over in this four decade long sequence of soap ads. Make a list of patterns you find — push yourself to identify at least four. Come to class ready to discuss.

1957 Dove Soap — “Dove “creams” your skin while you wash”

1970s Camay Soap — “You’ll be clean and creamy with Camay”

1980s Caress Soap — “For the soft you can’t get with soap.”

2000s Pure & Natural Soap — “For a clean that’s purely natural, Pure and Natural”

2010 Dove Beauty Bar — “Take the Dove 7-Day Test and feel the difference for yourself”

From “Story” to “Message”

Written Assignment

Drawing on your skills from Unit One, craft a 2-¶ sequence for an ad you’re interested in, as follows:

1. ¶ summarizing the ad’s content
2. ¶ summarizing the ad’s appeal or sales pitch

The drama of this sequence will be enhanced if the first ¶ ends with attention focused on a detail that suddenly makes sense in light of the ad’s sales pitch—or, alternatively, a detail that seems out of keeping with the ad’s pitch.

Turn these ¶s in via the comment section, below. Include a link to the ad at the end.

Discussion Assignment

Watch the following short video on how corporate logos function. What’s an example of a corporate logo that you think is powerful—ideally NOT one already discussed in this video? Add it below, as a “reply” to your first HW post. If someone else has already added your logo, find another logo to post that makes an interesting point of comparison to yours.

Abstract Claims & Concrete Details

Our goal this unit is to figure out how educational videos work—and how and where they fail to work. As a first step to that deeper understanding, for HW today you will write two paragraphs, each of which identifies a one key quality in a video.

Three videos to watch:

• Vi Hart, Hexaflexagons
• Nerdwriter, Inside Out: Emotional Theory Comes Alive
• Idea Channel, 3 Fallacies For Election Season!

Please watch all three, so you can provide smart feedback for other students when we meet for class. After watching all three, pick ONE to write on and watch it a second time. Make two lists: one of abstract qualities (frenetic, intellectual, etc.) and one of concrete details (focus on the speaker’s face, jazz music in background, etc.). Pick out two qualities from the first list and make them each the focus of a ¶ filled with details from the second list.

Paragraph structure:

• One Sentence: After briefly identifying which video you’re writing about, open the ¶ with a claim identifying one of its key qualities. Don’t be too self-critical: you can (and should) experiment with re-naming this quality after you finish the next step.
• Three to four sentences: Flesh out the claim by pointing to specific concrete details that substantiate the video’s “frenetic pacing” or whatever claim you’re working on.

Turn your paragraphs in by pasting them into the comment box below. (If you don’t see a comment box, bring your laptop to class.) Leave TWO returns between your ¶s to make the formatting look nice.

Introductions

Course Structure

• 4 Units, with gradual increase in essay length and complexity. No midterm or final exam, but there may be a group project w a focus on visual persuasion.
• HW and essays: assigned and (usually) turned in via this course website.

Core Dogma

Vivid description makes readers experience evidence for themselves.

In-Class Exercise

Discuss two YouTube educational videos

• Vi Hart Hexaflexagons
• Nerdwriter Inside Out: Emotional Theory Comes Alive