The readings for this week really interested me because I did my exploratory paper on this topic. It also seems in direct contrast to the Emig we read earlier in the semester, in which she characterizes alphabetic communication as "special" -- more special than anything else, apparently -- and uses this as an argument as to why writing should be the central focus of composition classes. I wasn't sure I agreed with her then, and I really don't agree with her now.
So, some of the questions I raised at the end of my exploratory paper get sort-of answered here, I think in the Wysocki more so than the Selfe. Wysocki's activities are particularly fascinating, and I feel like they challenge students to do more than just "make a visual argument" (which I think still isn't fully described in a way that makes me feel confident I could successfully teach it to students). Wysocki calls for activities that don't require Adobe Photoshop while still asking students to engage directly in the visual world around them. Most importantly, she requires that they question the visual world around them -- and this is something that I think is exceptionally important. Our students are overwhelmed in a sea of constant visual assaults: TV, internet, movies, comics, political ads, ads on billboards, Facebook, products for consumption. How do we teach them to deal with that and to evaluate what they see without being absorbed into the Borg?
I also like this because it ventures seamlessly into psychological and sociological realms as well as rhetorical ones. It poses the idea that these things cannot be separated from one another.
Still, I'm a little wary about all this stuff. I've asked this question before in class, but I'll ask it again: Are we edging out into material that other fields of study will view as overstepping our bounds? Will the computer design folks and the sociologists see what we're doing and roll their eyes, or feel as though we're teaching things we don't have the background to teach?
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