The weekly agenda is outlined in the calendar, but essentially this week is all about writing and revising! Building on the prewriting exercises of the past couple of weeks, this week you will:

  • Reviewing: Instead of making you watch another video, I’ve posted a PowerPoint slideshow walking you through the process of transforming preliminary analysis into a claim. As your Essay 2 Phase 1 draft must include a controlling idea, this might be useful for you to review. See below under Tips for Essay 2 Phase 1 for further guidance on formulating a controlling idea for this essay.
  • Reading: Sample Essay 2 Phase 1 and Sample Field Notes
  • Writing: Draft your Essay 2 Phase 1.
  • Workshop: Conduct peer review using the Essay 2 Phase 1 Review form on D2L. Don’t forget to post your short post-workshop reflection to your Slack #workshop channel.

I will attempt to score all your Slack posts quickly so you can confidently proceed with drafting. To that end, I’ll likely write comments only if I see something that really needs addressing; otherwise, if you receive the “thumbs-up” (if timely) or the “check” (if late) but no comment, you’re good. As usual, I’ll offer feedback if you receive the “thoughtful face” emoji.

Tips for Essay 2 Phase 1

Your controlling idea should:

  • Identify (in brief) the object(s) or image(s) or genre of image that repeatedly appears on your subreddit or is referenced by your subreddit and that you plan to examine
  • Identify how it represents the community, or why the community has self-selected it as a form of visual communication
  • Identify a pattern in the way a factor of the expanded rhetorical situation works individually–or the way factors work together—to create a specific effect on the audience (and identify that effect as well)
  • Explain the significance of all of the above to the community’s culture in some way: i.e., How does the effect of the pattern construct, influence, and/or reinforce a specific aspect about the way community members communicate, or a specific aspect about the culture they share?

The last two bullet points are needed to both conduct the rhetorical analysis and to lift your controlling idea out of the realm of the obvious and factual. Without the last point in particular, you might end up pointing out something that’s self-evident and doesn’t appear to need pages of academic inquiry.

For example, I might identify Saint Seiya Myth Cloth Ex action figures as a cultural object to study after noticing that more and more members are either posting images of their completed collectibles or are talking about purchasing or assembling them. I might decide to focus on a pattern pertaining to exigence, where the pandemic has created conditions of leisure time where members seem to be able to complete their collections… but also clear socioeconomic differences as many people have lost their jobs and can’t afford such an expensive hobby right now, leading to envy, resentment, or at best having feelings of aspirational hopes or dreams. From all this, the specific aspect of community culture or communication might be that members who are “Haves” seem to be insensitive to the plight of the “Have Nots” among them, deepening preexisting socioeconomic divisions that are usually invisible due to anonymity or only newly existing because of COVID-19.

If it helps, here’s how I might translate that into academic language:

Introduce Artifact: The 1980s anime Saint Seiya, like so many anime shows, lets fans enter the world more tangibly with collectible action figures called Myth Cloths. The most recent, the Ex series, features at least 20 characters, and costs between $200 to $350 when first released, with some limited-edition figures being auctioned for much more than $500. The figures are fully articulated, with real metal armor, interchangeable facial expression pieces, and stands with special effects pieces and backgrounds.

Noticing Appearances on the Subreddit: In recent months, more and more members of r/SaintSeiya appear to be posting photos of their collections and discussing the joys of collecting.

Visual Analysis Signpost: Most of these photos are taken in ways that highlight the expensive nature of the action figures, with multiple figures in curio cabinets under glass with backlighting or figures still mint in the box, or with close-up shots that prove no dents, no smudges, no packing tape residue, and that the product is authentic.

Rhetorical Analysis Signpost: The timing of these photos coincides with the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, during which many individuals in the U.S. lost their jobs due to lockdown. The pandemic might be the exigence for the purchase and sharing of these figures in some ways, but it also creates discord. Some members express happiness at seeing these expensive figures while others seem bitter or envious due to unemployment.

Tying It Together (“So What?”): These collectibles have a cultural significance for the community in that owning them allows fans to increase their “superfan” status and their sense of belonging to the world of the show. At the same time, sharing images of them on r/SaintSeiya right now unintentionally highlights different income brackets in the community and creates more of an internal crisis than unites people over a common interest, even though these collectibles have united the community in the past.

All of that would be my controlling idea, probably divided into 2 paragraphs. Then in Phase 2, I would use mostly rhetorical analysis and visual analysis to explain how I arrived at this conclusion, along with a few exemplary verbal user reactions to support my interpretations.

This is only one way to approach the assignment, so play around! Remember, as long as you hit the assignment parameters (spelled out in the Assignment Guidelines), experimentation is encouraged.

Workshop Instructions

Remember that peer review is mandatory and cannot be made up. You must complete one peer review form for each member of your workshop group who has submitted a draft in a timely fashion before the deadline. If you have not completed peer review by this point, you should consult the Grading Contract for a sense of how your final course grade has been impacted.

These instructions apply to what you’ll do ideally with your “rough-rough” drafts, after which you’ll use peer review to revise and submit the final copy to me by 5pm on Friday.

As usual for workshop, share your work in a Google Doc for Essay 2 (you’ll save your work as an MS Word/PDF file to submit to me on Blackboard by Friday). Plan for a couple of hours to be able to do all the work asked of you, which will as before include reviewing each other’s work and completing an Essay 2 Phase 1 Peer Review Form for each of your workshop members. Here are the general instructions again as a refresher:

  1. Don’t talk about your essays! First, read without commenting.
  2. Read and make marginalia using the Comments feature. Underline/highlight what you think the controlling idea is, make notes about what you think the writer’s aims are, etc.
  3. Complete the “Essay 2 Phase 1 Review” Google Form.
  4. After receiving feedback via email from your peers, read what they read, and discuss any questions you have together as a group. You may want to ask questions about what their comments mean, how they suggest enacting those comments, collaboratively write your way towards enacting those comments, and so on.
  5. After you finish peer review, write a brief post-workshop reflection letter (~500 words) to me summarizing the feedback you were given by your peers, identifying what you prioritized for revision and why, explaining which assignment parameters you think you met and which you think you need to keep striving towards. You may also reflect on the reasoning behind the decisions you made in revising your draft for submission to me: any regrets or difficulties you dealt with, your attitude towards the assignment and feedback, any burdens of college or life that crept into your work, and so on. Post this to Slack #homework by 5pm on Friday.

Be respectful of each other’s work and time when scheduling and attending group workshops. By missing out on peer review, you’ll cost your peers feedback as well as costing yourself feedback, and you won’t be able to complete the post-workshop material afterwards.

Submit your revised draft to me by Friday at 5pm as a Microsoft Word document or PDF on Blackboard.

Looking Ahead…

We do not have a live session scheduled for Week 8. Instead, as with Essay 1 Phase 1, we’ll be doing feedback conferences again. You can schedule a feedback conference with me at some point in Week 8. You can do so by using the “Schedule Conference” link on Blackboard. These conferences are mandatory. If you do not schedule one, you’ll miss out on the opportunity for feedback on your first draft and your grade will be impacted under our LBG Contract. If you have already missed one, consult the Grading Contract to see where you stand. I recommend 15 minute conferences for this initial round of feedback; then, once you’ve implemented some of the revisions, if you’d like to meet again you can schedule another 15 or 30 minute conference in later weeks. (You are of course welcome to schedule a 30 minute conference for feedback in Week 8 if you anticipate needing one.)