TODAY

1)Icebreaker2)Check-in3)Before the reading: Rhetorical Truth4)The Reading5)The Activity6)The Homework

IcebreakerIt’s week four… hopefully we’re starting to know each other. So here’s how this will work. We’re going to start with someone. That person will say his or her name, then the next person will say the first person’s name and their own name… until we go all the way around the room back to the last person who will say everyone’s name.

If you need help, ask a classmate to assist.

Check in

With any luck, I will have your papers back to you this time next week. I had a bit of a “fail” moment this week end.

When you get your papers back you’ll get your grade to this point. That means that any problems with Tumblr or the forums need to be sorted out by the end of this week. NO EXCEPTIONS.

If you need to talk to me about either of those things, see me after class.

Rhetorical TruthAn interesting factor to consider in rhetorical analysis is “truth.” As we talked about earlier in the term, “rhetoric” is often used in popular media as a sort of synonym for “lying.”

But rhetoric, dating back to our close personal friend Aristotle, was about moving toward the truth. For Aristotle, in all his Greek wisdom, said:

“Rhetoric is useful because things that are true and things that are just have a natural tendency to prevail over their opposites, so that if the decisions of judges are not what they aught to be, the defeat must be due to the speakers themselves, and they must be blamed accordingly.” -Aristotle, Rhetoric

Join that belief with this.

Robert L. Scott argues that truth is not a central, objective set of facts but that truth is based on the situation at hand (e.g. rhetorical). Scott goes as far as stating that if a man believes in an ultimate truth and argues it, he is only fooling himself by convincing himself of one argument among many possible options. Ultimately, truth is relative to situated experiences, and rhetoric is necessary to give meaning to individual circumstance.

*paraphrased from the Wikipedia summary of “On Viewing Rhetoric as Epistemic”

So, basically…

Rhetoric itself is a tool, but the presumed ends of the tool is to find and explicate “truth,” because as Aristotle claims truth will win out over lies (it’s more solid) and as Scott says, truth is situated rhetorically, so we need to see the situation and the circumstances that surround a “truth.”

Crazy, right?

That’s the basis for our legal system.

Law and the Hunger GamesSo for today, I had you read this piece about The Hunger Games movie.

I’d like to talk about the movie itself, but I also hope you did a little bit of critical analysis of the article/the site housing it.

Just incase you didn’t…

The source…Part of this exercise was to look at this particular source and to consider its motivations.

The Western Center for Journalism is headed by a man named Floyd Brown. You might have heard of “Citizens United,” which Brown is part of, and you may know a little bit about this Tea Party thing he’s dabbled a bit with.

Do you see any perhaps biased positions taken in the analysis of the movie?

TRANSITION SLIDE

the Hunger GamesAnd now, then, let’s actually look at The Hunger Games.

It shares something of its origin with a short story by Shirley Jackson entitled “The Lottery.” In said story, everyone in a village of 300 must draw a slip from a large communal bucket; the person with the marked slip must be stoned to death. The ritual is meant to insure a good harvest, and is repeated each year (in “The Lottery” universe)

What, then……are we to make of a story like this?

Jackson related that after the publication of “the Lottery” she received letters with one of three sorts of response:1) Curiosity about where such a lottery ever

happened or could be seen2) Anger at the use of the subject matter3) Desire to know “What it means”

The Hunger Games also bears a striking resemblance to the Japanese novel/movie Battle Royale, where school kids are forced to fight to the death.

New tropes to considerAs we enter into the discussion of The Hunger Games, remember everything we’ve talked about so far in terms of rhetoric. But today, I want to add three more concepts to your toolset:

Simile, Metaphor & Allegory

SimileA simile is a comparison that uses the word “like” or “as” (e.g. “I got them moves like Jagger.”)

These are actually quite commonplace in everyday English. If you look at your text messages right now (well, don’t– but if you did), you would probably find at least one example of a simile in a recent conversation.

They’re commonplace, like dandelions in spring grass.

MetaphorA metaphor is a comparison that doesn’t use like or as. (e.g. “Life is a highway.”)

Metaphors are also quite common in conversational English, as we as humans like to compare things to other things. Just as our ancestors told stories to teach us right from wrong, we too depend on the use of comparisons and contrasts to keep us from simply describing everything we see in strictly empirical terms.

AllegoryAn allegory is a story or other piece of writing which contains people, places and ideas that are meant to indicate something else. Think of them sort of an extended metaphor, or a written large extended case of symbolism.

One of the most famous allegories in literary and rhetorical history is Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, which is a story about a man who lives his life in a cave and is then blinded by the light when taken outside– but the allegory is really about how those who are deceived react to the truth.

Sooooo…I’m just going to let you in on the secret that The Hunger Games, like “The Lottery” is an allegory. :)

In it you have poor people and rich people, set apart in zones. You have pairs of children chosen from the poor zones and set to fight against each other to the death in a woodland massacre, so that the winner can take food and riches home to their zone.

What might this be meant to serve as an allegory for?

ActivityHere’s what I’d like you to do. Let’s pair up for this. I want you to think of something both of you know that is allegorical (a story, a TV show, a song…whatever you can think of). Then I want you to explain how the allegory works.

In a few minutes, you’ll share with all of us.

HomeworkRead “Judging Rhetoric” by Booth. It’s on Niihka under resources.

In-class we will watch a video and talk about the rhetorical risks and rewards of live television.

Tumblr question: what questions do you have about the inquiry 2 assignment?

Tumblr prompt: I’ve posted 3 videos on my Tumblr. Pick one, watch it, then write a short practice rhetorical analysis of it.