Romeo & Juliet - Primary and Secondary Discourse Activity

In response to the play Romeo and Juliet, I will assign my students an open-ended project that will allow them to connect their primary discourse to a Shakespearean text. The assignment will ask them to creatively express a certain scene or a theme of the play and turn it in into a modern discourse. I will model an example of a Facebook page that I developed for the play to the class and describe why I chose the posts and the profile information. The email address for this site is Jjulietcapulet83@gmail.com. The model includes a modernized version of a "profile" that Juliet might write in a modern language. The postings and comments reflect a more student-accessible reaction towards the play and allows for the implementation of technology that students will need to be familiar with. I will also give the students other examples for their work, suggesting that they can create a "scrapbook" of one of the scenes in the play, or asking them to compile artifacts that somehow reflect the play's theme. Students who are more traditional learners will be encouraged to write a paper on the play, and students who are kinesthetic learners will be asked to act out a scene that will convert some of the play's antiquated language into modern English or slang. Before the students set out on creating their projects, I will have a conference with each student (or group of students) to tell them individual expectations and goals I have for their specific chosen assignment.

After the completion and presentation of this assignment which will take place in the final days of the unit, students will be asked to complete a short reflection form titled, "Why I Deserve an A". This learning reflection activity will prompt students to reevaluate their work and the connection that it makes to the secondary discourse material of the scene or themes they enacted in their work. This project will allow students to make their own connections to the text, allow them to embrace both secondary and primary discourses, will allow them to develop voice in their work, and to create something they care about. This activity will embrace their special cultural viewpoints in the classroom, not placing them within the hierarchy that can many times suppress differing and unique discourse styles. Students will be required to take courageous learning risks that will be rewarded and valued; the justification students will have to present for including certain objects, acting styles, text-talk, slang, and other ways of expression in their presentations will display understanding of Shakespeare's world in the context of their own experience and language.

The Problem with Deception: An Analysis of Timeworn Rhetorical Tactics

The book The Art of Deception by Nicholas Capaldi and Miles Smit illustrates a step-by-step strategy to effectively debunk an opponent’s argument; the authors take a homorhetoricus route towards deception and view truth as a construction. As Stanley Fish illustrates in “Rhetoric,” ‘low,’ persuasive language is extremely potent and easily influences mankind due to our general weakness for eloquence and inclination towards spectacle. The Art of Deception encourages their readers to play off of man’s desire for titillation and drama while strategically constructing ‘truth’ in order to win arguments. The effects of winning an argument with some of the book’s suggestions, however, are detrimental; the symbolic action of a militant posture during a debate, if taken to its terminological endpoint, is dangerously close to the violence that language attempts to avoid. A similar violent action are the consequences of the book’s encouragement to reproduce the trope of ideal masculinity in order to appear confident in one’s argumentation; the effects of this are that traditionally stigmatized and marginalized voices are repressed and the white, masculinist, logocentric, elitist hierarchy is left intact.

The book begins with an orientation towards Aristotle’s teachings, that only those who understand the perils of language through enthymemes, syllogisms and other rhetorical devices can master the deceptive arts and resist the seductive power of words to form their own discovery of truth (Aristotle 118-9). The authors argue that anyone who wants to learn “active manipulation” will be able to unmask illogical arguments if they gain mastery of language (Capaldi and Smit 8-9). To this end they claim that all arguments have terministic screens, which as Kenneth Burke would argue, direct the attention and intention (115). For example, when they discuss Marxism and Freudian psychoanalysis, the authors argue that all of the ‘isms’ that we as a society take to be truths are observable and cannot be proved false or true (82). Kenneth Burke complements this premise by noting that “even if any given terminology is a reflection of reality, by its very nature as a terminology it must be a selection of reality; and to this extent it must function also as a deflection of reality” (115). This being said, Capaldi and Smit want their readers to use this information to their benefit, challenging rhetoricians to beguile by following these logics that “infect the popular mind” or by unraveling the enthymemes that are inherent in these theories (84).

Burke differs from Capaldi and Smit in that he views commonplaces as something similar to the way that the Nazis used unification as a sort of cure; the creation of a fictitious devil is a symbolic action, a way to congregate by segregation, a purification by way of sacrifice (Burke 229). The authors of The Art of Deception ignore the potentially violent effects of this style of argumentation and encourage rhetoricians to reduplicate this perfected curative function in order to win arguments (230). For example, Capaldi and Smit persuade their audience that by scapegoating one’s opponent, one can exploit the audiences’ sympathies, make the opposition look stupid and, “save [one]self the trouble of having to deal logically with [their] arguments” (117). Burke would argue that this posture, of slaying one’s opponent without considering his or her logic, is a violent symbolic action. This total action is reminiscent of the violent “total action” committed on Christ, the ultimate sacrifice committed by humanity (Burke 157). By Capaldi and Smit’s perfected tactics, a rhetorician could symbolically kill a peaceful opponent without regarding their actual message, thereby hypnotizing an audience and perfecting the victory and sacrifice (Burke 153). The problem with theatrically debunking the audience’s trust in your opponent as a rational person is that unification is a very dangerous term; by killing an opponent, we do not have to hear his argument or consider his position, an orientation frighteningly similar to that of the Nazis or the murderers of Christ (Capaldi and Smit 184).

Burke argues that “Dramatism is always on the edge of this vexing problem, that comes to a culmination in tragedy, the song of the scapegoat” (125) and that “man clings to a kind of naïve verbal realism that refuses to let him realize the full extent of the role played by symbolicity in his notions of reality” (118). The Art of Deception similarly does not seek other avenues of rhetorical victory or stasis; rather, the authors encourage the use of ridicule and place value on the symbolic rhetorical warrior without noting their harmful complicity in the violence that Burke warns against. For example, the authors state that winning rhetoricians should always hint that the opposition has either misstated their case because their opponent is either too daft to understand the argument’s complexity or because of deceitful misrepresentation (Capaldi and Smit 163). This posits a hierarchy that metaphorically places the winning rhetorician as the omnipotent, all-seeing, truthful God and the rhetorician’s opponent as the villainous, treacherous Devil.

The injurious effects this causes is not readily apparent on the surface; the assumed dialectical relationship of “God” and “Devil” are explicitly stated in The Art of Deception; the quickest path to self-confidence and victory is to truly believe your opponent is “evil” and “dishonest and unscrupulous in intent” (162). If this metaphor is taken to its terminological endpoint, violence, either symbolic or physical is certain. Likewise, when the book tells rhetoricians to trick their audiences into believing their opponent is a “scoundrel” or a “liar” by suppressing statistics that would be obstructive to their case, the rhetorician is positioning his or herself in a situation of being able to see through the opponent’s smokescreen, another clandestine tropological trick asserting hierarchy and laying claim to an outside untainted reality (132). A similar strategic metaphor that Capaldi and Smit suggest rhetoricians use is when discussing fallacies; they state that the audience will believe an opponent is guilty of lying and by default, an immoral person, by the rhetorician exposing fallacies by their Latin names, which sound like infectious diseases (143). By hinting that one’s opponent is contagious and poisonous, the audience is being led to a perfected God terminology, where the rhetorician is the cure and the opponent is the contaminant, the opponent needing to be quickly quarantined, silenced and figuratively killed. The authors further encourage rhetoricians to invite their opponent to unite under a common search for truth, giving the dangerous illusion, dialectically, that the opponent is the Devil, an artful deceiver who needs to work on their integrity, and that the rhetorican is able to access a space of unspun truth, guiding and leading the audience onto higher moral grounds and out of the perilous paths of deception (188).

Another deeply troubling metaphor in The Art of Deception is the aggressive stance and warlike imagery the book dangerously couples with the quest for truth (a ‘truth’ that is clearly manufactured for the performative act of rhetoric). “Under no circumstances should you admit defeat” is one of Capaldi and Smit’s suggestions for rhetorical posture (186) as well as using certain strategies like using ridicule as a weapon, (125) presenting “subtle threats” under the guise of “prediction” (185) and “finishing [the opponent] off” (183) in the hopes of “victory” (186). The problem with Capaldi and Smit’s vocabulary here is similar to the forced and dramatic inculcation of the audience into the allegorical depiction of God and Devil. As Richard Rorty would point out in “The Contingency of Language,” the language games that these authors encourage the rhetorician to play are contingent on tradition and are reductionist, which inhibit the audience as truth-seekers from attempting to evolve as an intellectual species by shaping new metaphors (71-82).

The metaphor of God and Devil, and victor and victim can be extended to man and other; specifically, when The Art of Deception discusses symbolic rhetorical posture, they discuss it in terms of traditionally masculine behaviors. For example, when under attack, Capaldi and Smit advocate learning to control one’s emotions. They further recommend sitting confidently without squirming with folded hands and apathetically appearing to ignore the opponent’s argument, all while retaining the air that the rhetorician is in control of the argument (161-3). Though it is not explicit, these behaviors are stoic, and detached, reminiscent of a masculine cultural hero like Indiana Jones or John Wayne. The idea of never admitting defeat is akin to never admitting when you need help or directions, symbolically and traditionally masculine behaviors. The problem with the authors promoting this timeworn ‘macho man’ gender performance is that it reproduces effects that rely on existing vocabularies. This is problematic because as Richard Graff and Michael Leff point out in “Revisionist Historiography and Rhetorical Traditions,” the grand narrative of rhetoric traditionally was unaware of its tendency to covertly marginalize certain discourses and place them in an outer constellation where elite traditions were favored (21-3). Judith Butler argues in “Imitation and Gender Insubordination” that if these old metaphors are being reproduced and imitated compulsively, they are normative measures of the real, placing priority on idealized masculine behaviors and intimating that the ‘other’ is a bad copy or imitation, something inauthentic and therefore lower on the hierarchy (124-129). Burke would argue that this hierarchy and order is something rhetoricians who desire to understand the depth of the problem of language should avoid in order to circumvent the tendency towards scapegoating, sacrifice, purification and the perfected terminologies that lead to violence (118).

In conclusion, The Art of Deception places great emphasis on the covert use of terministic screens and tropes that have been inherited and unchallenged; Capaldi and Smit unabashedly encourage their readers to reproduce these behaviors, the effects of which keep man locked into the “symbols-using animal” role that “clings to a kind of naïve verbal realism that refuses to let him realize the full extent of the role played by symbolicity in his notions of reality (Burke 118). Because our notions of truth are contingent upon language, we must be constantly aware of our complicity in symbolic acts and language games that suppress and repress (Rorty 69). By reduplicating and reemphasizing the language that has been interpreted for us, we remain trapped in the dialectic. We must seek other avenues towards truth that somehow defy our normative interpretations of reality, that include all types of discourse, and that defy the segregation which figuratively and symbolically murders.

What I Learned, Implemented, and Plan to Grow from this Semester...

This semester, I have become increasingly more aware of the need to implement technology effectively; with the advent of educational reform on the horizon, it is necessary for me as a teacher to inhabit new spaces other than the “bricks and mortar classroom,” recalibrating social networking spaces like Twitter, Facebook to fit into the curriculum (Connected Learners, http://www.innovativelearning.com/).

Similarly, it is critical for me to reconsider the educational possibilities of sources like Wikipedia; this site was once regarded by teachers merely as a jumping off point instead of an academic source. Wikipedia is now a collaborative learning and research information source that is edited and checked by the majority, far more comprehensive and up-to-date than traditional textbooks (Richardson 61-6). In fact, one important shift I need to consider is the movement away from textbooks to a collaborative class wiki project, which creates a community, builds a sense of ownership, leads to greater participation and understanding, and the ability to learn to work with peers (Richardson 28,74; Recesso and Orrill 237).

Another way my future teaching will be affected will be the way that computers will change class management and the involvement of the community. For example, I suspect that a few years into my teaching career, there will be far fewer actual student “documents” to turn in as the shift to computers will allow for tools like e-portfolios, online courses, school websites and online filing cabinets (Richardson 21). As a teacher, I will be able to invite parents, colleagues and the community into my classroom with updates and highlights about day-to-day student activities whether it is a photo presentation about a field trip my students went on, or a video about a project that students have completed (103). Of course these new Internet experiences will at first require a letter home to parents explaining the lesson plan and asking permission (11) but pretty soon, it will be as simple as sending a quick email to parents or updating the class website to keep the community in the loop about Internet activities (Recesso and Orrill 195).

The use of blogs in the classroom will serve as the beginning of my implementation of technology and role of ‘designer’ of the learning experience and ‘facilitator’ of learning (49). My lesson plans will have to be planned in advance to ensure student computer time is efficient and rewarding. One idea the text gave me was to aspire to join forces with another teacher from another location; the purpose of this connection would to allow my students to become long-distance keypals to write or blog about corresponding texts. The students can discuss thematic elements, narrative style, historical significance and share their ideas with each other, responding to each others’ journal writing, all the while learning about technology and possibly even building friendships (Richardson 28). Because blogs allow students who usually wouldn’t participate to provide their viewpoint (31) and serves to provide teachers with an avenue to respond constructively to student posts (Recesso and Orrill 242), I will be sure to design lessons that will first have a classroom discussion component and then pose a problem with clues. This will allow students to independently respond through a blog. The final collaboration will be students responding critically to students and then a class discussion to talk about solutions and conflicts that arose (Nelson 113). The journey that students must take will involve the synthesis of class discussion and the text, forcing higher connections in their learning (Richardson 31). Teachers as designers and facilitators no longer expect students to memorize facts but strive to help students to understand concepts by simulation, reaching higher levels on Bloom’s taxonomy (Nelson 34). I hope to engage students in meaningful learning and application as the teacher in the video “Middle School Reading Instruction: Integrating Technology” did; allowing students to connect ancient texts to modern devices. For example, by titling my project “Bard Meets Blog,” I wanted to highlight the importance of bringing traditional texts alive with the endless possibilities of technology. If my class is a Shakespeare course, I will ask students to write their own modern day version of Romeo and Juliet and have them back-up their plot and language decisions. Similarly I want to allow them to comment on each others’ stories and perhaps apply a critical glance at the texts before they act them out.

My future as a teacher is bright; I believe I will be able to successfully evaluate technology for the purposes of effective learning, ensuring I’m not integrating ‘edutainment’ (Recesso and Orrill 234) but valuable, authentic and practical learning situations that will construct learning and meet state and classroom standards (70). As a teacher I believe I have failed unless I relay the importance of technological tools as well as content in my classroom. I am very excited about the challenges that await my students and me.

Profile and Anti Profile Assignment

This semester I had an opportunity to read the novel Feed by M. T. Anderson for my Adolescent Literature course. The novel is set in the future and highlights some of the invasive threats that unchecked technology poses to American liberties and human privacy. The novel portrays a group of teenagers who have been implanted with internal computer chips called "feeds". The feed allows people to "m-chat" without even speaking (a telepathic way of instant messaging), it allows the characters to watch their favorite shows, and it grants them access to a world of information without accessing computer, watching television or reading a book. Although this is an interesting idea theoretically, the novel shows how the media and corporations that own the feed begin to streamline personalities, create and control demographic profiles of each user and market products that will render the users dependent, illiterate, uncreative and antisocial. One of the main characters, Violet, who has enjoyed an alternate and more traditional upbringing (a well-educated outcast who challenges the pervasive ideology) begins to resist the feed, generating an 'anti-profile' which defies any possible categorization, creating many hiccups in the chip that is implanted in her brain. Her friends stand by and watch as she quickly deteriorates. The story is a tragic account of how lonely the path can be when you dare to disturb the universe.

For my project, I wanted to implement technology and have my students create a profile and an anti-profile assignment and then present it to the class in order to display their knowledge and understanding of Feed to their fellow students. I created very flexible guidelines that would encourage them to use technological tools to display their work. If they were unable to access the internet at home, there was an option for students to create a hodge-podge artifact collection that would illustrate their understanding of the book's themes. Below are the guidelines:

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Guidelines for Profile / Anti Profile Project
Feed by M. T. Anderson

During this unit, we have explored the novel Feed and the challenges that future generations will face with technology and the media.

Your assignment will be to create a project that displays these textual themes in a creative, conscientious manner.

Pick a character in the novel you’d like to simulate and create either a profile or an anti profile of demographic information. Some questions to consider before you begin may include:

How old is your character? What is their gender? What music do they like?
What are the brands they value? How do these brands ‘define’ them?
What does this say about their relation to the media and their peers?
Do they question their social roles or are they pawns of the media?

Select a medium on which to display your hodge-podge or artifact collection and ensure that you can defend your work in front of the class.

You can use traditional scissors and glue to create a poster board, or if you’re interested in multimedia, you can create a Powerpoint, write a blog, or design a MySpace page / Facebook profile that will display your selections. Again, you will be presenting and defending this in front of the class. Here are some examples I designed, using MySpace as a canvas:

http://www.myspace.com/467078756 Profile

http://www.myspace.com/467076081 Anti-Profile

Feel free to use any images, music, video, book, story, etc. that will display your understanding of the themes we’ve covered and your character profile.

Please provide at least three paragraphs in which you ‘perform’ your character’s role and illustrate your understanding of the text. This may involve a close reading of a scene, use of the novel’s jargon, and the character’s tone (which can be portrayed through content and style).

Include citations for your direct and indirect quotes.

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After beginning the assignment, I realized that there were a few concerns I would have about the explicit content on MySpace; however, if the project were done at home and parents were informed about the pitfalls of allowing their children on the internet unsupervised, as a teacher I would probably be safe after notifying parents and the administration of the project ahead of time. Because there are other avenues to take (PowerPoint, Facebook, Blogger.com, or even a poster or artifact collection) a myriad of mediums are available to suit different students' needs and maturity levels.

The wonderful outcomes and learning advantages of this project would be:

1) students would be teaching themselves and students, thereby involving multiple intelligences and the constructivist principles of learning,

2) students would learn new technological tools that they will need in the professional and academic world,

3) the technological component of this lesson is a catalyst for learning, and not as an entertaining game,

4) students would be able to gain personalized responses from the teacher and other students to help them grow,

5) they would be able to create something and save it for a future academic portfolio, thereby creating pride in their work

6) this activity involves a high amount of synthesis, critical reading and technological immersion into a simulated character, forcing mastery of the subject.

All in all, the project could be slightly refocused; for a computer lab, I would ask students to use blogger.com for their entries because it is more user-friendly and students would not run into the questionable content aforementioned. I am glad I took the risk of doing this project because my own learning experience was enhanced. Reflection is a powerful tool and I believe that the 'failures' I meet as a teacher are opportunities.

Why I Want to be a Teacher

The most profound impact in my life thus far has been the guidance of some of my most devoted and demanding teachers; the educators that weren’t afraid to take risks, step outside the box, and be accessible significantly contributed to the caring, intelligent being I am today. In this essay, I will provide my analysis of the three of the strongest Democratic Ideals that provide the framework for successfully enacting beneficial teaching strategies for the students of today. I will discuss the importance of a commitment to diversity, dedication to content knowledge, and an enthusiasm for creativity and my goals for growth in these categories.

First, a teacher dedicated to diversity who places a great amount of energy in cultural sensitivity is complying with the most important Democratic Ideal (Educating Illinois). To implement and make a commitment to diversity is to be in accordance with today’s ever-changing global society. For my classroom, this will be an increased utilization of nontraditional texts from different sub-cultures, non-dominant ideologies, and non-white genres. This is paramount to the students and the community and also for the sake of the future of education. Spreading new ideas and culture instead of the same careworn, white, patriarchal discourse we have all encountered will enrich students with more agency while likewise allowing these ‘outside’ texts to contribute to today’s dialogue. Such an action in the classroom will prove eminent in empowering the increasingly diverse educational field. Similarly, another personal goal as a teacher will be my welcome attitude to different student experiences and my encouragement of students to share these.

Secondly, the impact that teacher content knowledge can implement is central. This means that teachers must be overly proficient in their subject area and able to approach the material from different angles. There must be versatility in the way a teacher can articulate and reevaluate ways of reading the text or viewing the issues. My ambition is to do research, apply new critical theories to classroom texts, create a discourse among my fellow teachers regarding my target field, and evaluate student needs and interest in order to select texts that will speak to students. For example, if my students are all in a certain socioeconomic group, I would study texts of a genre of books that would meet my students’ real life concerns and intellectual needs. In an adolescent fiction class, I would integrate a novel that would challenge the idea of the ‘traditional nuclear family’ and encourage students to journal about their own home situations, connecting their experience with that of the novel’s protagonist. To be proficient in all forms of language will be my goal, therefore making me an excellent teaching candidate.

The third area where a teacher must devote themselves fully is the arena of enthusiasm. I would define creativity as the formulation of lesson plans in the hopes of simulating interest to build on prior experiences and to imbibe students with the curiosity to learn meaningfully. By definition, young people are always interested in avant-garde, out of the ordinary, in-your-face styles of communication. My goal in the classroom will be to implement the Multiple Intelligence Theory of learning, where I would be dedicated to researching different ways to challenge all types of learners through web-based learning, outdoor activities, dramatic performance, journaling, and artistic expression. The commitment to enthusiasm will be central to my teaching style, as I believe a positive learning environment needs to be led by a passionate mentor.

In conclusion, the most important Democratic Ideals I will develop on my way to becoming a professional will be my commitment to diversity, my dedication to content knowledge and my enthusiastic approach in the classroom. In this way, I will provide an excellent framework for a positive learning environment which will infuse students with the confidence and competency to meet their own challenges after my classroom.