Monday, October 31, 2011

Reminder: Artifacts

Remember on the second day of class this week you need to bring some artifacts to class. Artifacts are the objects of analysis of your rhetorical presentation, and they need to be related to a particular social issue. Now some of you may start with a social issue and find artifacts from there, while others may select an artifact first and  find the social issue from there. Either way is fine. Things to keep in mind:


  • Remember some of the examples of artifacts we discussed in class were: political cartoons, advertisements, commercials, speeches, political ads, op-eds, songs, and etc. 
  • If you fail to bring something to class (whether its an actual advertisement or a specific idea such as a speech), you will receive a deduction of your final rhetorical presentation grade. I need to approve your artifact. 
  • You do not have to limit yourself to a single artifact, but you want to make sure there is a unifying theme among your artifacts. For example, you could focus on a particular ad campaign as opposed to a single ad from the campaign.


Questions:

  1. Can you think of other examples of artifacts that would work for this assignment?
  2. Do you have a particular social issue in mind, but aren't sure of an artifact? If so, why not ask the class via the blog and see what they have to say. 
  3. Are you still unsure as to how to a select an artifact? Ask your classmates via the blog. Also, I can address common concerns in class.

7 comments:

  1. I think a good artifact would be a t-shirt (I've seen a lot of people wearing "Legalize Gay" shirts lately). Not only is it a good visual presentation, but you could also wear it around campus to see how people react to it. Then you can put the results of your "experiment" in your overall project as personal feedback :)

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  2. I think that the idea above mine is really cool. For my artifact I wan to go with something that has a shock factor to it. I think that these types of ads are interesting , and it is a fun way to keep your audience engaged in your presentation. A big trend I am seeing is for the protection of animals and animal rights. I think that this is interesting because of all the problems that are going on in our own race. I think we should focus on helping other people more so than helping animals.

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  3. I really like Katelynn's idea too! Personally I have not tought of that I think its really creative. I think a great example of another type artifact are bumper stickers. I have seen a ton of creative bumper stickers lately and for some reason they always make me think. For example I saw two bumper stickers on the back of a car two days ago that said "Lesbians can love too" and "Come taste the other side of the rainbow" it shock me that some one would actually put these on the back of their car, it's not something you see every day.

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  4. I also agree with the artifact of a tee-shirt there are tons of creative tee-shirts out there that people where, that really represent something. I think another example of a good artifact could be similar to a tee-shirt, like shoes. For example, Toms or Bobs they represent the social issue of people who are not as fortunate as others to afford shoes. As far as any other type of shoes I don't know but that would be a good artifact.

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  5. About some weeks ago did you guys see the people by the union half dressed they we're all different sizes and shapes and they had signs saying "no diet" and yelling out you're beautiful. I'm not sure what organization that was but I thought that was a good idea but I'm not really sure if it would be considered an artifact ?..what do you guys think?

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  6. I saw the mostly naked people too! I'm betting you would be able to find a commercial or billboard type thing that would work along those lines. An interesting idea for somebody, if anyone is still considering ideas, would be how much photoshop is used in the media and how that effects body image and confidence.

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  7. 1. A good artifact would be a political campaign ad. A lot of the time there is some very blatant rhetoric, but it would be interesting to look more into the small nuances and see what the ads are really looking to achieve. It would also be very cool to see what different political parties that each political party is appealing to and for what reasons. It seems like the small variations are the most important when it comes to rhetorical analysis.

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