voxygen.net » Rhetoric

Where’s Neil Postman when you need him?

~LS~ — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 01:22:35 +0000

I’m contemplating teaching Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death in my Introduction to Humanities class this semester, particularly Chapter 4 (“The Typographic Mind”). I don’t feel like scanning the chapter and I couldn’t find a pdf or doc online to use. Then it occurred to me that my students in all likelihood won’t read anything anyway, so why waste time scanning a document in the first place. I began to look for Sparknotes. I know, I’m bankrupt as an educator. At least I opted not to show the seventh grade history teacher’s youtube version of the Renaissance. I should get props for that.

Anyway, in my surfing, I ran into an amusing exchange on a forum. I don’t think the people involved were amused. I was, though, but in a depressing and ironic way. The exchange is started by a desperate student trying to locate a free copy of the [...]

Pecha Kucha in Public Speaking

~LS~ — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 15:11:39 +0000

I have always hated using PowerPoint in speeches. Always. I suspect many speech teachers feel the same. PowerPoint becomes a teleprompter and it defeats the purpose of giving a speech. Last semester, I taught Business Communication for the first time in my entire teaching career. In thinking through that class, I felt obligated to teach PowerPoint since it’s expected in the business world. Also, on the POD listserv, there’ve been some discussions and sharing about visual resources. Those two things motivated to teach PowerPoint and to do it well. As a result of my explorations, I learned some very interesting things that I experimented with this semester.

One thing I incorporated is a Pecha Kucha format speech (you can use Prezi too, though). It was designed by American architects in Japan who realized that any time you give a designer the microphone, they go on and on [...]

Public speaking activity – first week of class

~LS~ — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 14:03:50 +0000

I’ve twice used the following activity to open the semester and both times it was quite successful. I discovered the general idea by surfing around and I wish I could remember the site so I could acknowledge the creator whose idea I extended.

I have students search the web for public speaking classes, seminars, and workshops. Their task is to find the cheapest possible public speaking lessons but the caveat is that the courses cannot be from a college or university type program (such as continuing ed, University of Phoenix, whatever). Once they find a class, they need to identify the cost, hours to complete, assignments, topics covered, credentials of the instructor, and whether or not there’s an opportunity for practice and evaluation.

During class, we then review the courses they’ve discovered. There are a handful under a thousand dollars but usually the cost at least that much per person. [...]

I heart Al Franken

~LS~ — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 07:08:58 +0000

I’m entirely jealous of the people of Minnesota on a daily basis. I have friended/liked Al Franken’s Facebook page and so I get posts about his work on several times a day. Jealous, jealous, jealous. He does so much good, progressive work, and he’s damned hard-nosed about it.

I get regular emails from Vitter, too, because I signed up for his newsletter for some stupid reason. They are nothing but grandstanding. I hit reply and respond with that statement on a regular basis. Vitter’s last email announcement praised his efforts to pressure “the administration” (by which I assume he means Obama) to send in the Fish and Wildlife folks and to increase the number of people assigned to the Louisiana gulf coast. Of course, in the mean time, Jindal is dicking around on calling in the National Guard.

Anyway, back to Franken. I have always liked Franken. I remember rolling [...]

Counter Trey Scholarship

~LS~ — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 16:02:00 +0000

I don’t really know what a counter trey is in football, but once my tried to husband explain it to me.

The context of this explanation was my dissertation on feminist rhetoric and women speakers. He actually read parts of it and gave me some feedback. His main response was that my dissertation sounded like a “counter trey.” He drew the play with the standard little circles and arrows to illustrate. I found that same scribbled drawing today while cleaning up. Although I don’t really remember what he said in detail, I did get the gist. To explain for me, here is a basic description of the counter trey from Footballscrimmage.com:

The counter trey is a misdirection running play used in American football.

This play is designed for the offensive team to feign rushing one way, then attacking the defense in the opposite direction. In a counter [...]

lolcats and lolobama

~LS~ — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 21:23:00 +0000

There’s a cute article in Salon this week about the meaning of the lolcats phenomenon. I have to confess, I didn’t get lolcats at first. I guess I’m dumbing down due to the time I spend on the intartubes. But now I think they’re great and I giggle at them all the time. The Salon article, I think, overreaches in its explanation of why lolcats are humorous, but it was a fun read nonetheless. The article also has a link to lolpresident, which has some cute entries, one of which is posted below:

NYT analysis of Obama’s victory speech

~LS~ — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 16:59:00 +0000

There’s a nice bit in the NYT blog that discusses the various allusions in Obama’s victory speech. It’s so nice to have a President (elect) who has a rhetorical sensibility.

When Species Meet — Chapters 3 and 4

~LS~ — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 04:35:00 +0000

I don’t really have much commentary on Chapter 4. I saw it as a case study in science studies and caring for animals situated within breeding pedigree dogs. Maybe I’m missing something. As for Chapter 3, I struggled with this chapter more than with other chapters. So first I’m gonna spin out what I got from the chapter (without the nuances, which would add years to this process).

Chapter 3

The chapter is about how we deal ethically with other non-human species, specifically lab animals. “Instrumental action with animals is not the enemy” – sometimes we have to have lab animals. This puts her on very dangerous territory with PETA and animal rights activists, as she says. The crux of this chapter IMO is how to construct a rationale for her position that fits within what is ethical or conscionable to her. Given what she has written thus far about [...]

David Harvey, Marx, Haraway

~LS~ — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 04:50:00 +0000

Yesterday I found the greatest link to DavidHarvey.org. David Harvey is a professor of Geography at CUNY. He’s a marxist, and a prolific writer (ten books), including one I read called The Condition of Postmodernity, and he’s wicked smart. Every year for the past…who knows how many years, he teaches a course that is a close reading of VOl. I of Capital. Last year, someone recorded his lectures on 13 videos and now you can see them on his website. I spent two hours today listening to the introduction to the class, which covered a close reading of the first six pages of the book. I took five typed pages of notes. Mostly what Harvey discussed was how to read Marx, using the first section of Chapter 1 as a model. He emphasized repeatedly the dynamism involved in reading Marx’s notion of the commodity as a [...]

Haraway – When Species Meet

~LS~ — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 23:15:00 +0000

Here are some ofmy thoughts on Chapters 1 and 2:

1. Her writing – accessibility: I guess the first thing I want to reflect on is the quality of her writing. I was all prepared for a mind-busting read and I was surprised to find it quite accessible, almost beach reading. I don’t know why she chose to make it so “entry-level.” One thing people have bitched about for years is her lack of accessibility, which is a big issue for me, since I always wonder (like many people) what’s the point of doing feminist work if no one can read it. For instance, I really think you need to be an insider to decades of feminist theory to fully ‘get’ her Cyborg Manifesto, to see its value through its “chrome.” (Although she doesn’t use the term “chrome”, she does talk critically about the “blessed-out techno-sublime reading or something like [...]