Day 8: Mindmapping

So, your final drafts are due tonight by midnight, and it looks as though many of you are on the right track so far with your rough drafts!

Today, I'd like to touch on mindmapping as a good source of idea generation, and also a way of thinking through the organization of your paper.Your books talk about it but you can do it all sorts of different ways.  You can sketch out a map:

You can use online software like Bubbl.us:

Or, you can use my favorite approach, post-its:

Any way that you decide to get your ideas out and find new ones, have fun with it.  

I know that your syllabus says that we're having a test.  I've decided against it.  The things I normally test for are closed book, and we often memorize Aristotle's definition of rhetoric.  I can't do those things virtually (though you might want to memorize that definition for your own benefit!).  So, you'll get those points. All of you are working really hard, and I appreciate you keeping up with me.  

But...

I do want to give you your next major assignment.  You've got a while on it, but I want you to have maximum amounts of time to work on it...  So, here it is!

Research Argument Assignment

This assignment requires you to broaden the topic from one visual text to the larger cultural, social, or political issues raised by the visual in order to bring in research sources.  This assignment emphasizes research skills, including library sources, interviews, and other forms of academic inquiry.  So, you need to find at least 4 written sources that from a book, magazine, journal, or newspaper article.  In order to look at an issue in context of several perspectives, you’ll also need to discuss at least 4 forms of nonwritten rhetoric for this paper, bringing the assignment to 8 sources total, and you must disagree with at least one of your rhetorical examples.  The nonwritten forms might be an image, a video, or a song.  This time, I want you to stay away from Google searches and try to use the library a bit more.  So, no general websites (though a newspaper article online from something like LexisNexis works).  Also, I’d like you to push yourself to make your writing more formal in this paper, so do not use ‘you’ (though ‘I’ is okay).  Your argument should be constructed using both writing and images.  Using readings from Envision in Depth and your own library and field research, make an argument that offers a new perspective on the topic at hand. 

MLA format, minimum 1700 words.

First draft due: July 23

Final draft due: July 25

Grammar Review:

How about prepositions???

 Your Daily Assignment:

***Post some kind of mindmap for a potential idea for your next big paper on your blog.