Crash Course: How to BEAM and Frame Crash Course Style

Source: nerdfightergifs

Above, is one Mr. John Green, author of several popular YA novels and one half of the VlogBrothers, who, among many things, run a channel called “Crash Course”. I, a college student who should probably be doing her homework instead of watching said “Crash Course” videos at 12am at night, have recently noticed that many of these Youtube videos show examples of both Joseph Bizup’s BEAM (see this post) and Stuart Greene’s observations on rhetoric framing (see below).

The Other Greene
To loosely summarize Stuart Greene, not shown in the gif above nor a VlogBrother: writing is often about engaging in an ongoing discussion, and the framing of your own input in response to the others before and after you in that conversation is really useful. Framing helps to develop your opinion, not only for your sake, but for the sake of your audience. They are better able to see what you are responding to, why you are responding to it, and what your response actually is – and whether that response is valid given the analysis/evidence you provide.

Crash Course Videos
Alright, so how are these Crash Course videos examples of BEAM? Of Framing?
Well, to start (as in both me, right now, starting this train of thought, and the youtube vidoes), Crash Course often begins with general background on the topic of the video. Authors, historians, facts, or other relevant tidbits are handed out like candy – and throughout the video, these background sources will often pop up again when a new subtopic is introduced.

These background sources can also be used as argument sources, as sometimes one of the Vlogbrothers will argue in favor or against these (usually) long dead figures who they quote/reference. Likewise, using the ideas of these (usually dead) persons, also act as exhibit sources for the Vlogbrothers as they attempt to outline historical, literary, or ~other~ trends/topics.

Source: nerdfightergifs

Framing
Now, as Stuart (not a VlogBrother) Greene mentioned, how you frame your response often helps to organize what you want to say to your audience. Crash Course does that according throughout their videos, focusing on organization according to theme or chronological order. Sources are addressed (definitions, ideas, etc) and then elaborated on – history videos follow a chronogical timeline to frame their content, while other videos will often focus on thematic organization of ideas. And though these videos aim to more inform than than converse, this method of organization helps to simplify and make the process of ‘teaching’ more effective.

So yeah, check out a Crash Course video (I binge-watched all of the World History videos recently just saying), and keep an eye out for BEAM and/or Greene’s (the other Greene) framing method.