Liberty to Blog

Creative Thinking and Writing is a required two-quarter course at Santa Clara University. Despite the lack of choice, the class teaches valuable lessons about approaching ANYTHING with an OPEN-MIND and utilizing CRITICAL THINKING to analyze a conversation.

BEAM 

All sources can be encompassed by this acronym.

Background- This source provides the context to the conversation you are entering and the argument you are presenting.

Exhibit- These sources provide credibility of your argument. These are pieces of the conversation that provide evidence supporting or contradicting your claim.

Argument- These are the approaches and arguments already created by someone else. These can be used to set up a “nay-sayer” into our argument.

Method- These are used to apply the method of analyzing from one thing to your own sources.

Research

Research requires a systematic approach to answering your research topic. This allows you to narrow down the information to get the most concise answers to your questions while offering a spread of information. This entire process is driven by questions that allow you to further your own knowledge and closing gaps in your arguments.

The main challenges of creating the multimodal project came from the desired audience and framing of the message. The audience could have been directed at either professors or students in higher education. Deciding on the audience became the most important factor of the multimodal composition because it would shape the design philosophy of my flier. I decided to focus on students as a primary audience. However, in designing the actual flier, I realized the professorial community could be considered a secondary audience. By superficially reading the dialogue, the message is still easily interpreted.
The second challenge was framing the message, which I decided to capture in a picture. I used the feeling of oppression and turned it into a visible and expressible action. Additionally, adding the Pokémon reference made my message more palatable to the audience. That design choice was made during the peer review process under a recommendation from Cory.
The premise of my message came from the overwhelming feeling students holding minority opinions feel while discussing controversial topics. They can feel overwhelmed by more popular opinions, which can create an environment where only one “voice is heard.” This violates the entire premise of a college classroom as a safe place for everyone to learn and be heard in the context of an educational setting.
The board in the background is supposed to emphasize the need for professors to facilitate topics that produce controversy. It directly references the professor and the sentiment felt by students with the minority opinion. The picture with the two classmates conveys the feelings of oppression generated by discussions without proper facilitation. The “oppressed” individual on the right displays shock and fear, while the “oppressor” demonstrates determination. This is supplemented by the “stats” underneath each person. Disproportionate levels and differences in ratings (the partial red bar compared to the full green bar) show the power differential because of un-facilitated discussions and poorly run classrooms.
The purpose of utilizing this format is to relate to the main audience, students. The lower half of the screen is pulled from the Pokémon video games from the late 20th -21st century, their childhood. A limitation of the format comes from the familiarity required. For the flyer to work, an individual would have to recognize the format to capture his/her attention. However, according to Polygon, a popular video game website, 260 million copies of the Pokémon series of games have been sold since 1996. Therefore, there should be a lot of people familiar with the format, however, it wouldn’t be universal.
The distribution would be in hallways and staircases around college campuses. Ideally, the fliers would be pinned to cork boards at those locations. Hallways and staircases in lecture halls are frequented by both faculty and students, alike. People would just have to recognize the popular format in order to be drawn in. Additionally, the flier could be distributed by student organizations related to politics: College Republicans, Turning Point USA, College Democrats, etc. The premise of their distribution would be to encourage their fellow students to listen to each other to ensure all perspectives are taken into consideration.

Flyer

For the multimodal project, I want to design a flyer bringing attention to oppression that could occur in the classroom environment during the discussion of controversial topics. A flyer that demonstrates the effect of unfacilitated discussion has on students with a minority opinion would be the most effective method of reaching the audience. This is because it can be placed in hallways of lecture buildings or dorms in order to deliver a big message with the least amount of words.

Something like this

Audience

There are two potential target audiences for my multimodal project. One potential audience is the student body. A student-oriented audience would mean using more contemporary and social media-based design cues. The other audience is the professorial community at a college. This audience would respond more to word content than the references from Twitter or Instagram.

I don’t think he follows World Star’s Twitter account.

Distribution

The flyer could be distributed throughout campus by political organizations on campus in order to reinforce the importance of having everyone’s input included on controversial issues. These organizations would be more inclined to spread the importance of listening with an open and critical mind.

The library session was centered around summarizing an article for use in our research papers and identifying key parts of each article.

We were in this building.

Make sure the difference between article title and journal title.

Gail, our librarian, had us write the titles of journals in which several articles were featured. The journal titles seemed to be hidden from a superficial glance at the entry in a database.

Who’s the author?

The name of the author can be found from an initial glance at the database entry for an article. However, the credentials of the author are not on that entry. They are often found inside the actual article, so some reading is required. Having the credentials is important because it builds the source’s credibility and, therefore, your own.

Problem:

Donald Trump seems to be a recurring cause throughout my research. Especially when it comes to colleges which are supposed be safe for academia in all its forms. Institutions of higher education are safe-havens of innovation that continue the pursuit of knowledge to achieve the full potential of each individual. The increased political polarization in the United States, after a presidential election that caused great controversy, separated Democrats and Republicans.

Why is it a problem?

The troubling manifestation of the divide in institutions of higher education—colleges and universities—degrades their goal. These institutions are supposedly the ideal places for individuals to come together and discuss, in a civil and academic manner, the merits of their argument to defend their beliefs. However, the ideal is not always the reality. During the transitional period from childhood to adulthood, does political identity affect the behavior of students in the classroom? The conversations concentrated on and around this topic revolve around opposing political parties, the importance of unbiased learning environments, and oppression caused by political correctness.

How do you politically identify and how would you label this campus?

The perception of the campus as liberal may come from the location in the Bay Area of California. The Bay Area has voted Democratic (liberal) in recent elections. Maybe the perception of UC Berkeley as a liberal hotspot contributes to the perception of Santa Clara University as a liberal campus. I myself identify more closely with the conservative side. However, I often find myself in the middle when it comes to issues. 

I sort of expected the results to be more polarized–liberals view the campus as more conservative and the conservatives think the campus is more liberal.

Rodriguez has become a major influence on the formation of my survey. His essay on the formation of his personal and conflicting definition of literacy offers a perspective of political identity in the classroom.

Split Lives

Rodriguez splits his literacy between a seemingly oppressive new language, English, and the familiar comforting one, Spanish. Similar to the identification of languages with certain and opposing languages, initial individual political identification, how you were politically socialized, can change or hide when exposed to a perceived threat.

The heart of the issue is whether or not people feel comfortable sharing opinions on issues through the perspectives of their own political identification. Essentially, I am asking the question, “Are you comfortable speaking out for your beliefs in the classroom?”.

This post won’t actually be a question. Instead, it will be about the theme of questions I’ll create for my upcoming survey.

Continuing off of my last post, the essay review with Dr. Lueck generated more than just an improved paper. It also helped me narrow down the topic of the next couple essays (more writing… YAY!).

The archival evidence had a few themes I decided to explore.

Politics

Good ol’ Joe

My archival evidence, as I mentioned in an earlier post, has a few implications in the period of the Cold War. However, what would happen if a similar event, with an equally or more controversial keynote speaker, took place today. The heart of the issue is whether or not there would be a resistance by either the student body or surrounding population.

I guess my interest in this issue comes from events like the riots at UC Berkeley. Would a controversial event at Santa Clara University generate as much violence?

“Free-Thinking” 

Another issue I have brought up in other assignments is whether an event could be used to control the “conversations” on campus.

For example, would students be willing to go to the event because it is unpopular with their peers?

Perhaps the most interesting point brought up by Kantz, facts are not immune to analyses. Often, we utilize facts in our papers as Exhibit sources, which means we introduce and implement them into the greater scheme of our papers. However, students tend to accept the facts as they are without further investigation.

As critical thinkers, we need to place a greater emphasis on qualifying and investigating the facts before or while we implement them into our writing. Further inquiry forces our papers to a greater level of understanding of the conversation we try to enter. This serves the same function as adding a “naysayer” into our argument in order to refute and/or qualify weaknesses in it.

Earlier in the week, I met with Professor Lueck to discuss an average paper, my researched inquiry. Going over the essay and the topic she pointed out the necessary area to improve my essay, organization.

What was the underlying problem with my organization? I lacked an understanding of the expectations and goals of the assignment.

Understanding the Assignment is Key to Organization

Thinking… Thinking… Wait… Still thinking…

The biggest problem facing my assignment was the poor organization. My paragraphs were disjointed with each paragraph representing completely new and seemingly irrelevant content. This was the result of not understanding the premise of the assignment. At first, I thought it had to do with the analysis of the piece of evidence we found in the archives. I then wrote an argument of the piece in order to construct an argument related to my original research question.

If the assignment was a bullseye and my essay was an arrow, it would strike an outer  -ring. What I mean by this is the essay I wrote,  used the piece of evidence as an exhibit source to establish an argument. However, Dr. Lueck pointed out that the essay should be centered around “how I found the evidence” and “what it is.” Essentially, I needed to be more reflective in a narrative-ish kind of way.