ENGLISH ESSAY

ASSIGNMENT 3 You have two distinct choices here from areas of “Ways of Reading” that we have considered. Let’s offer the option for the most recent readings first: Option 1 For this assignment, I want you to approach your own educational process--one you are still undergoing--from the critical perspectives offered by Rodriguez and by Freire, after you’ve completed reading his essay. (I urge you to read Freire if you wish to take the first option, though this is not necessary if you decide to take option one.) You are not telling the story of twelve plus years of education in the manner than Rodriguez is telling his life story, but you are evaluating critically the education you have received to this point. Clearly, both writers from this segment of our class contend that education changes and conditions us; now you will use their theories to examine your experience. In order to do this effectively, you will have to understand the Rodriguez and Freire essays well. PLEASE NOTE: YOU ARE NOT REQUIRED TO USE BOTH ESSAYS. I want you to quote liberally from the essays to help you make your points. Try to approach your writing as if you were testing or applying the principles that one or both of the writers are putting down. A successful essay will be one that examines specific episodes of your educational process through the texts we have read. Again, I'm not interested in reading a bunch of extended, general narratives about education, but rather detailed, highlighted essays that approach the issue of how you (and we) are and have been educated. Be willing to be critical of the institution of education, just as we have been critical all semester long of "institutions" we too often take for granted, whether those were institutions of art, gender, race, culture, government, or media. If Freire reinforces or illuminates perceptions you have had about education all along, then write about this. If Rodriguez seems to you an example of the results of Freire's "banking concept" of education, then use both. The key here is to shape your essay around your own critical conclusions, regardless of whether or not they support or contradict Freire or Rodriguez, or whether they fall somewhere in between. Again, when and if you call on your own experience here as an example, you will need to tell us about the type of school you attend or attended, whom the teachers were, the kinds of students in the class, the subject being taught, and so on until you cover the essentials of the experience that must be communicated to your reader for real meaning to take place. And remember, crucially, you’re reading your experience in terms of Freire or Rodriguez. Their texts must bind yours. Option 2 In the essay by Susan Bordo, we discover a writer interested in the analysis of images that we're exposed to every day; her argument about these images--whether they appear on television or through some form of print media--is that such images are not passive, and should not be passively absorbed, even though that is how many of us "read" the commercial medium. She further concludes that the way, commercially, our culture has targeted women’s bodies in advertising has now crossed over to representations of men, though she acknowledges that traditional ways of representing men and women still exist. Some of you may feel Bordo looked too closely at her subjects, but many of you may be willing to admit that much of the media works in subtle ways that, at least on the surface, we fail to approach critically. For this option, I'd like to see you attempt some form of scaled down analysis that Bordo embraces. Select a print ad (or ads or ad campaign), a television advertisement, or an icon of popular culture and look closely at it, much more closely than the average consumer or viewer may look while reading or watching television. Obviously, it will be far easier to approach an ad that is marketed toward men and women about the subject of body representation. Describe the commercial or ad in detail to us (you may include on-line ads with your paper when you send it in, and then discuss the subtle or subliminal ways it works on the consumer). You will need to use some judgment in your selection of material here, just as you will have to for your research papers. This is crucial: try to choose a subject that lends itself to analysis, rather than one that is easily read or interpreted, as the latter will leave you little to discuss. You may, of course, work with more than one ad if you wish, as does Bordo. You may want to begin your discussion by quoting from or working with Bordo. The degree to which you work with her will be determined by the content of the ad you select. Should you try to take this approach, be careful that you quote not merely the specifics of her discussions, but rather the generalities or theories that she offers. This could place your own discussion in a clear critical context. You may also want to include references to John Berger, as there are ample opportunities to quote passages of his essay that deal with our “ways of seeing” these ads. (Note Bordo’s use of Berger in her text.) Remember, your analysis needs to be specific, but it also needs to include a discussion of what the larger message is to consumers of the images you've selected. As Bordo suggests, the purpose of advertisements is not simply to get you to buy the product, but to create a sociological need for the products without which you will be seen as inadequate or inferior. What do the successes of such advertisements say about who we are and what we value? Here again, you have the option of working with the Bordo essay without analyzing an advertisement. You may wish to use her essay to critically evaluate your own stance on the power and presence of media in our lives. But this will take a fairly close reading of Bordo's work, and a willingness to battle or argue with her on the points with which you disagree, if indeed you are in disagreement. *** This is the last of the three required essays before your research papers, and thus probably the most important. Approach this with some intellectual rigor and stylistic flair, if you can. Minimum word requirement is 1000 words.