“While photographs may not lie, liars may photograph." -Lewis Hine
“The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.” – Oscar Wilde
This course asks whether documentary expression—narrative non-fiction, photojournalism, and film—can serve as a medium for social change. We will analyze documentary works that construct arguments about issues relevant to today, address power dynamics in today’s world, and attempt to effect some change in society. This class will be organized around six central controversial topics that have been focal points for many documentary writers, photojournalists, and filmmakers—environmental change, the healthcare system, poverty and homelessness, unionization, urban development, and war. The foundation for this analysis will be a grounding in rhetorical principles. In addition to identifying and summarizing various positions within each controversial topic, you will learn to analyze the types of arguments, the rhetorical appeals and strategies that documentarians use to persuade their audiences. This course will also contain a substantial amount of analysis of visual rhetoric. Over the course of the semester, we will move from analyzing arguments to crafting our own arguments as we learn to apply rhetorical appeals and strategies in the creation of a brief documentary film.
Blog Presentation – At mid-way point and at the end of the semester you will present your blog in a blog conference. Your goal is to reflect on your role as a reader, viewer, writer, and thinker within our class. You must keep up with the blog entries that are required and you must bring print-outs of your blog to class every day an entry is due. Refer to prompt for more details. You may want to teach yourself how to build a blog by watching this video on YouTube.
No comments:
Post a Comment