Visual Rhetoric Assignment: Je Suis Charlie

I need to find out right away how well you argue and how well you write.

Before MON JAN 26, post a personal, evaluative, analytical, narrative, argumentative, persuasive, categorical, or reflective response to the graphic I have used for the header and background to this blog . . . or any combination of the foregoing. If you wish, you may use and cite sources to support your analysis of the graphic, or you may express your singular and unmediated response to the argument it makes.

Or you may choose to argue with my premise that the graphic makes an argument; but I warn you, I believe all writing and every image makes an argument.

1. Analyze your reaction to the graphic and whether it has changed since the first time you saw it.
2. Relate your reaction to the opinions you formed about terrorism, provocation, and free speech during the recent news coverage of the Charlie Hebdo massacre of cartoonists in Paris.
3. The image is someone’s creation. The combination of the image with the text is someone else’s creation. The placing of the image on the blog as a header is someone’s choice. When you look at the image, you are reacting to the premise advanced by the artist, by the designer, and by the instructor whose choice it was to present the image to you prominently.
4. What did the cartoonist intend? What did the designer intend? What did your instructor intend?
5. How much of your reaction results from your religious or political affiliations, if any?
6. Is your reaction in any way defensive?
7. If you prefer to pretend that you have “no reaction at all to a premise that, frankly, has nothing to do with me and is not worthy of my attention,” who do you know who would applaud your reaction, and who do you know who would be appalled or disappointed in you for caring so little?
8. In other words, you can’t escape this assignment. The image means something to you, whether you like it or not. The harder you deny its meaning, the more difficult the assignment.
9. Relax. There are no wrong answers except evasive or meaningless answers.
10. Give your post the title Je Suis—Username substituting your own username, of course.

Notes: I haven’t categorized this assignment as analytical, evaluative, or argumentative because I don’t care whether you analyze, evaluate, or argue. Consider this assignment a poke. Turn in interest, flinch in fear, or poke back . . . or stay still but document how the poke felt. I want a writing sample that expresses your natural reactions, not your compliance with an assignment.

Mechanics and Specifications: Write as many words as you require to make yourself understood. Waste none. Reject your first draft as the crap it is. Revise it until it has a shape that persuades its reader. Reject that too. Then revise it again until it is something that won’t embarrass you for fifteen weeks. With luck, it will embarrass you in fifteen weeks.

ASSIGNMENT DETAILS

• DUE: Midnight Sunday (11:59 pm SUN JAN 25)
• Post in the A01: Je Suis Charlie category.
• Word count is irrelevant. Thorough analysis will be graded higher than superficial writing that wastes words. Complex ideas briefly expressed are rewarded best.
• You will receive just one grade for this sample of your true writing self.
• Special late penalties, this one time. (Late by more than a minute: 100% penalty. You will fail the assignment. 0/100%. However, you’ll still be required to complete the assignment.)
• Minor Assignment (All minor assignments together make up 10% of Final Grade)