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Know a good activity for explaining context?

Wed, 09/19/2007 - 20:44 — bguthrie

I find that my students are still struggling with the idea of context. I think one thing that is confusing is that the book seems to talk about context in two different ways. One is the context of the reception of the message, like a classroom, business meeting, or sitting and reading. The other is context as the greater social and political environment of the message. I used the idea from the CDA teacher's manual that looks at the design of Yahoo's and Google's search engines, and how they conceptualize the context of the internet and their audiences differently. I think this was helpful, but I think my students are still having trouble with the idea. Does anyone have an idea for another activity for this?

Comments

Sat, 09/29/2007 - 19:56 — Kmc

Sorry I didn't respond sooner...

But here's an activity adapted from the Colorado State writing website http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/teaching/co301aman/pop7b5.cfm that you might want to use:

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I think it's fair to say that few texts are written in isolation. Sure, an author may be a hermit or a prisoner, writing with charcoal on tree bark or paper towels, but even in physical isolation, an author joins some sort of intellectual conversation, even if he or she is conversing solely with written texts or remembered ideas. When, as a reader, you try to reconstruct the context within which an author wrote an argument, you can often get a bigger picture that allows you to more effectively determine what the author intended to do and how well he or she accomplished his or her purpose.

During class today, we will be analyzing Sarah Vowell's "The Partly Cloudy Patriot" (CDA, pp. 133-140). In preparation for this analysis, please establish as detailed a rhetorical context as you can for this essay.

- When was the essay written?
- What prompted the writing of this essay?
- Who is Sarah Vowell? What do you know about her occupation and personal background? What can you infer about her political leanings?
- Where did the essay appear? Does this tell you anything about Vowell or the audience she was trying to reach?
- For whom do you think Vowell is writing? How did you infer this audience?
- What purpose was Vowell trying to achieve? What did she hope to accomplish through the act of making this argument?

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Also check out the "Writing across the Disciplines" activity included with the materials I posted at the beginning of the semester.

Sun, 09/30/2007 - 21:01 — bguthrie

Thanks, Kyle. That sounds

Thanks, Kyle. That sounds like a great assignment. I'll definitely try it out.