viz.

This summer I taught a rhetoric course that focused on the idea of a University. The course used Cardinal Newman's nineteenth-century treatise as a jumping off point but also looking at other ways a university might define itself as an institution. One of the more interesting discussions in class was one in which we investigated the relationship between art and the university...

The University of Texas, our home institution and object of study, has an archive (describing itself as a "world-renowned cultural institution") that not only houses important pieces of visual, textual, and performing art but also has its own galleries to put these objects on display. The building itself was recently renovated, and the atriums converted into "galleries" themselves that display the Center's significant collections on etched glass windows:

When teaching a rhetoric course, I love to use the Apple Commercials to show my students an example of real-world ethos.

Since fall of '06 I have been giving a PowerPoint visual rhetoric presentation in UT's RHE 306 and RHE 309K classes. The presentations have been pretty successful and seem well received by students and instructors alike. I have had some requests to distribute the presentation but have been holding off for a couple of reasons: 1) the presentation is composed almost entirely of coprighted material and unlimited distribution would almost certainly violate the fair use terms under which I am currently using the materials; 2) the images I included are often controversial, for a variety of reasons, and I am hesitant to distribute the presentation to instructors without backgrounds in visual rhetoric or who might not be attuned to some of the delicate classroom issues some of the images present.

Notes for the Instructor: This assigment is designed to introduce students to Microsoft's PowerPoint presentation software. Students are asked to work in groups and create presentations related to the content of the course (the instructor may wish to generate a list of acceptable topics). This assignment is designed to last no more than 2 or 3 class meetings: students will choose (or be assigned) their groups and topics, work on the presentations outside of class, and then present them to their peers. Students are also asked to submit a two-page paper describing the process of working on the project; instructors may choose to tweak this aspect of the assignment according to the goals of the course.

Assignment Description: Becoming familiar with PowerPoint

Category: Group project

Goals: This project is designed to introduce students to Microsoft’s PowerPoint software and give them practice in using it by producing an organized presentation to be given in class.

Tasks:

• Working in groups of (around) four students, create a PowerPoint presentation incorporating both images and text.
• Each presentation should be organized around a clearly defined topic related to class discussions and readings.
• Presentations should focus on being both informative and interesting.

Guidelines:

• Each presentation must contain a minimum of 10 slides and last approximately 10 minutes.
• Students must incorporate both text and images into their presentation; additionally, the images need to be informative and clearly related to the content of the presentation.
• Each group must also hand in, on the day of their presentation, a 2-page paper describing the presentation and reflecting on the process of creating it.
• These 2-page papers need to be double-spaced, use a font of no more than size 12, and include the names of all four group members.

Suggestions: Groups will be given some time to work on their projects in class, but are also expected to meet at least once outside of class to discuss the topic, plan the presentation, and divide different responsibilities among members of the group.