THE MAIN TASK:
Analyze the Power Relations and/or Dynamics in a Particular Space or Place (and add a piece of “visual literacy”)
in order to show or analyze:
how a particular space or place serves or prospers some people or principles more than others;
or how a space ironically undermines the very aims or ideologies it professes;
or how the use of a space symbolizes power relations of race, class, or gender;
or how a space in a film, cartoon, or ad (etc.) (or a series of films, etc.) symbolizes power distributions or human relations;
or how a song uses a particular space (like a porch, a truck, a ghetto, etc.) to construct a message that helps, hurts, controls, or otherwise represents a particular group of people;
or how a market or even a particular citys urban planning encourages certain actions, values, or relationships or elicits certain levels of social control;
or how an attraction like Disneyland or Sea World constructs a message that helps and/or hurts its visitors.
MLA FORMAT is required.
Look below the surface to see powers at play in a space.
Overview:
A number of our assigned readings have suggested that particular places or spaces dictate our personal and collective experiences and/or sense of self. While assigned author Robert Frosts poem The Road Less Travelled shows how a space like two roads in a wood becomes a metaphor or symbol of an otherwise abstract notion such as choice and the freedom to choose, other assigned readings narrativize more particularly how large-scale happiness or other social goods may be distributed or shared (or not shared) in a socio-political environment. For example, in the short story The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, fiction writer Ursula K. LeGuin suggests that the serene happiness of the town of Omelas is only made possible because of the closeted suffering of a solitary child.
Though LeGuins story is a fictional work, author Thomas Friedman uses non-fiction to similarly suggest that as technology improves and links the lives of more people across the globe in shared experiences of work and leisure, we will not all equally share in happiness in the end. Indeed, for assigned author Thomas Friedman, the inexorable integration of markets, transportation systems and communication systems may be enablingindividuals to reach around the world farther, faster, deeper, and cheaper than ever before , transforming some individuals into super-empowered individuals, but these same features of technological progress are inevitably producing not just super-empowered individuals, but also super-empowered angry men (emphasis added). While Friedmans article mentions Osama Bin Laden as an example of a super-empowered angry man, the mass shooting on Oct. 1, 2017 at a Las Vegas country western concert suggests that when armed with the certain physical and psychological ammunition, super-empowered angry men (and women?) may not be that far from our home after all.
THE MAIN TASK:
In an MLA-formatted essay of 3 to 5+ pages (with at least THREE FULL pages of words, or at least 750 words in your Essay’s body, before adding visuals, and before adding the Works Cited page), and using at least five sources (from assigned reading (if you want) and/or outside sources, plus at least one visual such as a graph, chart, or other image), choose any particular space real, imagined, or virtual in order to analyze the power relations and power distribution of that space. You must also include at least one graph, chart, image, etc. and cite that source too. You must also have a properly formatted Works Cited Links to an external site.page, so see this posted Canvas page for samples and instructional videos at the bottom of the page: MLA Format to Know for ALL Essays: See Videos and How to Cite ASSIGNED READINGS-2
Please Download the Essay 3 Prompt So You Can Read It Carefully or Perhaps Take It to the Writing Center for Help
IMPORTANT NOTE on ADDING THE VISUAL LITERACY:
To get ready for the Visual Literacy requirement for Essay 5, be sure to NOW add at least one example of “visual literacy” to your Essay 3 as a practice run on incorporating charts, maps, diagrams, etc. Choose from ideas like these (and more): a drawing or picture that is key to understanding the “place” or the dynamics/ relationships in that place; a map; a chart; a graph, etc. Be sure to INCLUDE any visuals INSIDE your essay, just as you would any other “quick-drop” source that is well-integrated into your argument. In other words, don’t put the visual at the end of the essay, before or after the Works Cited! Instead, have it included in the BODY of the Essay and refer to it by saying something like, “As we see in the figure to the left,…” or “As we see in figure 1,…” (if you are able to also label your images.) Use the “wrap” function for including the image.
SAMPLE SPECIFIC PROMPTS:
See the List below: YOU MAY CHOOSE ONE, ADAPT, or USE THESE IDEA
