Project #2—Cultural Artifact Analysis
WRA 150 Writing: The Evolution of American Thought
Spring 2014 – Literacy, Identity, Society
Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures
In your first project, you considered your own experiences with learning and literacy—working with skills, knowledge, and information. As part of that assignment, you reflected upon your relationships with a particular aspect of your literacy and learning experiences and considered this for a sense of development and change in your identity. To further our conversations about the various meanings of ‘literacy’—what we know, what it means to know what we know, and how we know and use what we know—and how our literacies and social lives overlap, we will now build on these connections.
Project 2 asks you to consider your learning and literacy in a larger social meaning: in cultural context. In P2, we’ll think of learning, writing, and literacy issues as public concerns, related to cultural significance and importance. Each of us is unique and individual, yet we all also make some identification with various communities, groups, and social identities. Some of those identities we consider frequently and recognize relatively easily, such as broad-spectrum social distinctions including religion, race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexual orientation, just to name a few. However, ‘culture’ can encompass much more—cultural categories might also include occupation, family status, and living location. Even more focused ‘groups of belonging’ could include fraternal organizations, musical/arts groups, hobby clubs, and recreational sports clubs. All of these, in a way, fall under a large banner of ‘culture.’
What makes a culture? A group of people who share some set of values that joins them together, and in some ways, too, makes them distinct from other people and groups.
THE PROJECT:
In this project, you’ll work with a partner that I have assigned. Together, you’ll choose for analysis an everyday object associated with the nature of reading, writing, and literacy—yours or that of others—or an item which reflects a cultural group with which you have a connection. This object can be a literal, physical object, or, it can be a text, a product, a process, etc.
Once you’ve chosen, you’ll work together to question, examine, and analyze this object to learn more about its nature, its attributes, its social and cultural meanings, and ultimately, what it reveals about the larger cultural values and practices which create and surround it.
Think for example: why, in contemporary Western tradition, do men carry wallets instead of purses?
This was not always the case throughout history, and is not true throughout the world today, yet in America, this is now the norm. Why? What connects wallets with men and manhood? What about their use and value? What does the use of a wallet tell us about the people who use them, and the culture which expects them?
You’ll take that sort of thinking and apply it to an object of your choice. I’m sure you can think of dozens of artifacts—objects—which are associated with learning and literacy. Pick one, and then show how that artifact illustrates the values of the people who use it, the culture that produces it, and any other cultural identification with which you’d like to work. Each team member will contribute a different perspective to the final draft: a second culture? A second perspective from a national/international standpoint? A second gender perspective. We’ll figure this out as we go.
Note: in this project, the actual Final Draft will only count as a portion of your grade for the Project (33%), while your reflective essay will count 66%. As we get closer to the end of the project cycle, I’ll begin to prepare you for this reflection, which you can’t of course finish until the Project is completed.
This project will likely involve some research, but in a way different from other projects you may have undertaken—you’ll have to do some observation, some questioning (about your object’s cultural uses, meanings, and values and perhaps on culture itself), and then work your way towards a conclusion about this artifact’s significance for understanding how literacy and/or your item is used and valued in your particular culture. An object can reveal much about its creators and users—think of the adage “A picture is worth a thousand words.” For this project, find a picture, and then those thousand words.
A few suggestions might include:
• Considering an object which has significance for you
• Considering an object which is common, which you/others use daily
• Extending private knowledge: considering an object with which you have very little familiarity
• Extending public knowledge: examining a particular well-known artifact which exists in a larger world
These ideas may work alone or in combination; the choice is yours. Let self-discovery guide you as you invent and write. Regardless, the more specific you are the better and more effective your project is likely to be. Keep in mind, too, that this project may require a bit of outside research, especially if you are unfamiliar with your artifact; you will have to provide some background on this object and some sense of its history, relevance, use, etc.
PS—I really suggest you avoid cell phones for this assignment. Please.
GOALS and PURPOSE:
• To invite you to inquire into the cultural values and practices which surround cultural literacy, as exemplified in one particular artifact
• To give you practice in the process of inquiry—forming and asking questions, revising questions, and formulating answers
• To introduce outside research into your writing
• To introduce teamwork experience in writing
AUDIENCE:
For this project, you will write as if your audience is a general academic audience, an educated audience, but assumed to be unfamiliar with your artifact.
FORMATTING and PROCEDURE:
~1000 words/3-5 pages for the team’s Final Draft
~3 pages (500-1000 words) for your reflection and analysis essay
1 inch margins
Times New Roman 12 pt. or comparable font
Double spaced
Give the project a title! Something other than Project 2 or Cultural Artifact Analysis!
Please! I beg you!
At least one outside source, used and cited in MLA style
We’ll have five parts/Drafts again:
1. An Inspiration Draft—Due 2/11 by the start of class
This is an online discussion with your partner of possible topics and ideas.
2. An Invention Draft—Done in class on 2/11
This is a proposal/explanation of your topic.
3. A Rough Draft—Due 2/23
Peer Reviewed and/or work shopped on Eli in class
Possible Conferences this cycle?
4. A Final Draft—Due 3/2
33% of Project 2 Grade
5. A Reflection and Analysis Essay—Due 3/2
67% of Project 2 Grade
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