"Dear Student": Misunderstood Satire

Context: Excuses in terms of classroom management--Informative

In Teaching Psychology: A Step by Step Guide, Lucas and Bernstein offer advice about classroom management to new teachers in the field. They suggest that the importance of having a policy about seemingly false excuses is that it sets a tone for the class as a whole about how you view students and your relationship with them: whether you see students as "partners or adversaries" (137).They add that this impression is not confined to the student with the excuse, but to the entire class's impression of you and your relationship to them. Thus they suggest "taking a firm, consistent, rational and caring approach to excuses that incorporates a ‘trust, but verify’ policy. Treat every excuse as genuine, but in fairness to the entire class, required that it be accompanied by supporting documentation” (137). Ultimately Lucas and Bernstein suggest that how teachers deal with excuses affects both how individual students view the teacher and how the class as a whole views all policies.

How I found this: I googled "college students and excuses" and found one on facultyfocus.com, which seemed aimed at the audience in whom i was interested. I then searched for similar articles, and choose one that focused on issues of classroom management because this is something many of the people in "Dear Profesor" cited. That article was broad, but cited this book.

Guterl: I must pause, though, with great concern. Because, dear student, we actually have no midterm in this class. This is an interdisciplinary class, and we assign essays and group projects, all of which are due at the end of the semester

Johnson: I spent dozens of hours writing and researching the most mundane information. Then, I bring that information into the room where you, and hundreds of others, pay exorbitant fees and tuition. Wow, how do I stay employed?

Leonard: Should “life happen” where you cannot take the midterm, all you need to do is talk to me. You can email me, call, tweet, send a telegram, or reach out in whatever way works for you. While it may not be possible, do your best to contact me before the midterm so that I know the situation. My only expectation is that you do so in a timely manner. Sending me an email in a month and showing for make-up on last day of semester would not be timely. -

Nur Amin: I hope all is well with you. Please note that, as articulated in my well-developed, color-coded syllabus, I am not here for make-up assignments, late work, or extra credit.

It's not personal. But when I am teaching almost 200 students a semester across three different kinds of courses at three different levels, I can't make allowances for those kinds of things.

Guerrero: I believe in karma … both mine and yours. And if you are fine with tempting karma by virtually knocking off family members on a whim simply because you can’t get your act together, then you have bigger problems than the grade you’re going to get in my class.

Jackson-Brown: I can tell from the way you half-attend class—and nod off during the times when you actually do attend class—that it is just a matter of time before you start killing off some member of your family, most likely your granny, in a lame attempt to gain my sympathy so I will give you extra time to work on an assignment you are still going to fail anyway.

Lewis-Giggets:

sincerely hope you find my entirely-too-vivid description of all the ways your precious grandmother can and might die just as appalling and inexcusable as I find your faking her death in order to escape being accountable for the work you chose not to do. I hope you see how it would take a soulless, life-suck of a person who lacked both character and integrity to say such horrifying things without an ounce of compassion or—wait for it—truth.

Heffernan:

I understand the importance of family in times of grief, and I hope you can be a source of support for your parents in what is one of the most difficult life transitions we all must face as we get older. My professors in both college and grad school were very understanding of some of my setbacks in similar family circumstances. - See more at: https://chroniclevitae.com/news/886-dear-student-should-your-granny-die-before-the-midterm#sthash.XmxLbzzP.dpuf

Class Model "Dear Student': Contexting, Theorizing,Collating, Applying, and Arranging

Analytical Writing

Four Basic Types of Writing

Descriptive

Expository

• Why does [COLLATION] surface in [PARTICULAR WAY]?

• How does [new copier] modify [PARTICULAR PRACTICE of creating reports]?

• To what extent does [understanding intersexuality] change [my response to Kaitlyn Jenner]?

writing that uses vivid language to describe a person, place, or event so that the reader can picture the topic clearly in his/her mind. Fiction and poetry often use large amounts of descriptive writing, and sometimes only attempt to serve this descriptive purpose.

attempts to inform the reader about something important or explain something to him/her (a process, a set of rules, the benefits of an activity, etc.). Common expository writings: business or technical writing, process writing, compare and/or contrast essays, reaction essays, response essays, and often research-based essay

• Why does [COLLATION] surface in [PARTICULAR WAY]?

• How does [COLLATION] modify [PARTICULAR PRACTICE/ANALYSIS/ UNDERSTANDING]?

• To what extent does [ELEMENT OF COLLATION] replace/change [OTHER ELEMENT OF COLLATION]?

Persuasive

Narrative

Academic

writing that takes a stand on a principle (oftentimes a controversial issue) and attempts to persuade the reader to adopt a similar mindset. common forms include opinion pieces, op-eds, blog posts and most types of academic writing

"In identifying the pattern of racist language in justifying police brutality, we can identify recourse to categorization by civilization, animality, and superhuman attributes."

Why do [racist language and symbols] surface in [justifying police brutality]?

• How does [intersectionality] modify [ANALYSIS of Rachel Donezal's actions]?

• To what extent does [the history of women in hip hop] replace/change [critical claims that Nicki Minaj is a sell out]?

"Ultimately the pattern of racist language in justifying police brutality derives from a legal tradition that classes bodies as more or less controllable, so we should ban words with rich symbolic meaning from all police reports and discourage them in journalism"

writing that tells the reader about a particular event(s) that took place. Common narration writings: personal essays, short stories, novels, poetry.

Argumentative:

requires the student to investigate a topic; collect, generate, and evaluate evidence; and establish a position on the topic in a concise manner.

Analytical:

includes descriptive writing (i.e. facts or information), plus the added feature of re-organisation. That is, in analytical writing you not only give information, but you also re-organise it into categories, groups, parts, types or relationships. Sometimes, these are categories or relationships which are already part of the discipline (e.g. In the discipline of Law, there are 2 types of law: common law and statute law). Sometimes, these are categories or relationships which you create specifically for your text (e.g. If you are comparing two theories, you might break your comparison into 3 parts, based on 3 aspects of the theories, such as: how each theory deals with social context, how each theory deals with language learning, and how each theory can be used in practice)

http://sydney.edu.au/stuserv/learning_centre/help/analysing/an_distinguishTypes.shtml

• Why does [racist language and symbols] surface in [justifying police brutality]?

• How does [intersectionality] modify [ANALYSIS of Rachel Donezal's actions]?

• To what extent does [the history of women in hip hop] replace/change [critical claims that Nicki Minaj is a sell out]?

• Why does [COLLATION] surface in [PARTICULAR WAY]?

• How does [knowing about when i skinned my knee] modify [UNDERSTANDING of my terrible, horrible, very bad, no good day]?

• To what extent does [ELEMENT OF COLLATION] replace/change [OTHER ELEMENT OF COLLATION]?

What does X mean?

What is the significance of X?

What conditions, influences or events caused X to be as it is? How or why did it become what it is?

What is the process that led to X? What were the steps in the process? How did that process take place?

How could it have happened differently, and what might be the effects of changes to the process? What

is the significance of this process?

Who is the audience for X? What is that audience’s expectations, and how are those expectations

addressed?

How does the word “X” work in the text? Does it convey meanings other than its literal definition? Does

it mean different things to different audiences? How would the text change if “X” were replaced with a

synonym?

What caused x event to happen as it did? Where did it happen, who was involved and what was the

outcome? What might have caused it to happen differently? What controversies surround the event?

What is the effect of X text/film/visual? How does it achieve that effect? What details contribute to the

overall effect? Might it have different effects on different audiences? What choices did the author/artist

make in order to achieve that effect?

What are the various opinions about X? What do they disagree about? Do they share any common

assumptions? Is there any overlap between positions? What are the reasons for each opinion?

http://www.aims.edu/student/online-writing-lab/overview/essays

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/685/1/

lucas and Bernstein:

• how you view students and your relationship with them: students as "partners or adversaries" (137)
• the entire class's impression of you and your relationship to them.
• affects both how individual students view the teacher and how the class as a whole views all policies.

Whole classroom

• "It's not personal. But when I am teaching almost 200 students a semester across three different kinds of courses at three different levels, I can't make allowances for those kinds of things."
• "Then, I bring that information into the room where you, and hundreds of others"

What are the various opinions about the role of the individual in learning as opposed to the class as a whole? What do they disagree about? Do they share any common assumptions? Is there any overlap between positions? What are the reasons for each opinion?

Who is the audience for individual in learning as opposed to the class as a whole? What is that audience’s expectations, and how are those expectations

addressed?

__"Dear Student's" emphasis on the whole classroom__ is surprisingly different than __Lucas and Berstein's emphasis on how the whole class views enforcemen of policy" in terms of _reasoning.__By this, I mean _____the reasoning__ is __that the requests about dead grandmothers suggest that the class as a whole is not important, or that a teacher should focus on the "personal" instead of all of his/her classes __ in __the discussion of classes in "Dear Student"___while there is a striking difference in ___Lucas and Bernstein's emphasis on how the class as awhole views treatment of individuals___ in terms of __putting emphass on the class as a group rather than a particular student__. Noticing this pattern of ____focusing on either an individual need or the needs of the class as a whole___ suggests that ____the emotional "karma" of killing grany off____ is also a part of this collation because it _____focuses on the larger societal effect rather than individual needs__.

Hey! You just wrote an application!

WRITING PLAN: VISUALLY ARRANGING ALL YOUR WORK

Both sources focus on beliefs about the students as audience and their perception. "Dear Students" argues that students believe that they are adressing only teachers, but the teachers in the original satire suggest instread that the audience should also consist of their peers. Additionally the teachers writng the satire seem to believe that students expect to be seen as individuals. L and B, on the other hand suggest that students want to be viewed more as a whole, and have policies that are equally aplpied to all of them. This suggests that the satire might be misunderstood because of the different assumptions about how studnets view individual vs class needs. More broadly, it suggests that both te satirists and the contexts within which they work make assumptions about the students as audience without gathering information from the students themselves.

Booth Summary

Rosen Summary

on your research board

According to Booth, why do people sometimes miss satire?

What about according to Rosen?

Lens sources and Context sources

For our first assignment, we have identified two different kinds of sources that you will use. One, we call lens sources. These are texts that contribute to our growing understanding of how satire works in the abstract. For instance, the selections from Booth’s A Rhetoric of Irony purport to explain how irony and satire work, by taking advantage the human need for meaning to create community between ironists and audiences. Lens texts let us participate in an ongoing discussion whose so what is an answer to the question “how does satire work?”

Context sources, on the other hand, provide information that is necessary to understand a particular instance of satire. For instance, if you wanted to explain to someone who has never heard any music from the early 1990s that “You Saw My Blinker” can be read as a satirical jab at the misogynist scofflaws who often populate gangsta rap, you might need to start with an article that describes that genre at that time, maybe with particular reference to the subgenre of songs whose lyrics feature descriptions of legal proceedings. Contexts provide information necessary to understanding a particular satirical text, and that necessity is something you need to establish in your argument.

You'll be doing the same basic moves with both (so just like we collated, asked an analytical application question, and then answered it above with the idea of class policy and individual treatment, we'll do the same applying parts of Booth to a "misreading" of "Dear Student"), but as a thinker.writer, you have to decide what sorts of sources you need for what sorts of arguments.

*NB--we're starting to think about draft 1b in our class example-- you're finishing up draft 1a in your own work

WWBS? WWRS?

When Satire Goes Bad...

Who do you "gut level" agree with? Why? What is that side not "getting" about the other side?

Responses

https://medium.com/@dexdigi/if-your-grandmother-dies-dont-tell-your-professors-61fd9447ef88#.52ybwx1vy

http://jessestommel.com/dear-chronicle-why-i-will-no-longer-write-for-vitae/

https://storify.com/kelly_j_baker/some-thoughts-on-dear-students

found at: https://chroniclevitae.com/news/886-dear-student-should-your-granny-die-before-the-midterm

Other Responses

• http://www.trentmkays.com/dear-student-you-deserve-better/
• https://chroniclevitae.com/news/935-dear-student-how-about-dear-provost

RULES:

• You may have several shapes in one paragraph
• One shape may take up several paragraphs
• Each shape must have a clear arrow between it and its preceding/following shapes
• Generally applications bridge collations and so whats, though it is possible that two collations join together to one application, or a so what leads to another so what, which leads back to an encounter
• When in doubt, a "so what" is the glue between shapes
• A n arrow may connect by returning to the encounter or a central so what and then going back to a data collation
• The path will begin and end with the encounter

• reveals definitions/meaning key terms
• uncovers assumptions
• shows new ways of addressing an issue
• This pattern changes
• [PRACTICE? ANALYSIS? ASSUMPTIONS? CAUSATION (SOME REVERSAL OF THE INITIAL BELIEF OF RELATION OF TWO THINGS)? ORDER (CHANGE IN THE INITIAL UNDERSTANDING OF WHEN THINGS HAPPEN)?]
• by
• [HERE YOU EXPLAIN THE CHANGE].

One great so what--re writing your analytical question as an answer {What is the significance of understanding audiences as defined by the viewer? It is significant that the audience is defined by the viewer because it suggests that misunderstanding the satire may arise from trying to imagine the audience's needs and working from that assumption, rather than assesing what the audience actually desires.]

If group X is right that __________, as I think they are, then we need to reassess the popular assumption that __________.

X’s theory of __________ is extremely useful because it sheds insight on the difficult problem of __________.

These findings challenge SOME GROUP’S’ common assumptions that __________.

X matters/is important because __________.

Although X may seem trivial, it is in fact crucial in terms of today’s concern over __________.

Ultimately, what is at stake here is __________.

These findings have important consequences for the broader domain of __________.

My discussion of X is in fact addressing the larger matter of __________.

Although X may seem of concern to only a small group of __________, it should in fact concern anyone who cares about __________.

(Graff and Berkenstein: They Say, I Say: The Moves that Matter in Academic Writing)

Nur Amin, Leonard, Johnson and Guterl all reference class policies and often how they affect other students as well

Data Dump and Collation:

To analyze, you have to start by

gathering information about your text

In the case of the misunderstandings, do a data dump with your assigned article (use the questions from the data dump sheet!), and create at least 4 surprising collations (use the questions and template from the sheet!). The discussions we have had we had about why people "miss" satire might help shape your collations.

Heffernan, Lewis-Giggets,Jackson-Browne and Guerrero all focus on the emotions that arise when a loved one actually dies and falsely invoking them

Data Collation from Booth:

Yes AND (USE/PURPOSE): role of audience: audiences form sympathetic communities:

reader must make step of "recognizing either some incongruity among the words or between the words and something else that he knows" (10)

"reader is expected to catch what some would consider external clues" (10)

reader quickly entertains multiple possibilities that "come flooding in" (11)

reader makes decision about author's own beliefs (11) and constructs a meaning based on that (12)

this is "an astonishing communal achievement" that "reveals in both participants a kind of meeting with other minds that contradicts a great deal that gets said about who we are and whether we can know each other" (13)

rather than having victims, then, satire serves to create the "building of amiable communities" based on "finding and communing with kindred spirits" (28)

For this to work, the reader must feel that the author assumes a capacity for the reader's skill in understanding irony and "grants...a kind of wisdom; he assumes that he does not have to spell out the shared and secret truths on which my reconstruction is built"

collation

In "Dear Student: Should Your Granny Die Before the Midterm," Stacy Patton collects the imagined responses of a number of faculty to students that they are pretty sure are using a dead grandmother as a false excuse to miss class or an exam. The responses Patton collects range from reminding students of class policy to threatening to contact the students' parents with a sympathy note to calling the students out for their lies.

_Booth's argument that satire creates "amiable communities" by stressing the ways in which the readers and writers assume shared values__ is surprisingly different than __responses such as Lewis Giggets argument that invoking death to get out of responsibility is done by a "soulless, life-suck" of a person and Heffernan's stressing the ways communities help people in genuine times of grief suggest that students willingly violate communal expectations of sympathy_ in terms of _reasoning____.

By this, I mean _____the reasoning__ is __focused on how the readers interpret the communal norms __ in __Booth's argument___ while there is a striking difference in ___the responses in "Dear Student"___ in terms of ____focusing on the way in which the objects of satire have left communal norms__. Noticing this pattern of ___defining satire by the actions of its audience versus the violations of its objects ___ suggests that ____Booth's argument about satire working by broadening the definition of what the larger community is not ____ is also a part of this collation because it _____ fits the idea of satire building readerly community, but argues that this community requires understanding the violations of the objects of satire as outside the most basic communal norms __.

Booth: Yes AND Process (timing/steps of satire for reader)

In class writing, part 1

Figuring out the Writer’s Intentions vs Audience Experience

A YES BUT COLLATION: What composes groups

two polarities. At one extreme lies the temptation

to take what the satirist says at face value: satirists claim to have something

urgent to say and insist that what they have to say is actually true,

so why should we not believe them, at least on some level? (Kernan 1959;

Griffin 1993, 35–70) At the other extreme, however, there remains deep

suspicion about comedy, the effects of laughter, and the gamesmanship

of satire: Where is there a space for truth-telling and moral seriousness

when the satirist always has an eye on making the audience laugh?

(Griffin 1993, 79–94)” (3)

Audience Experience:

“there is never much doubt about what these performers want us to believe they are doing. Angry or annoyed at someone or something, they fire up their sense of indignation, mobilize their verbal or gestural skills, and mock whoever or whatever it is that irritates them” (1)

he satirist will typically claim to speak “from the heart,” (2)

comic purposes vs serious purposes make reader suspicious as seriousness of satirist (2)

question of whether author means it and thus what consequence can this fuzzy meaning have? (4)

And if satirical teaching amounts to little more than faux moralizing, where exactly does an audience’s enjoyment of satirical genres lie? If, as some have held, it is to be found purely in the realm

of the aesthetic, what does it mean that this aesthetic has been emptied of truly didactic content? (4)

Writer intentions:

“often far more elusive and unstable than it would ever let on” (1-2)

"clearly is mediated" in terms of the style, the way it fulfills audience expectations (2)

Question of audience experiencing it vs intended target:

"Once again, we find the same confounding of audiences, targets,

and authorial posturings that we saw in Acharnians. Who, after all, is

supposed to benefit from Bruce’s rants? To be sure, not the people

who paid to see his act at a comedy club and walked in expecting to

be amused. Rather, the beneficiaries of his wit are people who, in their

capacity as satirical targets, would never dream of coming to see his act;

or if they did, would resist any “instruction” he claimed to be offering

them.19 Just how critical it is for satirists to keep straight the differences

between their audiences is revealed by Bruce’s act in his final

months, when he seemed to misplace the didactic pretense, treating

the audience he wanted to entertain as if they were the ones he felt

a need to instruct.” (21)

What collations does Rosen offer that might be useful for thinking about "Dear Student" and its misunderstandings? Offer at least 2, with specific claims from Rosen

reader "required to reject"

recognizes incongruity within text/ or with own knowledge

need to reconcile what doesn't fit

quickly entertains multiple interpretations/explanations

makes decisions about the author's own intentions/conception of author

speed=pleasure

speed may be what is powerful

In Class writing part 2: What specific details from "Dear Student" or a misunderstanding of it that we looked at might fit or contrastin interesting ways with the collation we selected from Rosen?

In Class Writing: Use the Collation we Developed

__Specific Detail 1__ is surprisingly like __Specific Detail 2_ in terms of _choose 1 from box below____.

Shape

Size

Placement/Timing (either in terms of plot or in terms of the actual text)

Make-up/components/ function within a group

Use/Purpose

Outcome

Definitions

Reasoning

Causes

By this, I mean _____term from the box above__ is ____description of how it fulfills the term in the box__ in ____Specific Detail 1___ and the same holds true in ___Specific Detail 2___ in terms of ____description of how it fulfills the term in the box__. Noticing this pattern of ____a more precise definition of term from the box above-___ suggests that ____Specific Detail 3 that was not in original dump____ is also a part of this collation because it _____ description of how it fulfills the term in the box__.

Context: Stossel's argument to "Rant up"--Problems with Administration, larger issues on college campus: analytical argument

• What is the process that led to defining satire by the actions of its audience versus the violations of its objects ? What were the steps in the process? How did that process take place?

In “Clear the Way for More Good Teachers,” Douglas Anderson recommends a new approach to many problems faced by higher education, such as “retention, class attendance, educational success, student happiness and well-being, [and] faculty morale.” He suggests that “hiring an army of good teachers” and getting “our classes back to 20 or fewer students per teacher” would ameliorate all of those problems. He adds that those teachers would need to “be free to teach in their own way” to satisfy a broadly defined curriculum, and that they would have to be rewarded for teaching well, without necessarily being required to produce research. Anderson offers this experimental approach as an alternative to current efforts to address higher education’s problems, which he says has led higher education to “become an industry of meeting-holders whose task is to ‘solve’ problems—real or imagined.” Ultimately, Anderson hypothesizes that reducing administration and investing in good teaching might save us from the “so-called business model of education,” which “has been a disaster.”

explain how the process does not work

Remember in Draft 1b we have to summarize these tough theoretical articles. We have one that we can use--the Booth one. Let's review

_Booth's argument that satire creates "amiable communities" by stressing the ways in which the readers and writers assume shared values__ is surprisingly different than __responses such as Lewis Giggets argument that invoking death to get out of responsibility is done by a "soulless, life-suck" of a person and Heffernan's stressing the ways communities help people in genuine times of grief suggest that students willingly violate communal expectations of sympathy_ in terms of _reasoning____.

By this, I mean _____the reasoning__ is __focused on how the readers interpret the communal norms __ in __Booth's argument___ while there is a striking difference in ___the responses in "Dear Student"___ in terms of ____focusing on the way in which the objects of satire have left communal norms__. Noticing this pattern of ___defining satire by the actions of its audience versus the violations of its objects ___ suggests that ____Booth's argument about satire working by broadening the definition of what the larger community is not ____ is also a part of this collation because it _____ fits the idea of satire building readerly community, but argues that this community requires understanding the violations of the objects of satire as outside the most basic communal norms __.

• What does X mean?

• What is the significance of X?

• What conditions, influences or events caused X to be as it is? How or why did it become what it is?

• What is the process that led to X? What were the steps in the process? How did that process take place?

• How could X have happened differently, and what might be the effects of changes to the process? What is the significance of this process?

• Who is the audience for X? What is that audience’s expectations, and how are those expectations

addressed?

• How does X work in the text? Does it convey meanings other than its literal definition? Does it mean different things to different audiences? How would the text change if “X” were replaced with a synonym?

• What caused x to happen as it did? Where did it happen, who was involved and what was the outcome? What might have caused it to happen differently? What controversies surround the event?

• What is the effect of X? How does it achieve that effect? What details contribute to the overall effect? Might it have different effects on different audiences? What choices did the author/artist make in order to achieve that effect?

• What are the various opinions about X?

• What disagreements might circulate around X?

• What are the common assumptions about X?

Is there any overlap between positions about X? What are the reasons for each opinion?

probably last

figure out this is process of defining satire vs audience

In Class Write: Same Steps, Different sources (ie, remember draft 1a?)

1. Identify a collation from _Your_ Satire

2, Identify a collation from one of your contexts.

3. Use the collation template to collate the relevant part of these collations

4. Figure out your "x"

5. Figure out the best analytical question for it

6. Write 4-6 sentences answering that question, based on what you figured out in 3, as well as the details from 1 and 2

The process of creating an "amiable community," as Booth terms it (28), depends on understanding the intent of the writer by the reader who "is expected to catch what some would consider external clues" (10). This is very different than what happens in the examples in "Dear Student," in which the obvious sarcasm of the writers about being a "soulless life suck," for instance, suggests that the writers assume that the audience should be told what values they are judging. This may be part of why some audiences fail to catch the satire. If the process of satire depends upon the author trusting the audience to some extent to see how what they say is not what they mean, the writers in "Dear Student" do not allow this process to happen because they are so obvious in their meaning. This collation of directing the reader changes

the analysis of why the satire fails by suggesting that telling the reader too much can prevent them from wanting to work with you.

The collation of responses in "Dear Student" focusing on how objects of satire have left communal norms, in conjunction with Booth's argument that satirists define their object of satire through what they are not, suggests that the process of creating satirical objects depends upon defining what exceeds the acceptable. That is, in both cases, satirists are assuming we all agree on what is normal, or acceptable--not lying about traumatic life events, for instance-- and, having assumed everyone agrees with this norm, base their satire on exceeding this norm. Booth's point that readers understand satirical objects by what they are not suggests that this process is important not just in terms of what the satirist chooses to focus on, but in terms of if the audience will also participate in defining what is not acceptable in the object of satire. Thus, Booth claims, while not everyone might be willing to go the "far end of the scale of blame," in naming an object of satire, starting from what someone is not "can be accepted and enjoyed by anyone who is in any degree suspicious" (29).But this process can go wrong if the audience is focusing on different communal norms than the satirist. This pattern of defining satire as that which exceeds the communally acceptable changes the analysis of why it might fail by focusing us on the communal norms the audience is woring from as opposed to the satirist.

[

think through process of defining what is satirized

How I found this: I went to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the trade journal for universities, and searched for "Administration and Faculty." This was on p3 of results

: Your chosen satire has been misunderstood: how do the contexts you researched and the theories you read explain how that misunderstanding happened?

http://chronicle.com/article/Clear-the-Way-for-More-Good/234773

So Whats

What next?

would make sense here?

What

stommel collations

Baker collations/context

dexdigi collations/context

dear students collations

control and what is controlled

components of a group: administration

So Whats

Causes: expecting excuses

"rant up, not down"

race and understanding

"opressed by a system"

remember that a summary is basically assembling the so whats of an article and mega so what-ting them.

A cool thing about writing so whats is you get better at spotting them. What so whats does Aiken offer up?

What so whats does he allude to that you need to write out/clarify (for, I don't know, a summary?)

cultures of higher ed yes ANd dehumanization of students

causes: studnets making excuses

"intellectual, uncompassionate, illogical nonsense currently threatening to take down the higher education system in the state of Wisconsin."

So What?: Explaining the payoff of your thinking/ writing

Accommodations

• What is the process that led to defining satire by the actions of its audience versus the violations of its objects ? What were the steps in the process? How did that process take place?

yes AND: Whole classroom

"It's not personal. But when I am teaching almost 200 students a semester across three different kinds of courses at three different levels, I can't make allowances for those kinds of things."

"Then, I bring that information into the room where you, and hundreds of others"

Practice: Using An article as a Lens and So Whatting Your Ideas

Of course, also come from our own thinking. You do the same thing--figure out what your answer (rather than your evidence, or explanations) is to your analytical question

• Extension on deadline
• Make up Work
• Grade Curve
• Assignment resubmission

details

public vs private in shaming

The process of creating an "amiable community," as Booth terms it (28), depends on understanding the intent of the writer by the reader who "is expected to catch what some would consider external clues" (10). This is very different than what happens in the examples in "Dear Student," in which the obvious sarcasm of the writers about being a "soulless life suck," for instance, suggests that the writers assume that the audience should be told what values they are judging. This may be part of why some audiences fail to catch the satire. If the process of satire depends upon the author trusting the audience to some extent to see how what they say is not what they mean, the writers in "Dear Student" do not allow this process to happen because they are so obvious in their meaning. This collation of directing the reader changes

the analysis of why the satire fails by suggesting that telling the reader too much can prevent them from wanting to work with you.

explanation

community: universities as a whole

https://twitter.com/dog_rates/status/684969860808454144

• What is the effect of _shaming as a mode of teaching_? How does it achieve that effect? What details contribute to the overall effect?

Stommel expresses the more serious issues of what is occurring in the system. Issues such as grades, textbooks, attendance, policies, curriculum, and "entitlement".

https://twitter.com/dog_rates/status/697990423684476929?lang=en&lang=en

Minority Faculty Women should be more caring towards family traumas: suggesting an emotional duty--minority female faculty has to serve as counseleurs as well as profs: new defn!!

Yes AND OUTCOME

Ex.1)"I understand gallows humor"

Ex.2)" what I don’t understand is the thought process that allows one to think that broadcasting to the world that you have no heart is a good idea"

Ex.3)"tweeted about it, calling it ‘boring, insensitive, unoriginal’ ".

Ex.1) "I was so disappointed to see that all of these cruel emails were from women."

Ex.2)"This is about the very common student that is lonely, and needs a mentor"

Ex.3)"students that are most at risk for feeling rejected and isolated"

Ex.4)" full ten percent of black students say that they have absolutely nobody to talk to"

Ex.5) Leads to stress, depression,and anxious.

The communities (students, professors, job seekers, and job advisers) impacted are not being well served by Vitae because they are being belittled and not getting their needs met.

culture of higher ed and training/institution

Definition. Class= student high importance grades. Class=prof lectures. knowledge, attenbdance

Granny is more likely to die during...

• Midterms
• Finals
• Any Important Grading Events

calling Poe's law means "saying: the things you say are so stupid, you must be joking or something

of the sort. That is: it offers the interlocutor only two options: either one is too incompetent for anything but ridicule or one is being insincere."

Problem: "places one’s interlocutor in a circumstance where there is no actual argument posed to her to defend herself against, and she has further the need to address questions of both her competency and sincerity." (308)

"also directed and displayed for

the onlooking audience" (308)

"severe" dialectical consequences: "One, thereby, cannot successfully portray the competition as dumber than they actually are, since (by hypothesis) there are members of the opposition that are as bad as (or even worse than) the portrayal. Consequently, believing Poe’s Law is true effectively places any discussant in a

uniquely difficult position: if one believes the other side of a dispute cannot be strawmanned,

then how is one to take the other side’s case seriously at all? " (306)

"it brings into question the

quality of the discussion had at the time calling Poe’s Law in the middle of a

discussion of a website’s content calls attention to how some side of the discussion is

being represented by parodists, instead of those sincere"

In Class: So Whats

Go back to your application from Monday, and write out a so what for it: This collation [or describe it] changes

[PRACTICE? ANALYSIS? ASSUMPTIONS? CAUSATION (SOME REVERSAL OF THE INITIAL BELIEF OF RELATION OF TWO THINGS)? ORDER (CHANGE IN THE INITIAL UNDERSTANDING OF WHEN THINGS HAPPEN)?]

by

[HERE YOU EXPLAIN THE CHANGE].

Then, use one of the ways Aiken gives a so what as a template to write the same point in a different form--the point is to think about varying your writing while maintaining the focus on your ideas instead of how to say them

So What?: Explaining the payoff of your thinking/ writing

This pattern changes

[PRACTICE? ANALYSIS? ASSUMPTIONS? CAUSATION (SOME REVERSAL OF THE INITIAL BELIEF OF RELATION OF TWO THINGS)? ORDER (CHANGE IN THE INITIAL UNDERSTANDING OF WHEN THINGS HAPPEN)?]

by

[HERE YOU EXPLAIN THE CHANGE].

Applications then....Are a way to get to So Whats, using the collation to create a particular (instead of general_ question

Rosen Does it:

Booth does it:

What is the significance of the process of trying out alternative interpretations or explanations?

no, he does not put these words in. But notice he sets it up with the details and derives the specific question he then answers as a so what and application to back it up

Aikin does it:

Landover Baptist posts “run from the goofy… to the chilling.”

“But the site’s posted mail hardly reflects public awareness that the site is parodic.”

Yes BUT template

Landover Baptist’s content is surprisingly different than it’s posted emails in terms of Outcome. By this I mean that the outcome is a reader recognizing the absurdity of the site in the site’s content, while there is a striking difference in the emails they receive in terms of outcome because the emails indicate no such awareness of the parodic nature of the site. Noticing this pattern of non-overlapping misunderstandings suggest that…

Application

What is the effect of non overlapping misunderstandings in terms of the effects of Poe's Law?

“The reason why PL1 is weak is that it does not hinge on any requirements on the audiences or

anything about the parody beyond that it is a parody. Nor is it an account of the difficulty for or

the possibility of readers detecting the parody. In LandoverBaptist.com’s case, detecting the

farce is not difficult, since they link to sites selling atheist T-shirts. Further, the owners of

LandoverBaptist.com likely only post letters from aggrieved people who do not know the site is

a parody, and a good deal of the mail confronting them for the parody is likely not posted (it

would break the spell of parody). In essence, PL1 may simply amount to the observation that

many of one’s indirect speech acts are misinterpreted – e.g., sarcasm, satire, and irony also have their attendant confusions for sincerity. Poe’s law, on this weak version, is simply a truism about

indirect communication.

Contexts

_Booth's argument that satire creates "amiable communities" by stressing the ways in which the readers and writers assume shared values__ is surprisingly different than __responses such as Lewis Giggets argument that invoking death to get out of responsibility is done by a "soulless, life-suck" of a person and Heffernan's stressing the ways communities help people in genuine times of grief suggest that students willingly violate communal expectations of sympathy_ in terms of _reasoning____.

By this, I mean _____the reasoning__ is __focused on how the readers interpret the communal norms __ in __Booth's argument___ while there is a striking difference in ___the responses in "Dear Student"___ in terms of ____focusing on the way in which the objects of satire have left communal norms__. Noticing this pattern of ___defining satire by the actions of its audience versus the violations of its objects ___ suggests that ____Booth's argument about satire working by broadening the definition of what the larger community is not ____ is also a part of this collation because it _____ fits the idea of satire building readerly community, but argues that this community requires understanding the violations of the objects of satire as outside the most basic communal norms __.

In "Dear Student: Should Your Granny Die Before the Midterm," Stacy Patton collects the imagined responses of a number of faculty to students that they are pretty sure are using a dead grandmother as a false excuse to miss class or an exam. The responses Patton collects range from reminding students of class policy to threatening to contact the students' parents with a sympathy note to calling the students out for their lies.

[Describe Collation] changes

[PRACTICE? ANALYSIS? ASSUMPTIONS? CAUSATION (SOME REVERSAL OF THE INITIAL BELIEF OF RELATION OF TWO THINGS)? ORDER (CHANGE IN THE INITIAL UNDERSTANDING OF WHEN THINGS HAPPEN)?]

by

[HERE YOU EXPLAIN THE CHANGE].

aikin summary

One definition of context is “the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed.” One of your tasks as a reader and a thinker is to determine how much context and which ones you need to understand a text. Now, as a writer, you will need to determine not only what context is necessary, but how to best explain that context to your readers so that they can understand the satirical text with which you have chosen to work.

__"Dear Student's" emphasis on the whole classroom__ is surprisingly different than __Lucas and Berstein's emphasis on how the whole class views enforcemen of policy" in terms of _reasoning.__By this, I mean _____the reasoning__ is __that the requests about dead grandmothers suggest that the class as a whole is not important, or that a teacher should focus on the "personal" instead of all of his/her classes __ in __the discussion of classes in "Dear Student"___while there is a striking difference in ___Lucas and Bernstein's emphasis on how the class as awhole views treatment of individuals___ in terms of __putting emphass on the class as a group rather than a particular student__. Noticing this pattern of ____focusing on either an individual need or the needs of the class as a whole___ suggests that ____the emotional "karma" of killing grany off____ is also a part of this collation because it _____focuses on the larger societal effect rather than individual needs__.

summarty--classroom management

Both sources focus on beliefs about the students as audience and their perception. "Dear Students" argues that students believe that they are adressing only teachers, but the teachers in the original satire suggest instread that the audience should also consist of their peers. Additionally the teachers writng the satire seem to believe that students expect to be seen as individuals. L and B, on the other hand suggest that students want to be viewed more as a whole, and have policies that are equally aplpied to all of them. This suggests that the satire might be misunderstood because of the different assumptions about how studnets view individual vs class needs. More broadly, it suggests that both te satirists and the contexts within which they work make assumptions about the students as audience without gathering information from the students themselves.

Aikin draws our focus to

The process of creating an "amiable community," as Booth terms it (28), depends on understanding the intent of the writer by the reader who "is expected to catch what some would consider external clues" (10). This is very different than what happens in the examples in "Dear Student," in which the obvious sarcasm of the writers about being a "soulless life suck," for instance, suggests that the writers assume that the audience should be told what values they are judging. This may be part of why some audiences fail to catch the satire. If the process of satire depends upon the author trusting the audience to some extent to see how what they say is not what they mean, the writers in "Dear Student" do not allow this process to happen because they are so obvious in their meaning. This collation of directing the reader changes

the analysis of why the satire fails by suggesting that telling the reader too much can prevent them from wanting to work with you.

The collation of responses in "Dear Student" focusing on how objects of satire have left communal norms, in conjunction with Booth's argument that satirists define their object of satire through what they are not, suggests that the process of creating satirical objects depends upon defining what exceeds the acceptable. That is, in both cases, satirists are assuming we all agree on what is normal, or acceptable--not lying about traumatic life events, for instance-- and, having assumed everyone agrees with this norm, base their satire on exceeding this norm. Booth's point that readers understand satirical objects by what they are not suggests that this process is important not just in terms of what the satirist chooses to focus on, but in terms of if the audience will also participate in defining what is not acceptable in the object of satire. Thus, Booth claims, while not everyone might be willing to go the "far end of the scale of blame," in naming an object of satire, starting from what someone is not "can be accepted and enjoyed by anyone who is in any degree suspicious" (29).But this process can go wrong if the audience is focusing on different communal norms than the satirist. This pattern of defining satire as that which exceeds the communally acceptable changes the analysis of why it might fail by focusing us on the communal norms the audience is woring from as opposed to the satirist.

[

Booth's emphasis on communal norms suggests we need to understand what norms the counity hass

noticing the emphasis on individual vs group changes ut r thining about this satire being misunderstood in terms of causes by suggesting that trying to ficure oiut the needs of the audience without knowuing what the audience wants leads to misunderstanding

Another Model of a Writing Plan

collate these 2

Stommel also goes on to say that "Dear Student" is not effective satire and not just a basic rant but plays into the insecurities of the audience. He also infers that Dear Students is an opportunity to oppress students.

rosen on audience confusion about satirst's goals

Rosen summary

Booth Summary

In The Rhetoric of Irony,Wayne Booth argues that irony develops an emotional relationship that

connects the reader and the writer. Booth focuses on the significance of stressing the emotional

bonds that form from understanding irony to change our initial understanding of the end result

of irony as creating emotion rather than logic and knowledge. Additionally, he points out that

the writer is forcing the audience to feel a certain way to suggest that the audience has less

power in interpreting than it might seem. He warns, however, that without a bond between

reader and writer there is no irony, stressing the need for similarity between reader and

author. Booth adds that the reader must enjoy the process of recognition of irony in order to

follow the writer’s intentions thus the reader and writer interact to form a community through

emotional bonds. Booth adds that the pleasure of the speed of understanding and being part of

the elite group who gets the irony is “why irony is such a powerful weapon” (17). Ultimately,

Booth seeks to reassess ideas about the power of irony.

What next?

would make sense here?

What

digidex's focus on mff and their responsibilties

The process of creating an "amiable community," as Booth terms it (28), depends on understanding the intent of the writer by the reader who "is expected to catch what some would consider external clues" (10). This is very different than what happens in the examples in "Dear Student," in which the obvious sarcasm of the writers about being a "soulless life suck," for instance, suggests that the writers assume that the audience should be told what values they are judging. This may be part of why some audiences fail to catch the satire. If the process of satire depends upon the author trusting the audience to some extent to see how what they say is not what they mean, the writers in "Dear Student" do not allow this process to happen because they are so obvious in their meaning. This collation of directing the reader changes

the analysis of why the satire fails by suggesting that telling the reader too much can prevent them from wanting to work with you.

The collation of responses in "Dear Student" focusing on how objects of satire have left communal norms, in conjunction with Booth's argument that satirists define their object of satire through what they are not, suggests that the process of creating satirical objects depends upon defining what exceeds the acceptable. That is, in both cases, satirists are assuming we all agree on what is normal, or acceptable--not lying about traumatic life events, for instance-- and, having assumed everyone agrees with this norm, base their satire on exceeding this norm. Booth's point that readers understand satirical objects by what they are not suggests that this process is important not just in terms of what the satirist chooses to focus on, but in terms of if the audience will also participate in defining what is not acceptable in the object of satire. Thus, Booth claims, while not everyone might be willing to go the "far end of the scale of blame," in naming an object of satire, starting from what someone is not "can be accepted and enjoyed by anyone who is in any degree suspicious" (29).But this process can go wrong if the audience is focusing on different communal norms than the satirist. This pattern of defining satire as that which exceeds the communally acceptable changes the analysis of why it might fail by focusing us on the communal norms the audience is woring from as opposed to the satirist.

[

_Booth's argument that satire creates "amiable communities" by stressing the ways in which the readers and writers assume shared values__ is surprisingly different than __responses such as Lewis Giggets argument that invoking death to get out of responsibility is done by a "soulless, life-suck" of a person and Heffernan's stressing the ways communities help people in genuine times of grief suggest that students willingly violate communal expectations of sympathy_ in terms of _reasoning____.

By this, I mean _____the reasoning__ is __focused on how the readers interpret the communal norms __ in __Booth's argument___ while there is a striking difference in ___the responses in "Dear Student"___ in terms of ____focusing on the way in which the objects of satire have left communal norms__. Noticing this pattern of ___defining satire by the actions of its audience versus the violations of its objects ___ suggests that ____Booth's argument about satire working by broadening the definition of what the larger community is not ____ is also a part of this collation because it _____ fits the idea of satire building readerly community, but argues that this community requires understanding the violations of the objects of satire as outside the most basic communal norms __.

App you wrote for homework

How does understanding various theories of satire, as well as the context of this issue help to develop a claim about why this satire is misunderstood in the way it is?”

What next?

So What?: Explaining the payoff of your thinking/ writing

Looking at Ralph Rosen's claims about audience confusion about satirical purposes and Wayne Booth's claims about relationships between the reader and the satirist as well as satirical objects and the larger community changes our analysis of why "Dear Students" might be misunderstood

by audience's rejecting the social problem identified by "Dear Students" and replacing it with their own communal concerns.

While many were amused by the responses, others missed the satire. Blogger Dexdigital, for instance, pointed out the data used in Patton's introduction was false, and questioned the motives for teaching in those who were "snarky," terming them "childish, petty, and just downright mean." Jesse Stommel, too, objects to the satire, though he is more focused on the object of the satire--the students, who he suggests are not the powerful ones in the relationship-- as well as the appropriateness of publishing such responses to a general audience.

Responses Cited: https://medium.com/@dexdigi/if-your-grandmother-dies-dont-tell-your-professors-61fd9447ef88

http://www.jessestommel.com/blog/files/dear-chronicle.html

collate these 2, use data collation template

choose a Q from app template, answer it (purpose--satire addresses social issue)