*ARGUMENT+&+RE-MIX

= The Real World = = Unit 2: Argument Essay & Argument Re-mix  =

**Consider this:** //If arguing is a cultural practice and one upon which the success// // or failure of its practice deeply effects your ability to live well, we contend that abstracting arguing from its cultural contexts and turning it into a set of de- contextualized exercises in logic is likely to persuade students that such arguments are recipes for failure in everyday life, because they have little or no relevance to their lives. In the practices of everyday life, arguing is a habit of mind, not a text. //

--Harkin and Sosnoski, "Arguing Is A Cultural Practice," 240

The first unit consisted of learning practices of //close reading, summarizing, quoting, paraphrasing, citing, & analyzing//. You read complex theories that helped you analyze images in order to re-imagine disability, challenge the binary between abled/disabled, extend the concept of normalcy, behold variation, and change //how// we stare at difference. You analyzed your specific images to attend to these questions. The focus in our second unit of the semester shifts from analysis to argumentation. We are not so much leaving analytical practices behind as building on them to make assertions of our own. We will still be utilizing the theories we already read, and we will read some new theories on disability oppression, universal design, and more. We will focus on: //inquiry, close/critical reading, quoting, paraphrasing, synthesizing, claim-making, evaluating, questioning/re-questioning, challenging, primary & secondary source research, collaboration, argument, & multi-media presentation.//

**Questions That Continue to Drive Our Inquiry around (Dis)ability:** · Who is "normal?" What is "normalcy"? How is it a problem in the world around you? · What are some of the issues that surround disability oppression on campus? In your life? · How do we typically think of disability? What does it mean to redefine or re-imagine disability from a medical construct to a social, political, and cultural one? · How does disability intersect with race, class, sexuality & gender? How does disability interface with technology, space, buildings, music, art, fashion, culture? · How is disability used as a vehicle to challenge conventional notions of beauty, the body? · What are some interfaces between (dis)ability and technology? How does technology help us re-imagine the ability/disability binary? · How might the redefining of disability manifest in your field? Which definitions of disability are deployed in the discourse communities and disciplines through which you circulate? · Where are locations of (medical, cultural, social, historical) disability around you? · What can you identify that is problematic around you? What can you critique?

**For your first assignment** in this unit, you will work in a group and the group will select an area of sports, space/architecture, engineering, fashion, mobility, transportation, universal design, art, history, culture, appearance, staring, beauty, public memorials/statues, gender, race, class, sexual orientation, nation, machines etc. that holds a special interest for you. I want you to choose something you are (fairly) passionate about, and have it intersect with notions of access, inclusion, or redefinition of disability. As you now know from you last assignment: //Disability is everywhere once you begin looking for it.// --Longmore & Umansky, //The New Disability History// We will work at the local level which means your area that intersects with disability must be local and/or personal. Your audience will be the Syracuse University Community. You may end up critiquing your disciplinary field or inquiring into the way things operate on campus. In other words, I want you to keep your inquiry local...you will be looking into something that affects you or something that is, or will be, present in your day to day life. Some of the groups might arrange themselves around these issues:

Access & building construction Access & technology End the "R" Word campaign Wheelchair basketball Disability representations (statues, art, for eg.) Disability & fashion (the annual fashion show, for eg.) Other topics approved by me

You want to begin to ask questions and explore the issue just seeking information (this is the basis for academic argument and inquiry-based practices). In other words, you are going to argue about a question that you do not already know the answer to. This will be different from a pro-con argument in that there will be more than two sides for you to consider. You should go into this project knowing that will not know exactly what you want to argue until you have thought through the ideas and until you have written and inquired into the ideas. You will find you will need to do a little bit of research, but we are focused less on research here than in Wrt 205.

**Your task is to ask a question about something** particularly interesting, strange, surprising, or provocative in some way. You will discuss why this issue is especially interesting to you--in other words, you will explicitly state your empathetic connection to it. **You will use the theories //from The Disability Studies Reader//** as perspectives within your argument. This means the theories might inform you, support parts of your argument, act as your straw man, oppose what you find, or act as stepping stones for your argument. It is your decision how you use the theories. We will be reading more essays in this unit from the text, but you can use any essays from the text, even if we haven't read them.

This unit allows you a fair amount of room to play and to experiment. We will meet for many class sessions in HBC227, so you will have computer access during each meeting and a reasonable amount of in-class time to work on the project itself. Still, it will be to your advantage to make decisions about your project and its focus(es) early on. Such decisions might shift and move in the weeks to come, yet these preliminary decisions will also guide your productive efforts when time is set aside for in-class development of the project.

Your argument essay will be __5-7 pg. double-spaced in length (this does not include space any images takes up).__ You may want to increase the effectiveness of the argument by using images, but they will not be the central focus. Your paper must reference **at least __two__ textual sources (different authors) from the Reader,** then you should use **up to __two__ additional sources (which can be from the Reader or from outside sources)**. Then, I want you to use **__one__ original source** (this can be an interview, a pamphlet, a newspaper article--but it is local to the issue). **The first draft is due on the wiki by** **__November 3, 9am.__** You will be working in groups for much of the assignment, but you are writing your own essay. **The final version is due in class in** **hard copy by __November 22.__** Use MLA or APA citation within the body of your essay and on a Works Cited or bibliography page, and please include an appropriate title for your essay.

**For your second assignment**, you will be re-mixing your argument into some type of multi-media format. Possibilities for the digitally re-made portion of the project are as follows:

* A YouTube video or iMovie * A collection of annotated images that make a visual statement (Flickr, Tabblo, Photoshop, iMovie) * An audio recording or podcast (Garageband, Audacity) * A comic strip or series of political cartoons (Comic Life, Bubblr) * A diorama (materials vary) * A poster or collage (materials vary) * A public performance or statement (posters, gorilla art etc)

This is just a preliminary list of possibilities. Certainly there are other modes you could work in, so we can add to this list if you have specific interests and ideas. Your choice for the re-make should take into account not only your own preferences, but it should also consider the nature of the argument you make and the means adequate for transforming it.