viz.

If you are interested in rhetoric, hopefully you are already a reader of “It Figures,” where author Figaro provides examples of rhetorical figures in contemporary discourse. He also provides witty images to go along with his posts, some of which go beyond decoration by being excellent visual examples of the figures he is illustrating. In a recent post, he introduces a new figure—the “portmanym” or the “figure of conjoined names”—illustrated by a mashup of Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and Mitt Romney (which, to my eye, looks strangely like John Kerry). You can see the post here—if you dare.

Proposal Argument

Notes to the Instructor: This unit-long assignment asks the students to write a short paper (300–500 words), in which they make an argument about the effects of persistent exposure to certain imagery in general (an exercise known in classical Greek rhetoric as thesis), then revise and incorporate that paper into a longer essay (4-5 pages), in which they propose a more specific, evidence-backed policy or defend a proposed course of action pertaining to visual entertainment. The long essay requires research into the relevant visual entertainment industry.