Dialectic... Take 2

This is very incomplete and, really, the most important bits are still unwritten, but I'd love your feedback. Specifically, I'd like to know where you might want to hear more. Is the event itself clear? My goal is to begin the dialectic with dialogue, yes, but also to establish the context for a discussion on how to respond to social media related panic. I may even extend some of that conversation to this panic in school-aged children, like those affected in this example. Also, if you have read anything about social media benefitting in disaster response or enacting panic, I'd love to hear your two cents. I will be diving into a new book by Liza Potts this weekend to see if she can shed some light and help me generate some ideas for the meatiest part of my dialectic. Thanks!

I hope this is okay, but I wanted to do a somewhat cinematic dialectic that spans more than one day because of the way this specific event played out.

Wednesday September 3, 2014

Student/child: I can’t go to school tomorrow. Something bad is going to happen.

Parent: What? Why do you say that?

Student/child: I saw it on Instagram. Those guys, the ones who call themselves The Merry Men, tagged our campus. It was all over Instagram.

Parent: The Merry Men? Aren’t those the people who tagged the Catholic Church a month ago with antiestablishment propaganda? They tagged the school?

Student/child: Yeah, two nights ago – on Tuesday. They were bragging all over Instagram. Now everybody is freaking out on Twitter because somebody is saying they are going to shoot up the school tomorrow!

Parent: Okay. There is absolutely no way that I am letting you go to school tomorrow. With all of the school shootings over the last few years, we are not risking this for one day of class. Plus, I would be a nervous wreck all day. I wonder how the school supervisors are going to handle this?

Thursday September 4, 2014

Principal: After last night, I didn’t think this week could get any worse. First, our campus was tagged by The Merry Men. Then, there was tremendous social media chatter about a shooting today. This isn’t the sort of thing I take lightly, especially not with the rising wave of school shootings. Bullard High students must remain safe, but at what cost? We cannot live in fear. We cannot forgo education in light of panic. That is why we went on high alert. Although I don’t believe that guns are the solution to our problems, these guns held by highly trained officers of the law might prevent these insane antiestablishment Merry Men from instilling more fear, harm, and possibly fatalities here on our campus. And if guns in the right hands on the right days will prevent that, then I am an advocate for guns. Bombs are a different story.

Late this morning, around 11:00 am, I felt hollow after reading an email stating there was a bomb on my campus. A bomb. On my campus. The panic generated by last night’s Instagram threat was enough to cause too many students to avoid school today, and who can blame them? Now, I have no choice but to close the campus early even though we have swept the campus and found that both threats have been hollow. The panic was too widespread. Students didn’t take it seriously enough and parents overreacted. It seems that the days before social media prevailed were simpler times, but there is no going back. So how can we mitigate or even circumnavigate this kind of event in future?

** I know the remainder of this is the really important part, but I haven’t quite gotten there yet. With Dr. Rice’s help, I just got the general structure down. From here, I will have the principal and a scholar debate the different options for handling this kind of social media event in future.

Prewriting Ideas: Contemporary Dialectic

I want to focus on the same issue that I will be presenting to the class at the beginning of December: the rhetoric of panic. Specifically, I will be exploring an instance of Twitter that affected a local high school and caused 800+ students to miss classes. This is the first time I've tried to put these ideas into print, so bear with me. And I'd appreciate any feedback you'd like to give.

Preamble: In this section I'd like to give a brief overview of the context of this particular event, but also an equally brief overview of the conversation going on about social media. Unfortunately, this is a new area of study for me (although I think it is also the new direction I'll be going for my dissertation) so I am a bit scholar/resource light. However, I know just from the news, social media (yes, I acknowledge the irony there), and through my husband (who is much more up to date on current events than I) that social media is seen as having great potential in disaster scenarios. However, my perspective is that it can also induce panic, as it did in this (and other) situations. So, I want to quickly cover that with a few recent incidents and hopefully a scholar or two. (Suggestions are appreciated.)

The Dialectic/Questions: If I'm understanding the directions, I think that my question can remain larger (Is there serious risk of social media, like Twitter, to make certain situations worse?). But I'm afraid this may be too broad/general. Thoughts? But if my question is broader, then my example and discussion can be about this specific example that I want to explore. Or should I ask my question about the specific example? (Is it possible to counteract panic spread on social media? Should underage social media users be monitored by parents/schools/etc to avoid harmful behaviors?) I'm also trying to think about what might be most beneficial to me moving towards my dissertation.

Regardless, I think most of my dialectic will be about the specific high school incident, which means I should address questions like these:

- If rhetoric really is a blend of knowledge and action (Bacon??) then why is social media seen as so effective at causing action? (Or should this be my initial question?!)
- What is an example of this? ALS challenge, disaster preparation, Twitter chatter-lead panic regarding a clearly dissolved bomb threat.
- How else could we interpret this scenario?
- What do you think causes this to happen?
- What are some of the long-term effects?
- What should we do to change this or can it be changed?

I guess at this stage, my biggest concern (unless you see something that is off base here) is getting my initial question down. I tend to think too big for these sorts of things. I am also trying to work towards a "so what?" in terms of this assignment, my presentation, and my dissertation. I see thing thing happening, but I'm not sure what I want to argue about it, so I'm' still working on this aspect.

A Letter of Desired Entreaty

To Professor Richard Rice, wise and gracious master of locution, from Sheri McClure-Baker, in recognition to her inferiority in regards to your rhetorical prowess.

This humble applicant wishes goodwill upon you and yours, and beseeches your gracious approval and glad tidings to the program. I seek to explore the implications of shifting tides in rhetoric and pedagogy. The ebbing importance of orator has lead to the flow of audience awareness, and I feel many have been left adrift. So what of the student who knows not of the common academic tongue? How shall we shift our instruction to address her needs?

Therefore, I importune you for admittance to your fair program so these questions may be answered. With your excellent guidance and good graces, I will seek to understand how diverse student populations may flower most fully in the light and wisdom of professors such as yourself.

With eternal graciousness and wholehearted entreaty, Sheri McClure-Baker

Musings on Home

** Sorry. A crazy week caused my brain to glitch and I posted this in my professional website instead of here in my Blogger account. I was wondering why no one had commented! **

Hello students! I am going to try to address each of your questions here. So, here we go!

When we received this assignment from Dr. Rice, I began thinking about home and what it means to me. It was a more challenging idea than I had expected. When I first began thinking about "home," these five words came to mind: house, comfort, ownership, family, and personalization. I was speaking with my husband about this today, and that conversation caused my ideas to shift a bit. At first, home represented an intersection between a physical location where I live and the emotional fingerprint of that place. For example, when my husband and I bought our house six years ago, it was special because it was our first house; however, it did not initially feel like a home. But there were things about it that were homey right from the start. I felt my aunt's presence in the breeze blowing through a large tree in the backyard and the living room reminded me of my house growing up; however, it wasn't until we personalized the house by adding decorations, furniture, and memories that it felt like a home. So in that way home does feel closely related to my identity. I take pride in being a homeowner and in how we have chosen to present our home. I feel that others get a sense of who we are when they enter our house. People have said that our house is very relaxing and that they feel comfortable there when they visit, which is part of what "home" means to me, and it's part of our identity. We like to entertain, so when people say they feel welcome and comfortable in our home we appreciate that.

I also believe that home is the only place I can be mindful and at ease during chaos and confusion. Right now, my life is hectic. I am a full time professor, a doctoral student at Texas Tech, a wife, and a mother of a 7 month old boy. My life is truly chaos. But as busy as my life is, I really only allow myself to relax and focus when I am in my house. I think this is because we have created an environment or habitat that makes us happy. We control it and it is filled with memories and experiences that have made us who we are. So again I return to my home being a part of my identity. So I suppose homelessness, for me, would be not having a place that reflects who I am and where I can feel truly relaxed. This is not to say that I am always relaxed when I am home; but I am most able to be myself and kick up my feet when I am at home. Culturally speaking, homelessness here is more about not having a dwelling space to call your own. We have homeless shelters, which provide physical spaces for those in need, but the inhabitants don't own these spaces either in a monetary or personal sense. But there is something beyond that. For instance, when I travel, my hotel room can feel like home. It is not Home with a capital H - that is reserved for the place I have purchased and where my family lives - but there is something about making even a hotel room my own. Right now, I am actually in a hotel with my family. Our stuff is scattered around and when we first arrived we set to work putting some things in drawers, setting up a crib for the baby, and hanging up a few things. Once that was done, it became home, albeit temporary.

I believe language can have a similar affect. My family and close friends have a discourse - a way of speaking, inside jokes, and past experiences we can reference - that make sense to us alone. When I am with these people, I feel like I am home. I suppose this does, to some extent, trump the idea of location. Being with these people can be "home," but that is not what I generally think of as "home."

Finally, for the cultural questions. It's hard to explain what it feels like to be an American because I don't know anything different. It just feels normal to me. With that said, I dislike patriotism and tend to think negatively of people when they are extremely patriotic. This is because I generally associate patriotism with blind faith in our country, which often removes people's ability to think critically. But this does not meant that I am not appreciative of the freedoms that I have here. However, it also makes me sad to know how far behind our educational system (especially for children) is when viewed globally. We are only casually required to learn another language and our population tends to be very naive of global events. Other parts of the world are so much more aware of what is going on outside of their own cultural bubble, and there I think America has failed overall.

I don't know a ton about India, but I have a positive impression of it. I have heard that it is very busy and chaotic, which doesn't sound like something I would love to be immersed in every day; however, I love Indian food and the colorful clothing I see represented in images. One of my favorite movies is The Darjeeling Limited by Wes Anderson, which takes place in India. Although I'm sure it's not completely accurate, I love the country as I see it through Anderson's eyes. The beauty of the people and the land, the faith, and the genuine spirit of the people are all very appealing to me. I would love it if you shared what being Indian feels like to you.

I hope that answers your questions! Thanks for such thoughtful questions. :)

Shidish - What are the five things that come to mind when you hear the word home?