CRASH: Extra Credit Post

Post your CRASH extra credit assignments here and congrats for going above and beyond! Hope you enjoyed the film!--Sandra

Coms 2 and Coms 5: Blog Assigment #3

Okay, this is an all class post. Hello to you all from the Western Communication Conference in Palm Springs California. It is freezing down here! I showed my movie to a group of performance studies scholars today, I was very nervous. I got some good laughs, though!

Current Events: Regarding the recent landslide disaster in the Philipine Islands, tell me what it means to communication scholars. How can we help? What does our discipline have to offer in order to address natural disasters? Can you suggest a charity we should associate with if we want to contribute as a class or group? As students, what is our social responsibility? I am open to extra credit for ideas that can actually move our classes to action or those of you that are motivated to ACT in the face of the recent disaster. Think outside the box/act outside the classroom/make an active difference!--Sandra

Second Blog for My Coms 5 Posse

Hi Team! Hope you enjoyed the Superbowl and are ready for the olympics! Check out the two images below in the Coms 2 post and based on your What is Communication Paper, tell me what the idea of a mascot communicates and how your personal opinion of Communication as a discipline can help to explain this odd sports phenomenon. Please type up at least five sentences and whenever possible, connnect with a classmate's comment in some way. Good luck!--Slogger

Blog #2 For My COMS 2 Peeps

Hi fellow arguers! Now that you have your first speech in the bag, you are officially "argumentative." Or something like that....anyway, I want to know...what's up with mascots? Neve and Gliz are the goofy mascots for Torino's Winter Games on your right and for the Superbowl, we have a Seahawk named Blitz to your left....uh, well The Steelers don't have a mascot....they used to have some longshoreman dress up like an I-Beam in the eighties, but now, they just have bath towels...hmmm...An argument in its most simple for consists of data and claim...and a mascot is a visual argument...search the web a bit and make a claim here backed up by data (examples, stats, effects, evidence) that you can use it when you write your position paper (see p. 69) about mascots in general --or any of these mascots in particular or even the Steeler's lack of a Mascot, which is also a rhetorical statement.

Ask yourselves:
1. What does a mascot do? What is it for? (This is teleological question for you A students, fyi)
2. Who is the mascot's audience, really?
3. Whose point of view are the characters seen from? (p. 57 in our book)
4. What ethnicity or gender are these mascots if any? Why?

Experiment with voice and take a strong rhetorical stance in your comments and respond to the questions above...backing your claims with data. Have fun with this and PUSH your critical thinking. Try to use vocabulary from our class in your response!
PS: Speaking of mascots, I think Hornets are scary, especially that gigantic two-story- one that gets tied to the library during Homecoming!