Some of my colleagues reported that it's been hard getting their students talking about the election at all. Perhaps students are exhausted. Perhaps they themselves are traumatized. I rue the fact that their first opportunity to vote is in this election, after two election cycles in which we had the option of voting for a rock star (at least in 2008). My students have working memories of just two presidents: Obama and George W. Now we're facing an election in which millions of Americans--the majority, even?--aren't voting for a candidate so much as they're voting against the other one.
Despite this, I've been having a good time in my class. I love teaching in big election years. Even this one. There is no better way to teach rhetorical analysis, argumentation, and logical fallacies than by analyzing political rhetoric, and I think that one can do so without making it so much about the rhetor than by making it about the audience. It's not about Trump or Clinton. It's about the values and beliefs their arguments are grounded in.
And it's about the evidence.
I first taught a major Presidential election in 2008, at Utah State. Most of my students shared a set of values and beliefs that differed from mine; which quickly taught me how to "teach the election" in a way that respected everyone's political perspectives (including mine): through Toulmin theory. If we make the entire conversation about the audience, then we're able to hold constructive conversations about why an argument may work for some people, yet not others. It's not about the rhetor being right or wrong (or worse); it's about what the intended audience needs.
I've been incredibly fortunate this semester to be able to apply issues that are furiously debated nationwide into my class. Less than a week before the semester began, University of Chicago Dean of Students sent incoming students his letter warning them that Chicago does not condone "safe spaces" or "trigger warnings." We got a lot of mileage out of that for the first month, which helped us establish the kind of classroom environment we want to have. I've used the safe space debate for a few semesters now, but this was the first one in which the course started with that topic. It worked really well not only to establish our classroom climate but also, I realize now, to prepare us for our conversations about the election (and more: while we have not explicitly addressed Milo Yanniapolous in class, the fact that he's coming here next week after having been banned from Twitter makes this conversation even more exigent).
I have my students use Twitter for a variety of reasons--to strengthen community in our blended class, to enter ongoing, public conversations responsibly, to research, to connect with others who are researching similar topics, to practice writing in different genres and context. Yesterday, we flooded Twitter with #whyIwrite testimonies for the National Day on Writing. We used it for the first two Presidential debates, as well.
For the first one, I asked students to live tweet the debate and identify logical fallacies the candidates employed, an assignment I've used several times. It's fun. And useful. Students don't even really need formal instruction on logical fallacies (many of them got it in high school, anyway); they just need a decent list of them and some good direction, both of which I provide on the prompt.
For the second debate, I asked students to analyze the evidence that the candidates used to support their arguments--including how they frame it--determine its effectiveness, and fact check it. I'm proud of this assignment; students did quite well with it: Debate #2 Activity. Most of them indicated that they didn't know very much about the subject they chose to analyze, so if nothing else, they learned a thing or two about issues like the Affordable Care Act, trade deals, and foreign policy.
Two days later, we watched John Oliver's February 14, 2016 segment on voter IDs, which analyzes (and effectively debunks) the argument that photo IDs are necessary at the polls to prevent voter fraud. (Shout out to Katherine Joshi and her UTAs for bringing this episode to my attention).
Students were instructed to write down every piece of evidence that Oliver employed to support his argument, which they'd been prepped for by reading about the rhetorical use of evidence in Inventing Arguments [the relevant chapter is from Ramage, Bean, and Johnson's Writing Arguments) and The DK Handbook. We discussed why his choices were effective for his intended audience. I then asked him if those who support voter IDs would accept his argument, like the politicians Oliver uses in this segments. After a couple of moments of silence, students shook their heads no. "Why not?" I asked. "Why would they reject this? On what grounds?" "Well...they could attack his ethos...they point out that he's a comedian, so what does he know." "Excellent. What else?" "They could refute his evidence." "Yes, they could. He cites a lot of solid evidence, though, like the Brennan report." "Yeah but a resistant audience could still find a way to refute it."
Exactly.
And there's the rub. We live in a world in which facts don't matter. We're operating in multiple universes in which facts are facts to some people and conspiracies to others. (Indeed, given Trump's recent complaints of a rigged election, this lesson plan could not have been more timely. Lest I be accused of overstepping my bounds, note that this lesson plan occurred just before Trump's latest barrage of election-rigging accusations.) In light of this, I've found that the best I can do is teach students how to craft Rogerian arguments (which is what this lesson plan led to), ones that rely less on factual evidence and more on audience beliefs and values. This strategy serves me in a comp/ rhet course that's so heavily grounded in argumentation. What it means for the future of civic discourse and democracy is anyone's guess (or fear).
On a more uplifting note, I'll end with this lovely message from our Canadian neighbors:
