Blogging Pedagogy - mind maps

Embodying a Controversy

Axel Bohmann — Sun, 01 Sep 2013 05:00:00 +0000

Author:

Axel Bohmann

Image Credit:

Art E. Rial | Body Worlds 3: The Thinker

This summer, my parents asked me to review an article they were writing for a handbook on systemic counselling. The topic was using the body as a resource as well as an agent in problem-solving strategies and decision-making. Mom and Dad wrote the interaction between cognition and embodiment (and their fundamental inseparability), the bi-directionality of psycho-somatic processes, etc. All of which I felt was very interesting, but at the time seemed slightly too obvious to really excite me. But as I think about my teaching this semester, I keep coming back to the issue of embodiment and I realize that, yes, I have been aware of it for quite some time but, admittedly, have failed to … well, embody what I knew.

An example from the rhetoric classes I teach (it's intermediate level this semester, but I speak mostly from my past experience with introductory courses). In these, each student has to select a controversy to map, analyze chosen positions in depth, and finally take her own stance. One of the key realizations I want students to make is that a controversy is much more multi-faceted than “pro and con.” To that end, my students get to use a number of tools for visualizing the relationships between individual stakeholders when they work towards mapping their controversy (color coding, mind mapping, etc.). Students typically find these quite helpful.

Yet as they begin defining and verbalizing their own position, I've noticed there often is a relapse into the two-camps model. And I as the instructor am probably not innocent in that regard. An exercise I've been doing at the beginning of Unit 3 (constructing arguments) serves as a good example: this is only a slight variation of the split-the-class-in-half-then-debate exercise I am familiar with from high school. There are three groups and each gets assigned one position in a given controversy, usually with the third group mediating between the first two. They get into three different corners of the room and rhetorically batter away at each other (well, there is a reflection part to it, too, but that just as an aside). I think it's quite telling that the third group often ends up aligning more or less with one of the first two and feels like they argue that group's point only less decidedly.

The problem is that this splitting up into distinct blocks with predetermined position glosses over a lot of the nuances students have learned to identify when mapping and analyzing controversies. It presents positions as fairly unitary and static, and puts direct argumentative confrontation center stage.

This semester I hope to use space, movement, gaze and posture in better ways to help students navigate their controversies with more flexibly and elegantly. I'm not sure about the exact details yet, but I am thinking about smaller group exercises where each individual has an assigned set of basic beliefs and a goal expressed in proxemic terms (e.g. “try to get Kim to stand as closely to you as possible” or “separate Max and Kabriesha as far from each other as possible”). I would probably have each group member put forth an argument in turn and have everybody else react to this argument physically (by moving away from/towards others, directing their gaze one particular way, etc.). The goal would be for students to see that their arguments influence everybody in the controversy, even the ones that do not move, since the constellation inevitably gets altered. Also, this could be really helpful in getting them to think about navigating multiple audiences: convincing one group without agitating another, for instance.

Using Mind Maps to Analyze and Assess Reasoning

Battistelli — Thu, 20 Sep 2012 18:15:53 +0000

Author:

Todd Battistelli

Image Credit:

Grumpyyoungman01

Chris Ortiz y Prentice raises an interesting question in “Why we just can’t seem to teach logos.” As Chris says, analysis challenges both instructors and students as we struggle to understand the multi-faceted Greek term “logos.” Given rhetoric’s long and at times contentious relationship with formal logic, I agree that we should take a broader approach to the analysis of reasoning in persuasive texts. As for practical classroom activities, I think one answer, which bears some correspondence to the interactive fiction technology Chris discusses, is the use of argument mapping to describe and assess reasoning.

At the outset I want to distinguish mind mapping or concept mapping from the mapping of argumentation. Mind maps diagram a wide variety of information and ideas: from non-linear brainstorming to more hierarchal outlining to rhizomatic relationships. Argumentation mapping has a narrower focus. It attempts to translate text-based arguments into various argument schemata including, but not limited to, formal logic, as described by Tim van Gelder.

While mind mapping has found favorable use in the writing classroom, more focused argumentation mapping software has gone unnoticed in rhetoric and writing (even as it receives attention in the fields of argumentation theory, informal logic, computer science, and business communication). Given the Toulmin model diagrams that appear in our writing textbooks and the other schemata we use to conceptualize logos, I think argumentation mapping could serve the writing classroom well.

However, I can't simply point out a tool that instructors can neatly plunk down into their own classroom practice for two connected reasons. First, the software available is limited in function for writing instruction purposes. Second, these limitations result from contested understandings of logos.

Rhetoric and writing is rightly cautious about the application of formal logic in rhetorical arguments. We do not resolve our civic debates through appeals to universally agreed premises, because such premises do not exist. Any attempt to locate and work from such premises inevitably excludes perspectives that belong in public discussions, as the variations of lived experience are stripped away in favor of clear and distinct perceptions.

The process of reasoning, though, can be conceived in ways different than the construction of logically sound syllogisms. In The Rhetoric of Reason James Crosswhite says, “The capacity for reason lies not in an independent rational mind but at least partly in the deep competences people have to be members of social groups that disclose the world and interpret things in a shared way” (43).

These competencies have their own patterns that diagramming can capture. One productive and long-standing rhetorical schema is that of stasis theory. Stasis, as described in Sharon Crowley and Debra Hawhee's Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students demonstrates how interlocutors do or do not converge on a common question to debate.

Stasis evokes spatial metaphors with its sense of a standpoint from which people pursue a line of reasoning. This visualization in turn lends itself to mapping where users can demonstrate the convergence or divergence of viewpoints. Unreasonable rhetors under the stasis theory model are not illogical; they are unreasonable because they do not engage the reasoning offered by their fellow discussants. Software that helps students create stasis maps could highlight not only breakdowns in communication but also directions in which discussants would need to move in order to regain stasis.

As I said above, no current software is especially well-suited to using such schemata. Philosophy Professor Maralee Harrell reviews several programs in "Using Argument Diagramming Software in the Classroom" [pdf copy], but finds that most are not adaptable enough for classroom use. Even in the context of philosophy courses where the study of formal logic has more relevance than it does in rhetoric, Harrell finds that most of the software currently available limited in terms of the flexibility of map organization or doesn't allow for on-the-fly classroom demonstration that can draw on student participation.

As most argument mapping programs employ schemata that are too close to formal logical syllogisms, one option is to adapt mind mapping software to provide more freedom in designing maps, but this comes with the trade-off of losing the guided template designs that help students construct maps that describe stasis, fair summary, and other elements of persuasive interaction. The interactive dimension is key, as argumentation is a participatory activity. Per Crosswhite's definition, we cannot assess the reasonableness of arguments in isolation but only in the way they work together to create community.

The underlying structure of mind maps presents central ideas with sub-units branching off and connecting. You can describe complex interrelationships in a mind map, but I'm not sure how well the mind map structure can capture the diachronic and interactive dimensions of argumentation that involves two or more interlocutors. Discussants exchange viewpoints over time, and each proffered argument shapes the others that later respond. Perhaps a map with animation, three dimensions and the capacity to zoom to different levels of detail as with Prezi could address these needs.

While such complexity might assist in crafting maps with a high level of fidelility to the argumentative landscape they represent, it isn't needed to assist students and instructors with more limited analyses of reasoning. More limited maps can evaluate whether sources are in stasis, whether they fairly represent the different positions at play, and can describe other aspects of the dialectical relationship between viewpoints in order to show the extent to which they abide by the competencies of reason.

Identifying Visual Conversations

Megan Eatman — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 16:12:29 +0000

Author:

Megan Eatman

Image Credit:

Chris Metcalf via Wikimedia Commons

In my RHE 309K, Rhetoric of Tragedy, I often ask students to analyze or otherwise engage with images. It seems appropriate to the content, since images often play a large part in how violent or disastrous events are defined, and it creates less reading, which my students seem to like. With my Using Images for Invention lesson plan, I hoped that an engagement with images related to their tragedies would expose some of the students’ own assumptions and feelings in relation to the event, as well as make them aware of affected parties that they might not have otherwise considered. However, I now think that the assignment was both too rushed and too structured. With some modifications, I think it could be more effective.

In the interest of allowing students to explore the various points of view, I would in the future give students more time and allow them to compile a collection of images on their blogs. I would also give the assignment more weight, given the increased time investment. The lesson as I had originally conceived of it was in-class activity, but students seemed rushed and probably used whatever image they found first, regardless of their level of interest or engagement. Giving students time to collect images (probably some time in class, but mostly out of class) might help them engage more with what they find, thereby making the exercise more helpful overall. I have also considered following this activity with mind-mapping; students have enjoyed mind-mapping in class before and seem to find it particularly useful for invention, and the images may help improve the quality of their maps.

I think this exercise could also provide some preparation for the image production students complete as a part of their final major assignment. Right now, the image production assignment is fairly open, but I provide students with in-class instruction on Animoto so that everyone has at least one means of producing a visual argument with which they feel comfortable. Compiling a collection of image could segue into this more significant assignment fairly easily, particularly since the guiding questions ask students to identify what is missing from the representations they find. Identifying what the images lack (individually and as a group) could better prepare students to intervene in a broader visual conversation.

Mapping Community

Anonymous — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 02:38:54 +0000

Author:

Matt King

Image Credit:

Augustus Koch

In my RHE 309S: Critical Reading and Persuasive Writing course at UT Austin, my students are spending the semester studying communities of their choice. The first paper asked students to "map" their community, charting the people, places, events, social practices, and issues that help the community define and organize itself while also examining arguments made about the community. This assignment resembles one of our main first-year writing assignments which asks students to map the arguments made in response to a specific critical situation or issue. Focusing on communities, however, students might examine multiple relevant issues and also texts that aren't primarily argumentative.

One of the main challenges of the paper was arrangement: how can students demonstrate the ways that the constiuent elements of a community shape and respond to one another and the ways that arguments circulate within and around the community, further affecting its contours? Stasis theory was helpful in terms of organizing the arguments made about the community, and we also spent time in class creating mind maps to conceptually organize the various aspects of our communities (the Digital Writing and Research Lab has several lesson plans outlining specific mind mapping activities and assignments). These tools were helpful but abstract, and students ultimately found another component of the assignment more helpful in terms of getting a sense for the organization and development of their communities in time and space.

In addition to the written analysis of texts by and about the community in the paper, this assignment also asked students to produce a map or a timeline using Google Maps or Dipity (you can find the assignment description here). Google allows you to overlay content onto its maps, marking locations of interest and adding annotations, links, and embedded media, and Dipity's timelines offer similar opportunities for composing multimedia texts. These digital writing environments allowed students to engage their communities and relevant texts in new and often more productive ways. Many students felt that, after working on their maps and timelines, they were better prepared to map the broader contours of their communities in prose.

For example, one of our most challenging concepts for this assignment was kairos, attending to shifting contexts over time. Students could develop a sense for ways that an argument might respond to a recent event, but beyond this, kairos was difficult to wrap our heads around. The timeline activity proved particularly helpful here, as students were able to create representations that captured how their communities had changed over time. In a quick glance, we could see how different events and developments led to shifts in a community's priorities, its place in the public sphere, its sense of stability and cohesiveness, and its broader orientation toward the world.

Looking at some of these projects in greater depth gives a sense for the opportunities made available by mapping community in multimedia spaces. A student considering the remix artist community charted a history of recording technologies, the rise of the DJ, and the spread of dance halls going back to the phonograph. What would have taken up too much time and been too broad for the perspective of the paper became an insightful overview that placed remix artists in a long tradition of social practices organized around recorded sound. A student focusing on human trafficking explored global responses to this human rights violation by attaching policies to specific locations. In her paper, this student produced the most sophisticated analysis in the class, demonstrating a nuanced understanding of the relationship between specific groups within the community, their mode of response, and place, an understanding facilitated by her ability to map these relationships on a map. A student looking at the community invested in nanotechnologies traced relevant advancements back to the use of Damascus steel in swords, a practice whose techniques "created carbon nanotube fibers within the blades, giving the swords unparalleled strength and flexibility."

Maps and timelines offer students different logics and processes of engagement, translating communities from static entities to assemblages unfolding in time and space.