Titleist

Many people have trouble with titles. They come in with the assignment (Paragraph 2, Essay 3) on the top of their page, or they use the title of an assigned article/essay/story as the title of their analysis/reaction/response (The Red Convertible, sans quotation marks), or they use a general word or phrase (Mother, My Vacation, Believe in Yourself) that is much too large for their specific insights on the subject.

Here's the thing: I love titles. I'm a huge fan. I see titles everywhere. I love how a writer can capture the essence of a piece in a single word, a small group of words, an intentionally long string of words, or a title: subtitle combination.

I pay attention to titles, and I particularly enjoy the titles This American Life assigns to both their full-hour shows and the acts they divide those shows up into. They do something that I don't think most know they can do: play on existing phrases to create titles.

Here's a taste from the last few This American Life shows:

D-U-Why?
Return to the Scene of the Scene
Our Man of Perpetual Sorrow
This I Used to Believe
Scrambled Nest Egg
Team Spirit in the Sky
Pants Pants Revelation
You're as Cold as Ice
You're Willing to Sacrifice Our Love

They are all taken from existing pieces of language. DUI. Return to the scene of the crime. Our lady of perpetual sorrow. This I Believe (another radio show). Scrambled eggs + nest egg. Team spirit + "Spirit in the Sky." Dance Dance Revolution. Two lines from Foreigner's "Cold as Ice." Most students don't know they can do such things.

I'm going revisit this idea periodically.

Brand Recognition

Last week, I went on vacation to San Diego. One day we were leaving our hotel and we stopped by the main building to mail postcards. I waited in the car with Elly while Janice went inside. While I waited, a man came out the front doors wearing a Billabong t-shirt. I see people wearing Billabong and Hurley and Volcom and Famous Stars and Straps t-shirts and hats, and I doubt many of those people know exactly what those companies make or do, aside from producing t-shirts with their names on them.

I thought this could be a good opportunity to get students to research the names they are paying to wear. They could choose a shirt or other piece of clothing that they own. It could be from one of those brands or from Hollister or American Eagle or Abercrombie & Fitch or any other company that puts their name on the front of a t-shirt to act as a mobile billboard. Then, they research that company. Who are they? What else to do they make? Is clothing their main business? Who makes their clothing? Why do people wear the clothes they make? How many people who wear those clothes actually know much about the company?

I would be interested in seeing what happens to student perspectives after they learn more about where those clothes come from. This could lead to writing about fair labor, materialism, fitting in, trends, authenticity, and a host of other issues.
________

Also on the research front:

Today, a few guys were in the Writing Center. One of them had a recent haircut. From the front, I thought it was mohawk-fade hybrid. I saw the back and discovered it was just a fade. I told him I thought it was a mohawk and he laughed. Mohawks are everywhere, I pointed out, so I thought he had one, too. I told them all that I saw a guy in Target with a mohawk--not the brightly-dyed, spiny dinosaur, punk kind of mohawk, but still a few inches high from forehead to neck. It was a near-punk rebel style haircut--and he was wearing a striped polo shirt, blue jeans, and running shoes. Hardcore.

We laughed about how the mohawk is everywhere, and then I mused that looking into where the mohawk came from and how it got to be everywhere would be an interesting research project. I asked the guys if they would be willing to write about that if their teacher asked them to. It wasn't an overwhelming response, but they were up for it. One of them was excited, even.

I think a paper about the origins and spread of the mohawk would be fascinating. It would require historical research from multiple times (book research, database research, Internet research) and allow for the students to conduct interviews and look into current media to find mohawks and the reasons for them. I would love to read that.