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.

Mustachioed!

This guy came in today in all black, including his backpack, his long hair, and his mustache. It got me wondering (as things often do) about mustaches. This guy is one of many guys, my father included, who sports a mustache, but it is not exclusive to a particular style (I have never once seen my father in all black, and his hair is not long like a Seattle grunge rocker but trimmed short and neat).

Here is where this is going: Why the mustache?

I would love to give that option to students to investigate. What is the history of the male decision to grow the hair above the lip, yet shave the hair below and around? When? Why? What does it mean? How has that meaning changed? Where did the word "mustache" come from?

Does it sound goofy? Yes. Would it lead them to all kinds of places? Yes: history, culture, social behavior, fashion, trends, etc. It would also be more fun to read than yet another paper about abortion/global warming/lowering the drinking age/legalizing pot.

Now You See, Me Now You Don't v. Up, Up, and Away

If I were in a classroom environment where I was charged with teaching people how to argue, I would start here, I think.

Invisibility v. Flight
You get one of these superpowers. Pick one. Quick, pick one, no thinking. Now, write down the reasons you picked this one.
This is the gut reaction part. We would use this part to talk about how people often have opinions before they think through their reasons, but there are reasons buried in the heads of those people. This is the part where I get the students to realize that opinions and even guesses don't come out of nowhere, and that they can be unearthed with a little work. (Then we do a little work to unearth our reasons for our gut decisions, our choice of invisibility v. flight.)
Let's listen to some other people make this decision: This American Life's "Superpowers" Episode.
Act One of this epidsode is thirteen minutes of people choosing invisibility or flight. This is the part where we listen to how other people think through choices. Students would write down all the reasons they hear and make note of reasons they did not think of and any reasons they would choose for themselves after hearing them on the show.
Now, think of reasons why someone would pick the other superpower. Not the one you picked. The other one.
This is the part where we think of The Other Side, where we learn to think through the opinions of others, even if we don't agree with them. Students have to come up with reasons for the other power (at this point, some could be waffling on their original choice, but I would simply have them examine the one they didn't go to on their gut instincts).
Taking all of this into account, now you get to make a new choice. Invisibility or flight? You also get to come up with intelligent reasons for your choice. That will turn into a fun-yet-intelligent essay.
This is the part where they work on producing a piece of writing based on all this thinking. We'd probably work on outlining and revising and proofreading, but the basic idea of all this is that Invisibility v. Flight is not a supercomplex issue for them to deal with, but a simple choice that turns into a more complex and mature thought process.

We could also:
-have a class debate
-look at the benefits of both superpowers in actual comic books (in the lives of "real" superheros) -imagine the drawbacks of each power in everyday life (outside the lives of superheros)
-imagine the benefits of each power to a regular, non-hero-type person
-establish rules for each power (what would and would not turn invisible with you, how fast and high you could fly, etc.)
-move on to discussing something a little weightier like the agreeing or disagreeing with the claim that begins F. Scott Fitzgerald's essay "The Crack-Up": "Of course all life is a process of breaking down..."

Ask the Photographer

A student came in yesterday with the assignment to come up with a list of questions for the person who took a photograph (she didn't have the picture, but said it was of galaxies).

I see many, many people who say, "I don't know" and see it as a stopping point. They give up instead of inquire further. I like this assignment because it was a low-pressure chance to practice being curious. Students need to be inquisitive explorers to be successful, and this was a dry-run at questioning, a way to stretch the students' brains powers of exploration. This is an especially important skill for students who write research papers, have to choose their own topics, or write about issues they don't know about (which is kind of, pretty much, all students).

I also like this because it is repeatable to the nth degree (with n equalling the number of photographs available to the instructor).