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Lee Odell and Susan M. Katz
“Yes, a T-Shirt!”: Assessing Visual Composition in
the “Writing” Class
Computer technology is expanding our profession’s conception of composing, allowing
visual information to play a substantial role in an increasing variety of composition
assignments. This expansion, however, creates a major problem: How does one assess
student work on these assignments? Current work in assessment provides only partial
answers to this question. Consequently, this article will review current theory and
practice in assessment, noting its limitations as well as its strengths. The article will
then draw on work in both verbal and visual communication to explain an integrative
approach to assessment, one that allows instructors to consider students’ work with
visuals without losing sight of conventional goals of a “writing” course. The article
concludes by illustrating this approach with an analysis of an unconventional student
text—a T-shirt—that students submitted as the final assignment for a relatively conventional writing course.
Y
ou’ll hear a good bit more about the T-shirt later in this article, where we
show the T-shirt, describe its visual and verbal features, and use it to illustrate
a theoretical basis for assessing students’ efforts to integrate visual and verbal
information in a writing class. But for now, suffice it to say that the students who
created the T-shirt were more enthusiastic about it than was their instructor.
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They had persuaded their reluctant instructor to let them submit the T-shirt
as part of an assignment for a course titled Rhetoric and Writing, not a course
in graphic design. Granted, the instructor assumed that the final assignment
would represent a departure from earlier assignments, which consisted of
reports and analyses of exemplary written texts. The students were, after all,
assigned to find a client and apply rhetorical concepts from the course in creating a document that would serve the needs of the client’s organization—a local
Boys and Girls Club, for example, a campus organization, or a local historical
society. Most of the students did exactly what their instructor had expected,
working with a non-governmental organization to compose relatively conventional texts (pamphlets, brochures, newsletters) in which images and page
layout complemented a written text consisting of sentences and paragraphs.
The T-shirt, however, had an unanticipated commercial purpose and contained
somewhat fewer than two hundred words, none of which comprised sentences.
The rhetorical effect of the T-shirt depended at least as much on its layout as
on its verbal content.
Although the T-shirt was created almost a decade ago, it anticipates a
point of view that is becoming prevalent in our profession: We can no longer
equate composing with writing. Whether we are working with digital media or
conventional print media, we can’t continue to assume that, as Anne Frances
Wysocki puts it, “content is separate from form, writing from the visual, information from design, word from image” (138). Instead, we have to recognize
that composing entails not only the obvious elements of visuals—photographs,
drawings, charts, graphs—but also all aspects of the “materiality” of a text—type
style, size, and boldness, for example, as well as page layout.
For writing teachers this interest in visual communication may seem a
mixed blessing. It expands the range of composition assignments instructors
can give, and it opens a new realm of communicative resources that students
delight in using. Thanks to computer technology, they can manipulate color,
typography, page (and screen) layout, and images in ways that once were possible only for graphic designers (see, for example, George; Hocks; Selfe; Shipka).
The problem for “writing” teachers is that this sort of work leads them into
what for most will seem unfamiliar territory, especially as they try to assess
students’ work. Instructors may have intuitions that a particular page design
doesn’t quite “work,” or that an image seems particularly effective (or ineffective). But how do they articulate the basis for their intuitions? That is, how do
they assess students’ use of visuals? And how do they manage to integrate this
sort of assessment with their assessment of written work?
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Answers to such questions as these are more readily available than they
might seem. These answers come in part from current work in assessment,
which articulates principles that can be used in assessing both visual and verbal
communication. Other answers come from current work in rhetoric and composition, which closely parallels work in visual semiotics and graphic design. The
chief difficulties in formulating these answers come from two sources. What
would appear to be widely accepted principles for assessment are contested
and/or subverted in assessment practice. Further, work on assessing writing
has not capitalized on ways in which work in visual communication can inform
the assessment of texts that integrate visual and verbal information.
After explaining these difficulties, we will illustrate an approach to assessment that we believe can guide the assessment of any multimodal composition—videos or websites, for example, as well as written essays that incorporate
visuals. As will become clear, we are not concerned with large-scale assessment,
but rather with the assessment that serves the day-to-day work of helping
students improve their ability to compose.
Assessment Theory and Practice
Much of the groundwork for what we want to say has already been laid in other
discussions of assessment theory and practice, especially when these discussions focus on the assessment that goes on in classrooms. These discussions
usually emphasize formative assessment (Brian Huot uses the phrase instructive
evaluation [69]) rather than summative assessment. That is, there is less concern
with grading or ranking students and more attention to the assessment that
occurs throughout the composing process, from the early stages of gathering
and reflecting on information through the late stage in which students write
self-assessments of their completed drafts. Further, discussions of assessment
acknowledge the importance of understanding students’ perspective on their
own work, and these discussions are beginning to include efforts to assess
students’ ability to communicate visually as well as verbally. However, current
work on assessment is more problematic than it might seem.
Formative Assessment
There is little disagreement about the importance of providing students with
formative assessment, helping them see what is working well in their writing
and what they might do to make it better. But how much help can we—and
should we—provide? There are limits to the help instructors can provide. Much
as students might sometimes want it, there is no way to reduce composing to
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an algorithm that leads inevitably to an excellent piece of work. And even in
trying to provide guidance, it is important not to take “control” of a student’s
work. (See Brannon and Knoblauch; Fife and O’Neil; Straub.)
Nonetheless, students do need guidance as they formulate and articulate
their ideas (perceptions, feelings, values). Moreover, they need guidance that,
in Nancy Sommers’s words, “our students will take with them as they move
from our class to the next, from one paper assignment to another, across the
draft” (248). Thus the language of assessment must be both generative and
generalizable. Unfortunately, much of the language of assessment is neither.
Consider, for example, the judgment that a student needs to do a better
job of organizing and elaborating, an injunction implicit in comments Robert J.
Connors and Andrea Lunsford found frequently appearing in teachers’ assessment of student papers (203). What is the student being asked to do to improve
organization? Establish a clear causal or temporal sequence of events? Group
information around specific topics? Use terms that will forecast subsequent
sections of a text?
Further questions arise with the request to “elaborate.” How much and
what sort of information is the student supposed to provide? Where does he
or she look to find that sort of information? How much elaboration is enough?
How does the student decide whether a particular bit of elaboration (a detail,
a quotation, a reference to an authority) is appropriate?
And even if a student gets an answer that pertains specifically to the task
at hand, how does that answer pertain to writing in other contexts? Almost
certainly what counts as appropriate organization and elaboration in a personal narrative differs from that which is needed in, say, a laboratory report.
So how do writing instructors provide assessments that are both generative
and generalizable? Our answer to that question will depend in part on what
we can say about students’ perspectives on their work and about the relations
between visual and verbal communication.
Students’ Perspectives
In the title for an article on responding to student writing, Sandra Murphy poses
an interesting question: “Is there a student in the room?” Her assumption is one
that appears frequently in discussions of assessment: any effort to assess student
work must take into account students’ perspectives on that work. Although
Murphy is concerned with students’ understanding of teachers’ comments,
current work on assessment provides at least two other means of identifying
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students’ perspectives: viewing that work in terms of its rhetorical context, i.e.,
the purposes students hope to achieve and the audience they hope to reach,
and considering students’ assessment of their own work. In both cases, there
is a considerable gap between assessment theory and practice.
Rhetorical Context
For much of the twentieth century, instruction in composition was governed
by a “practical stylist” rhetoric that made little or no reference to audience or
purpose. Thus it is not surprising that early work in writing assessment did
the same. (For an overview of this approach to assessment, see Cooper 4–11.)
More recently, however, discussions of assessment have begun to emphasize
the importance of audience and purpose. Brian Huot makes the point clearly:
“Assessment practices need to be based on the notion that we are attempting
to assess a writer’s ability to communicate within a particular context and to
a specific audience who needs to read this writing as part of a communicative
event” (102).
Ironically, current discussions of the importance of audience and purpose
bring us back to Murphy’s question about whether there is “a student in the
room.” At least as far as analysis of rhetorical context is concerned, the answer
would appear to be no. Discussions of assessment never indicate that students
themselves should be expected to identify salient features of the audience they
are addressing or articulate the specific purpose they hope to accomplish.
Occasionally, students are asked to address a general category of readers—classmates, say, or some nonacademic group such as a local school board. But they
are never asked to specify their assumptions about what a particular audience
might know, assume, or value with respect to a particular topic.
Granted, there are times when a writer might put aside considerations of
audience (see, for example, Elbow, “Closing My Eyes”). Further, there may be
situations (for example, in emails, personal letters, routine reports) in which
a writer is so familiar with a particular rhetorical context that an understanding of that context is simply part of the writer’s tacit knowledge and thus does
not need to be made explicit. But when the rhetorical context is unfamiliar or
especially challenging—as is often the case when students compose—assumptions about that context need to be made explicit so that they can be examined
and, if necessary, revised.
To be more specific, we argue that both student and teacher will benefit
when the student has answered such questions as the following: What assump-
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tions is it reasonable to make about the knowledge, values, attitudes, and prior
experiences the audience is likely to bring to the text? What questions do they
hope to find answered? Exactly what purpose(s) is the text intended to achieve?
Granted, the general purpose may be, for example, to report information. But
exactly why is one trying to report information? To reassure readers on a topic
they find troublesome? To make them aware of a problem they hadn’t considered? To explain a solution to a problem that is on their minds? Lacking answers
to these questions, it is difficult to conduct the student-teacher “conversation”
Murphy thinks is essential for formative assessment.
Self-Assessment
As is the case with rhetorical context, there is widespread agreement about the
role of students’ self-assessment of their work. As early as 1977, Mary H. Beaven
argued that students can and should engage in this sort of assessment, if only
responding to a rather general request to identify strengths and weaknesses
of their work (142–48). More recently, Huot has pointed out that “being able
to assess writing is an important part of being able to write well. Without the
ability to know whether a piece of writing works or not, we would be unable to
revise our writing or to respond to the feedback of others” (165).
Consequently, it makes good sense to follow a practice described by
Edward M. White, in which students are required to compose a “reflective letter” that will directly bear on students’ grades: “a well written, reflective letter
with partial or missing support in the portfolio will not receive a high grade nor
will a poorly written reflective letter with good support” (593). Unfortunately,
this is the exception rather than the rule. At least in published discussions of
assessment, students’ self-assessments rarely figure into the overall judgment
of students’ writing.
Assessing Visual and Verbal Composition
As we were writing this article, we found only two examples of how one might assess compositions that include both visual and verbal information. The first, by
Don Payne, Quinn Warnick, and Donna Niday, is intended to assess a “four-year
multimodal curricular plan for strengthening undergraduate communication
learning at Iowa State University.” This assessment reflects a broad definition
of communication, one that includes oral and electronic communication as
well as visual and written. It also provides terms that constitute a lens through
which composition in each medium can be viewed. For example, in assessing
the substance of student work in any of the four media, assessors are asked
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to consider the “scope,” “depth,” “relevance,” and “fairness” of the visual, oral,
electronic, and verbal information students present.
This program assessment is impressive not just in its comprehensiveness
but also in the extent to which it makes use of terminology from graphic design
and visual communication. The only reservation we have with this assessment
scheme comes from what we see as its principal strengths—its comprehensiveness and complexity. The procedure seems well suited for program assessment,
but perhaps less so for individual assessment, given the time constraints of
daily instruction.
A briefer guide to assessing visual communication comes from Sonya
C. Borton and Brian Huot. They assert a point implicit in our comments thus
far: “all multimodal assignments, all instruction in the use of digital and nondigital composing tools, all assessment of multimodal compositions, should
be tailored to teaching students how to use rhetorical principles appropriately
and effectively” (99). Toward this end, they identify a series of “possible criteria
for formative assessment.” In addition to criteria related to rhetorical context
(purpose, audience, and tone), Borton and Huot point out that successful
compositions should include “transitions to guide the audience effectively from
one set of ideas to another” and “detailed description, examples, sound, music,
color, and/or word choice to convey ideas in an effective and appropriate way
to the audience” (101).
The emphasis on audience and purpose is consistent with current thinking
in assessment theory as well as in composition instruction. And certainly these
criteria have the generalizable quality we discussed earlier. For example, it is
usually appropriate to choose details and language that will convey one’s ideas
in a way that is appropriate for a particular audience. Their criteria, however,
are problematic in a couple of ways. For one thing, the criteria Borton and Huot
propose are not informed by work on visual communication. As Karen Schriver
has shown, visuals and verbal text may be related in ways (see, for example,
the discussion of “stage setting” below) that are not marked by transitions.
Further, Borton and Huot’s criteria lack the generative quality we mentioned
earlier. How does one, for example, identify salient features of a visual image
and determine whether those features are appropriate for the intended audience? How does one choose specific elements of format—typography, white
space, inset boxes—that will contribute to the overall effect of a composition?
What principles should guide the inclusion of still and/or moving images in
a verbal text?
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Integrative Assessment
Any effort to integrate the assessment of visual and verbal information will, of
course, have to meet the standards suggested by our analysis of current assessment theory and practice. It will need to be grounded in students’ analysis of
their rhetorical context, influenced by the quality of students’ self-assessments
and expressed in language that will be both generalizable and generative. It
will also have to be as applicable to visual communication as to verbal. Later
we will identify a set of conceptual processes that underlie both visual and
verbal communication and that provide a basis for this sort of assessment we
want to propose. But first we have to acknowledge some formidable obstacles
to this integration.
The first obstacle is terminology. Much of the language of, say, graphic
design is different from the language of composition and rhetoric. And even
when writing teachers and graphic designers use some of the same terminology,
those terms don’t always have the same meaning. When, for example, graphic
designer Donis A. Dondis uses the term tone, she means “intensity of darkness or lightness of anything seen” (47), not the attitude or voice composition
instructors are referring to when they talk about tone.
Problems with terminology are compounded by other theoretical problems. Even scholars whose work holds great promise for integrating visual and
verbal information advise caution in this effort. Charles Kostelnick and David D.
Roberts, for example, show how one set of terms or “cognates” can help describe
both visual and verbal elements of a text (14–22). But even while acknowledging
the value of such cognates, Kostelnick and Michael Hassett add this caution:
“analogies between the visual and the verbal are necessarily limited because
the two differ in their form, syntax, and origin as well as the ways in which
readers perceive and interpret them” (1). Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen
make a similar point: “the differences [between the media] are greater than the
similarities” since “the visual semiotic has a range of structural devices which
have no equivalent in language” (115). And Kress goes even further, arguing
that the logic of verbal communication is different from that of “the logic of
the image.” Elements of verbal logic “unfold in time and sequence,” whereas
“the elements of the image are related in spatial arrangements, and they are
simultaneously present” (20).
Conceptual Processes
Formidable as these problems are, we argue that they can be overcome with an
understanding of four basic conceptual processes: moving from given informa-
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tion to new, creating and fulfilling expectations, selecting and encoding, and
identifying logical/perceptual relationships. We will show why we think these
processes are as important for visual communication as they are for verbal.
The phrase conceptual processes may raise a couple of issues. The word
conceptual may seem to denote the cognitive, purportedly dispassionate activity
that is often thought to exclude perceiving, valuing, or responding emotionally.
But as part of his work on the psychology of art, Rudolf Arnheim specifically
challenges the distinction between cognition and perception, contending “the
cognitive processes called thinking are not the privilege of mental process
above and beyond perception but the essential ingredients of perception itself ”
(13). And although Kress and van Leeuwen talk about the “logic” of visuals,
their discussions of visual images greatly expand the definition of this logic,
frequently referring to perceptions, values, and personal responses as well as
more impersonal intellectual activities (e.g., 155–58).
A second concern may arise with the term process, a term that can suggest
the moment-to-moment processes one engages in while drafting and revising
a text. Trying to use a completed text to understand all these processes would
be, in a memorable phrase we have heard attributed to Donald Murray, like
trying to infer a pig from sausage. Fair enough. Some aspects of the processes
of thinking/perceiving/responding are mysterious. And as Murray illustrates
in examples of his own composing process, even the conscious elements of
composing (as manifested in revisions of a text, for example) may never appear in a completed product, whether written or visual (55–62). However, a
completed product does reflect epistemic choices, decisions that affect both
the substance of a message (verbal or visual) and the way that message is expressed. The process of making these choices may be intuitive, spontaneous,
and sometimes inaccessible. But these choices do get made. And some of the
significant ones appear in a completed text.
Moving from Given to New
In his work on syntax, Joseph M. Williams points out that one important way
writers can make their sentences cohesive is to observe what linguists refer to
as the “given-new contract,” by beginning sentences with given (Williams uses
the term old) information, either that which has been established in preceding
sentences or that which a reader possesses prior to reading a particular text.
Then, especially at the end of a sentence, writers introduce new information
that expands on readers’ understanding of the given (75–78).
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Janice C. Redish extends Williams’s discussion of given and new. She
summarizes research showing that readers never approach new experience
as a blank slate. Instead, they interpret new information in light of “givens,” a
body of expectations, existing knowledge, values, biases, feelings, questions,
knowledge of disciplinary conventions, and assumptions (31). Thus one of a
writer’s main tasks is to “make explicit connections to readers’ prior knowledge
and expectations” (i.e., the givens with which they approach a text) and then
provide new information that will expand readers’ knowledge.
Despite their understanding of differences between visual and verbal information, Kress and van Leeuwen explain how the given/new contract applies
to visual communication, whether in fourteenth-century paintings, diagrams,
or advertisements (186–92). As one example, they cite an ad for a computer.
On the left-hand side of the ad, just under the slogan “Organization at your
fingertips,” appears a given, the familiar image of a notebook computer. Just
to the right of the computer is another given, a detail from a painting readers
should recognize: Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam,” in which God is reaching
out to touch and give life to Adam. The detail consists of the arm and hand of
God, fingertips reaching out not to Adam but to the computer. The details are
familiar, but their use in this context constitutes something new.
In the case of the ad, it’s fair to assume that this use of given to new is
a conscious choice, even if it originated in a moment of inspiration. But for
purposes of this discussion it does not matter whether or not the choice was
made consciously. Anyone who writes—or paints or composes music or creates
an ad—has access to a wide range of alternatives, among them diction, details,
harmonic structure, color, and so on. Inevitably, choices have to be made, and
each is likely to be an epistemic choice, one that shapes and conveys meaning.
These epistemic choices appear in any text, visual or verbal.
Creating and Fulfilling Expectations
As we noted earlier, one of the givens with which readers may approach a text
consists of one or more expectations about the content of a text or the attitudes
it will display. These expectations not only draw readers to a text but also guide
their reading of that text. That is, readers make inferences about what they may
expect to find and then determine how (or whether) those expectations are
fulfilled. Writers want to have some influence on this reading process, helping
readers see what they may expect and then, as a rule, fulfilling those expectations. Peter Elbow makes our point this way: “Successful writers lead us on a
journey to satisfaction by way of expectations, frustrations, half satisfactions,
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and temporary satisfactions: a well-planned sequence of yearnings and reliefs,
itches and scratches” (“Music of Form” 626).
Elbow acknowledges that some of the guidance for this journey may come
from traditional “signposts”—thesis statements, for example, or topic sentences.
But Elbow is principally interested in what he calls “dynamic organization”
(“Music of Form” 644), patterns of discourse that “bind” a text together. These
patterns may include “Most people think . . . , but really . . .” and “It used to be
. . . , but now . . .” (636). The first phrase leads readers not only to expect a summary or at least an acknowledgment of what “most people think,” but also a
discussion of what the writer thinks is “really” the case. Elbow also mentions
the role of “perplexity” (638–40) and “voice” (642–44) as means of guiding
readers along the journey that entails creating and fulfilling expectations. As
Elbow notes, there may be instances in which expectations are only partially
fulfilled—or even thwarted. But it seems fair to assume that these instances
should probably be the exception rather than the rule.
In addition to using signposts and relying on patterns of discourse (e.g.,
“Most people think . . . but really”), writers can also use visual cues to guide a
reader’s expectations. Schriver talks about the “stage-setting” function of images. A visual image, especially when it accompanies the title of an article, can
help readers anticipate not only the content of that article but also the writer’s
attitude toward or perspective on that content (425). Kostelnick and Hassett
have shown how visual elements—typeface, color, layout—can help readers
anticipate what a writer thinks is important, make inferences about the tone
they may expect to find in a written text, and even draw some initial conclusions about the credibility of information they will find in a written text. And
Redish has pointed out how other visual elements—headings, pull quotes, inset
boxes—can guide the reading process, showing readers what sort of content
they may expect to find in a given passage of text.
Selecting and Encoding
As part of observing the given/new contract, writers have to engage in a process that psychologist Robert J. Sternberg terms “selective encoding” (89–91,
185–87). Sternberg argues that to understand anything, we “separate the wheat
from the chaff ” (185), selecting relevant information and discarding the rest. We
are guided in this winnowing process, Sternberg suggests, by the way we encode
information, i.e., by the connotations and assumptions implicit or explicit in
the language we use to represent information (ideas, thoughts, perceptions),
whether to ourselves or to others. In his explanation of encoding, Sternberg
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talks only about ways an individual’s personal assumptions and associations
guide his or her understanding of information. But individuals are members
of various discourse or disciplinary communities, any of which may have its
own discourse conventions, and the assumptions and associations implicit in
those conventions may also guide an individual’s effort to communicate about
a topic or understand information.
Sternberg does not suggest that selective encoding might appear in visual
information, but the concept, if not the specific phrase, appears in discussions of
visual communication. Kress and van Leeuwen, for example, show how cultural
assumptions appear in two apparently innocuous pictures in a social studies
textbook intended for students in Australian primary schools.
Both pictures show tools used by two Australian cultures, that of the
Aborigines and that of the British. But the picture of the Aborigines’ tools
shows only those tools, omitting any images of the context in which those
tools have proved highly useful. The British tools, by contrast, are shown in
a physical context or scene that suggests the power associated with British
tools. Several figures, presumably British, are shown carrying guns as they
approach (Kress and van Leeuwen use the term stalk) what would appear to
be a group of Aborigines gathered around a campfire at night. Kress and Van
Leeuwen point out that British figures are represented (i.e., encoded) in ways
that suggest the dominance of British culture: they are relatively large, located
in the foreground of the picture, and shown in postures that suggest action.
This image reflects a larger cultural narrative in which the British are shown
as actors, dominating the Aborigines, who are considered merely the goal or
object of British actions (43–45). (See also Lidwell, Holden, and Butler [38];
Kostelnick and Hassett [183].)
Logical/Perceptual Relationships
Of all the concepts mentioned thus far, these relationships will be most familiar
to composition instructors. Represented in a line of work beginning with Aristotle’s common topics and continuing in widely used composition textbooks
(see, for example, Lunsford, Ruszkiewicz, and Walters), these relationships
include comparison and contrast, classification, location in a setting or scene,
and temporal and causal sequence. Important as they are in composition studies, they are equally important in visual communication. (For a discussion of
ways these relationships can figure into assessment of students’ written work,
see Odell, “Assessing Thinking” and “Measuring Changes.”)
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Edward R. Tufte, one of the preeminent authorities on information design,
shows the importance of two of these relationships for two significant sets of
visual information, one successful—a “graphical display” of information that
helped identify causes of a cholera epidemic in nineteenth-century London—
and several others that were disastrously unsuccessful—charts and tables that
led NASA to go ahead with the launch of the space shuttle Challenger (“Visual
Explanations” 27–43). The success of the former and the failure of the latter
were directly related to the extent to which they clearly illustrated causal connections that enabled viewers to make “quantitative comparisons” (29–30). In
his most recent book, Beautiful Evidence, Tufte asserts that the ability to “show
comparisons, contrasts, differences” is “the first principle for the analysis and
presentation of data” (126–28). The second has to do with “causality, mechanism, structure, [and] explanation” (128–29). (For other illustrations of logical/
perceptual relationships in visuals, see Schriver, 306–12; Horton, 195–96; and
Dondis, 32–38.)
Implications for Assessment
We turn now to student work to show how the preceding discussion can inform assessment. Since we agree with Murphy that assessment should show
that there is, in fact, “a student in this class,” we will rely heavily on students’
self-assessments to illustrate the conceptual processes we have discussed and
show how an understanding of those processes, combined with an explicit
statement of rhetorical context, allow assessment that is both generative and
generalizable. Although students wrote their comments when they had completed a final draft of their project, these comments referred to most of the
conceptual processes, explained earlier, that had been emphasized throughout
the process of creating the T-shirt—indeed, throughout the entire course. (The
logical processes—classifying, etc.—were not a main theme of the course; references to these processes occurred essentially in an ad hoc manner, as they
seemed appropriate for a specific student’s work on a particular assignment.)
Yes, a T-Shirt!
The T-shirt was the product of a (usually) good-natured negotiation between an
instructor and a team of four students: Brian Boswell, Stephanie Noble, Denys
Petrina, and Andrew Wolcott. For this final assignment of the term, as for those
assignments that preceded it, each student had to submit a self-assessment
explaining how he or she had analyzed rhetorical context, moved from given to
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new, selected information, represented that information visually and verbally,
and created and fulfilled expectations. The triumphant phrase Yes, a T-shirt!
comes from the title Stephanie gave to her self-assessment of the T-shirt. (When
the instructor looked through his files for students’ analyses, he found work
from only three of the four students—Brian, Stephanie, and Andrew. But after
ten years, three out of four isn’t bad.)
The front of the T-shirt—printed in the red, white, and blue colors associated with the iconic figure of Uncle Sam—consists of a map showing only the
main intersecting streets of downtown Troy. The figure of Uncle Sam displays
a couple of familiar details—top hat, striped trousers—but also what Andrew
referred to as a “Dr. Seuss-esque” quality. The typeface in which the word
Troy appears is the one used, without the cartoon face of Uncle Sam, on all
the city’s promotional materials. A similar allusion to the city’s promotional
Figure 1. Front of T-shirt showing map of downtown Troy, highlighting businesses of interest to their
audience, undergraduates at their university. Numbers on the T-shirt refer to specificbusinesses listed
on the back of the T-shirt.
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materials appears in the use of
the Troy logo on the shopping
bag Sam is carrying. The back
of the T-shirt lists a number of
downtown businesses, arranged
in two columns, grouped under
headings (eating out, nightlife,
etc.) that would be of interest
to students. Between the two
columns are other cartoon images of Uncle Sam.
Assessing Rhetorical
Context
Brian, Stephanie, Denys, and
Andrew began their project
with the goal of encouraging
on-campus students at their
university to patronize businesses in downtown Troy, New
York, a small, post-industrial
city that had fallen on hard
times but still took pride in
referring to itself as “the birth- Figure 2. Back of T-shirt listing downtown businesses by category. Numbers
place of Uncle Sam.” In creating with each business correspond to numbers found on the map on the front
of the T-shirt.
this T-shirt, Brian, Stephanie,
Denys, and Andrew said they
had to appeal to three different audiences: their instructor, who wanted to be
sure students could apply concepts from the course; their client, the Deputy
Mayor of Troy, who appreciated what one student referred to as an “off the wall”
sense of humor but didn’t want the T-shirt to offend local businesses; and their
primary audience of fellow students who lived on campus.
The instructor initially discouraged students from trying to appeal to
such a large, diverse audience. However, as part of the ongoing conversation
about the assignment, Stephanie and her partners persuaded the instructor
that their primary audience was likely to share several experiences and characteristics. Especially at the beginning of the semester, on-campus students
were deluged by what Brian referred to as “a thousand forms of media flying
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at every student and clawing for their attention.” Thus a brochure or a flyer
wouldn’t work. Further, the T-shirt team noted that most on-campus students
had little positive information about the town, other than a vague memory,
based on Student Orientation during the summer before their first year, that
the town claimed to be the birthplace of Uncle Sam. Their negative impressions,
however, were strong. As Brian puts it: “Why the hell would anyone want to go
to downtown Troy? The place is a dump, and there’s nothing there unless you
want to get trashed.”
Using Conceptual Processes
This audience analysis led Stephanie and her partners to identify several givens
they could build on. If on-campus students were unhappy about, in Brian’s
words, “wasting a lot of time, gas, and money” to go shopping at one of two
local malls located about a half hour’s drive from campus, they might be glad
to know that just by walking five minutes to downtown Troy they could find
many of the resources they wanted. After all, as Brian pointed out, “Actually,
there’s some cool stuff in downtown Troy . . . [b]esides the obvious numbers of
bars, pizza places and established hangouts, [Troy has] unique clothing stores
that had great stuff to offer but not that many customers . . . [and] a cyber café
. . . along with a pawn shop where you could pick up a cheap Nintendo 64 or
games [this was ten years ago, remember]. There’s a great used furniture store
down there, too!”
Further, if students were often annoyed by flyers and brochures, they might
appreciate—or at least not discard out of hand—information conveyed in a
different medium, in this case information presented on clothing they preferred
to wear. And given their negative attitudes toward Troy, on-campus students
would be unlikely to take seriously any literature that made too earnest a case
for the benefits of the downtown area. They might, however, respond to what
Andrew referred to as “tongue-in-cheek” humor that entails mild irreverence
and a sense of incongruity.
To build on these givens, the T-shirt team relied in part on the way they
sequenced information on the T-shirt. As Stephanie points out, the lists of
businesses on the back of the T-shirt “move from given to new in that they begin with an easily recognizable phrase (such as shops) and then move to more
and more specific new information (the business name and a description of
what the business offers to the audience).” Further, Andrew points out, they
established givens by including “only information that our audience would be
interested in. This includes our selected list of businesses that could be useful
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to our audience—not extraneous businesses like Thomasville Furniture, which
would be too expensive for college students. . . . The brief information following
the business names (where necessary) points out why the business would be
useful/interesting to our audience, such as that anything can be found cheaply
at the pawn shop [number 6 on the map].”
All three of the students commented on how their visual and verbal elements tried to appeal to students’ sense of humor. Since they had to use the
Troy logo, Brian points out that they “incorporated Sam, a spin-off of Uncle
Sam drawn cartoon style. Sam has a large patriot hat with stripes and a star in
the front center, a large nose and beard. The hat is oversized to the point where
you can’t see his face. Sam has the appearance of a lovable little old patriot.” To
further the comic image, Brian notes that they “put Sam downtown, running
with a shopping bag, wearing a pair of JNCOs (baggy pants), drinking beer, and
sporting some phat [again, this was ten years ago] new sneaks.”
Given the nature of the information they were presenting, it is not surprising that students had little to say about conceptual/perceptual relationships
such as causal sequence or location in a physical context. However, in her selfassessment, Stephanie points out that she and her partners had categorized
information about the town, using different sizes and colors of the typeface to
help separate the information and make it more easily readable. And Andrew
notes that “the category headings on the back [of the shirt] create expectations
as to the shirt’s content. Each category, such as ‘nightlife’ includes related businesses such as Elda’s (a club).”
In all this specific discussion of the T-shirt, we want to reiterate a point
we previously mentioned almost in passing: the assessment procedure we have
described is just as useful for assessing conventional print texts as it is for texts
that rely heavily on visual information. In composing or assessing either kind
of text, it is important to
• articulate one’s assumptions about audience and refine one’s sense of
purpose;
• move from given to new within individual sentences and within larger
sections of text;
• carefully select the amount and kinds of information to present;
• convey that information in language that makes sense given one’s audience, purpose, and subject matter;
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• create and fulfill expectations;
• learn to assess the extent to which one is achieving one’s intended purposes for an intended audience.
In addition to reiterating this point, we want to make explicit an assumption underlying the preceding discussion of the T-shirt: We continue to depend
on the kindness (and the ingenuity) of our students. In persevering in creating
and justifying the T-shirt, Andrew, Brian, Denys, and Stephanie had reason
to share the triumph Stephanie expressed in the title of her self-assessment.
They had created a highly effective text for a real client; they had prevailed in
a disagreement with their instructor; and they anticipated, however unwittingly, a major development in their instructor’s field of study. Not bad for a
few weeks’ work.
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Lee Odell and Susan Katz
Lee Odell is a professor of composition at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where
he teaches courses such as Writing for Classroom and Career and Writing about
Science. Currently he is working on assessment of nonprint compositions ranging
from wikis and blogs to websites and digital narratives. Susan Katz is an associate
professor of English at North Carolina State University, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in technical communication and the rhetoric of
science and technology. She is currently working on the integration of visual and
verbal communication. She also coordinates the undergraduate and graduate
internship programs for her department.
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