Unit 1: Hari and The Rhetoric of Cultural/Personal Narrative

For unit 1 we have selected a set of short texts that explore how narratives persuade, create frames, and help shape the
way people understand the world. We suggest you introduce the topic in the first two weeks by assigning a short, 2 page
text, Todd May’s “May "The Stories We Tell Ourselves." then move to discussion of a longer text, Johann Hari's 
The Likely Cause of Addiction Has Been Discovered."

Here is an overview of May and Hari:

• May "The Stories We Tell Ourselves." This short, 2 page text considers how stories are used to persuade, establish an 
  identity/persona, and make sense of the world.  
• Johann Hari's "The Likely Cause of Addiction Has Been Discovered, and It Is Not What You Think." His TED talk presents
  the same argument. Hari argues that we have been telling "the wrong stories" about addiction, and he essentially makes the case for 
  decriminalizing all drugs. His arguments echo some of those calling for reimagining the criminal justice system. The text is
  a good one for examining rhetorical strategies, as his strategies are explicit and easy to identify. There is also
  a collection of materials for teaching Hari. Hari's text is short, clear, and engaging, and his TED talk is very popular.

.

For assignment 1 you could ask students to write about just May and Hari, or you could invite them to also refer to one or more of the 
following texts (or a text you select).

• Seagal, “Tales from the Cutting Room Floor.” This text is written in the form of a "diary" recounting the writer's experiences
  working on American Detective, a "Cops-like" reality TV show. Shows like Cops and American Detective, along with shows like
  Law and Order and NYPD Blue, have shaped Americans' perception of crime and policing. The writer suggests these stories provide
  a horribly distorted view of crime and of how the police are used to deal with crime.It also raises questions about the 
  racial (and racist) construction of crime in these shows. You could watch an episode of Cops with your students, discuss
  how stories are told, and why the show was recently taken off the air in the wake of BLM protests. You could invite discussion of
  what richer, more accurate accounts of crime and social problems might look like. 
   
• Colin Stokes, How Movies Teach Manhood. TED talk, 20 minutes. This video argues that the stories that surround us in popular 
  culture have a subtle but powerful persuasive force, influencing the way we think about gender roles and identity. This could 
  be used with passages in the textbook that consider how small personal narratives and large cultural narratives are used to
  persuade. 

• Tufecki, “The Real Reason Fans Hate the Last Season of Game of Thrones.” This short article is only partly about GOT. It talks 
  about how TV shows tell stories, and how they tend to individualize, personalize, and psychologize social problems. Tufecki
  contrasts this with shows that advance "sociological narratives" that help viewers see the way power, institutions and economic 
  forces shape behavior. She discusses shows like The Wire and the first 7 seasons of GOT. She asks for a new kind of 
  storytelling, and explains why this matters. Again, this could be brought into conversation with some of the crises we are
  experiencing and the way they are represented in the stories circulating around us.
  
  
•  Finally, Joaquin Castro’s “Latinos Love Hollywood, but Hollywood Hates Latinos,” claims Hollywood movies tell stories that distort,
  demonize, or ignore Latinx people.

All of the texts just mentioned are short, and we have developed teaching materials for most of them. We suggest you invite students 
to use May to write about a sotyr in 

You could discuss some of these texts in unit 1, then ask students to write a paper that examines or compares the arguments they make about narrative,
and also invite students to write about the narratives that matter in their personal or cultural lives. 

Some of these texts could also be used in unit three to explore a "conversation." This could allow students to begin with a personal narrative, or a set
of personal experiences, then consider how this intersects with larger stories about the crises we are experiencing.