Welcome!

This website is part of a class project for ENG 392 - Language and Power at Grand Valley State University

The assignment

This is the assignment that was given to us in class.[1]

ENG 392 Class Project
Due April 17
Class work day: April 3

Together, you will develop a project examining language and power from multiple perspectives. Your perspectives can include your majors or various theories or stakeholders’ viewpoints. You will decide on both the topic and the format of the project together. Some suggestions follow:

Topics:

  • The upcoming presidential campaign
  • Hurricane Katrina
  • The War in Iraq
  • Immigration
  • Politics
  • An historical event/time
  • Three class contexts: race, religion or socioeconomics
  • Other contexts: gender, sexuality, the arts, schooling, business, etc.

Formats:

  • newspaper/newsmagazine
  • presentation
  • play, skits, video, etc.
  • series of papers
  • one gigantic paper

You will have one full class period to work on this project. On April 3rd you will meet at the library or other space to develop this project. You will likely have to meet other times outside of class to complete the project. You may split up into small groups to work on small parts of the project. It must come together in the end as one cohesive whole, however. So, be careful not to get too fragmented. By choosing one comprehensive topic, you will be able to keep the project focused.

Language and power must be considered in each aspect of your project. You must think about it from each perspective you take on an issue/topic. You must also think about it in terms of how you develop and present your final project.
I also encourage you to consider the multiple ideas we’ve discussed this semester: American Pragmatism, Critical Theory, Critical Race Theory, Assets-Perspective (vs. Deficit Models).

Bibliography
1. Masko, A. ENG 392 A GVSU, Winter 2007.

The Project

As a class we decided to focus on advertisement and media as well as different issues crucial to the 2008 election. Our topics are:

Click on one of the topics in the side menu to see how language and power is an important component of Decision 2008!

The Possible 2008 Presidential Candidates

It is important to not only know the topics in which our website discusses but to know all the issues. Here is a website that not only shows how the possible candidates voted on abortion, the environment, gay marriage, and the war but also how they voted and what they think about certain issues. It shows what they voted for and what they voted against.

http://www.issues2000.org/2008_Speculation.htm

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