Feminist Aliens, Black Vampires, and Gay Witches

249 Pages·2017·2.99 MB·English

Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and
Graduate Theses and Dissertations
Dissertations
2013
Feminist Aliens, Black Vampires, and Gay Witches:
Creating a Critical Polis using SF Television in the
College Composition Classroom
Dawn Eyestone
Iowa State University
Follow this and additional works at:https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd
Part of theCurriculum and Instruction Commons,Educational Methods Commons,English
Language and Literature Commons, and theRhetoric Commons
Recommended Citation
Eyestone, Dawn, "Feminist Aliens, Black Vampires, and Gay Witches: Creating a Critical Polis using SF Television in the College
Composition Classroom" (2013).Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 13037.
https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/13037
This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University
Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University
Digital Repository. For more information, please [email protected].
Feminist aliens, black vampires, and gay witches: Creating a critical polis
using SF television in the college composition classroom

by

Dawn Eyestone

A dissertation submitted to the graduate faculty

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Major: English (Rhetoric and Professional Communication)

Program of Study Committee:
Barbara Blakely, Major Professor
Greg Wilson
Gloria Betcher
Abby Dubisar
Joel Geske

Iowa State University

Ames, Iowa

2013
ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................................................. v
ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................. vi
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... 1
Problems and Gaps .............................................................................................................. 1
Goals for the Composition Classroom .......................................................................... 7
Key Questions for the Study ............................................................................................. 8
Important Intersections in Existing Scholarship ..................................................... 9
CHAPTER 2 REVIEW OF SIGNIFICANT LITERATURE ...................................................... 10
Critical Pedagogy .................................................................................................................. 10
Politics and the Polis ........................................................................................................... 15
Media Literacy and Categories of Identity ................................................................ 41
Using Television Critically ................................................................................................ 54
Key Features of SF: The Alien Other and the Alternate Reality ......................... 57
Using Television in the Classroom ................................................................................ 61
CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY ..................................................................................................... 66
Ethnography and Critical Literacy ................................................................................ 66
Trustworthiness Features and the Researcher’s Role ........................................... 68
Site and Respondent Selection ........................................................................................ 72
Data Collection ...................................................................................................................... 77
Methodology Emerging from a Pilot Project ............................................................. 78
Major Assignments for Analysis in the Study............................................................ 80
Scaffolding for the Rhetorical Analysis ........................................................................ 84
Scaffolding in English 250: Summary and Documented Essay ................... 84
Scaffolding in English 205: Analyzing Archetypes ........................................... 91
Tracking Movement in Student Work .......................................................................... 92
CHAPTER 4 PRESENTATION OF DATA .................................................................................. 94
Prefacing the Data ................................................................................................................ 94
Documenting Movement ............................................................................................ 94
Method of Data Analysis ............................................................................................. 95
Student Resistance ....................................................................................................... 97
Sorting the Data .................................................................................................................... 102
Movement in Critical Thinking ....................................................................................... 109
Critical Thinking as a Whole ..................................................................................... 110
iii

Page
Critical Categories of Identity .................................................................................. 113
Communicating about Critical Issues .................................................................... 115
Discussing Stereotypes ........................................................................................ 115
Identifying the Fiction .......................................................................................... 118
Applying Critical Theory ..................................................................................... 121
Goals for Composition Curriculum ................................................................................ 123
Making Claims and Supporting Arguments ........................................................ 123
Rhetorical Issues—Audience, Purpose, Context, Authorship ...................... 131
Language Choices and Expression ......................................................................... 140
Student Reflections on the SF Genre ............................................................................ 143
Some Initial Conclusions ................................................................................................... 144
CHAPTER 5 ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF DATA ............................................. 147
Answering the Research Questions .............................................................................. 147
Analyzing the Data ............................................................................................................... 149
Making Critical Connections between Entertainment and Reality ............ 150
Critical Analysis and the Pleasure of Entertainment ...................................... 163
Examining Categories of Identity in SF Television .......................................... 169
CHAPTER 6 SOME CONCLUSIONS ABOUT THE STUDY................................................... 185
Effectiveness of SF as a Pedagogical Tool ................................................................... 185
Possible Alternatives for Similar Projects .................................................................. 186
Additional Notes about the Study .................................................................................. 189
Evolution of Theory and Practice .................................................................................. 192
REFERENCES ....................................................................................................................................... 194
Works Cited ............................................................................................................................ 194
Works Consulted .................................................................................................................. 197
Works Used in Class and for Assignments ................................................................. 198
APPENDIX A ASSIGNMENT SHEETS ......................................................................................... 202
Summary ................................................................................................................................. 202
Documented Essay .............................................................................................................. 205
Rhetorical Analysis of Television ................................................................................... 208
Archetype Analysis .............................................................................................................. 211
Final Portfolio ........................................................................................................................ 213
iv

Page
APPENDIX B DATA COLLECTION DOCUMENTS ................................................................... 218
Consent Form ........................................................................................................................ 218
Student Questionnaires ..................................................................................................... 221
Beginning Semester Questionnaire ....................................................................... 221
Mid-Semester Questionnaire .................................................................................... 222
End of Semester Questionnaire ............................................................................... 223
APPENDIX C IN-CLASS MATERIALS.......................................................................................... 224
Documented Essay Groups and Beginning Research Questions ....................... 224
Sample Claims for Analysis Using Toulmin Model ................................................. 225
Theoretical Frameworks in Cultural Studies Handout .......................................... 226
Archetypes Handout ........................................................................................................... 228
APPENDIX D COURSE OVERVIEWS AND SYLLABI .............................................................. 229
Course Policies for English 250 ...................................................................................... 229
Syllabus for English 250 .................................................................................................... 233
Course Policies for English 205 ...................................................................................... 237
Syllabus for English 205 .................................................................................................... 239
v

LIST OF TABLES

Page
Table 1 All assignments for English 250 .............................................................................. 75
Table 2 All assignments for English 205 .............................................................................. 76
Table 3 Emergent Themes in Student Work in the Pilot Study................................... 78
Table 4 Points for Assessing Student Movement ............................................................. 93
Table 5 Television Shows and Prominent Identity Categories ................................... 106
Table 6 Rationale for the Television Shows ....................................................................... 107
Table 7 Issues with Claims and Evidence in Student Writing ..................................... 124
vi

ABSTRACT

The ability to critically consume entertainment media is a necessary skill for an
educated and functional society—a polis; however, contemporary college students are
experienced consumers of pop culture but not necessarily critical ones. Since
categories of identity (race, class, gender, sexual orientation, dis/ability, culture) are
constructed, maintained, and reified through mainstream forces including,
powerfully, the media, the ability to critique these forces is critical for an educated
polis. Drawing on scholarship in critical pedagogy, cultural studies, and media
literacy, this study uncovers the relative effectiveness of speculative fiction (SF)
television as a pedagogical tool for developing critical thinking skills in college level
English composition students. This study answers the question: To what extend does
SF aid students in engaging in deeper critical thinking, especially about critical
categories of identity, while simultaneously meeting the overall goals for college-level
composition courses? The study reveals that SF television is especially useful to the
goals of college communication courses, especially first-year composition courses,
which specifically attempt to teach critical thinking. This occurs in part because SF
creates a safe space for students to explore “strange new worlds” of difference in
identity where usual tendencies to resist critique are ameliorated by the distance
inherent in students’ orientation to the genre.
1

CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
Problems and Gaps

As scholars in disciplines likes rhetoric, communication, media, and cultural
studies, we are no strangers to the notion that the ability to critically consume
entertainment media is a necessary skill for an educated and functional society—a
polis. For the ancient Greco-Roman pedagogues the notion of an educated polis was
simpler, in part because the population was more homogeneous and the cultural
expectations more prescriptive. But for contemporary educators the task is much
more complicated; not only do issues of identity (race, class, gender, sexual
orientation, ability, culture, religion, etc.) create differences unknown to classical
rhetors, but also a seemingly endless supply of contemporary entertainment media
saturates the culture and minds of the developing polis and compete for their
attention.
In her 1994 text Transforming Mind, Gloria Gannaway notes that “helping
people learn how to analytically and critically read the texts of their experience” is
a central goal of critical pedagogy (20). She discusses television as one of those
texts which is especially important to critically read and analyze since it is so
ubiquitous within culture. While Gannaway’s discussion does not get into the
details of specific television shows, she does point to an important medium
instructors can use for critical pedagogy.
2

In the article “Teaching Television to Empower Students,” David B. Owen,
Charles L. P. Silet, and Sarah E. Brown ask an interesting question that I find
relevant: Our students are experienced consumers of television—how can we
harness their expertise? Since our students are familiar with the medium, our task
becomes easier; we can focus on more critical issues related to genre and difference
instead of worrying about teaching them how to “read” the medium.
But while Owen et al. call students experienced consumers of television, our
classroom experience proves they are not critical consumers. Roslyn Z. Weedman is
concerned with that issue and with student resistance to critical goals in “Research
in the Classroom: Mass Appeal: Pop Culture in the Composition Classroom.” She
says one way to combat that resistance to critical thinking is by using popular
cultural subjects that hold students’ interest while also asking them to look
critically at those subjects. Weedman quotes Stanley Aronowitz and Henry Giroux’s
1985 text Education Under Siege: “If writing is to become part of the critical
[thinking] process, deconstruction of mass audience culture is the first priority”
(qtd in Weedman 96). Certainly, students have access to this pervasive medium
and using it as a tool for teaching critical thinking has a good deal to offer the
composition classroom. But what would such a pedagogy look like? What genre or
genres of television might be most effective for achieving the critical goals of a
composition classroom? The study presented here uses the speculative fiction (SF)
genre of television to achieve these critical goals.
3

SF is an important and underused genre of fiction in composition. Although
SF has been acknowledged as useful by academics under certain circumstances, its
pedagogical relevance has not been productively recognized for teaching critical
thinking and composition at the college level.
Frequently and inaccurately conflated with science fiction, speculative
fiction might be more appropriately called a “meta-genre” since it encompasses
multiple genres, which all fit the criterion of speculative. In the article “Science
Fiction: Serious Reading, Critical Reading,” Diane Zigo and Michael T. Moore
provide a working definition and rationale for the use of the term SF as preferable
to science fiction which works well for this project. They argue that “SF is an
agreeably ambiguous term since it can also stand for speculative fiction, thereby
opening the doors for a broader understanding of what this body of literature
encompasses” (85). SF includes not only science fiction, but also fantasy, horror,
mythology, superhero stories, and any number of other fantastic fictional elements
like dreams or alternate histories. The meta-genre of SF is especially useful because
it allows for fantastic elements from any number of other genres to be included
within its borders. In that context, the dream sequence from what might otherwise
be categorized as a drama can be considered and thus analyzed as speculative
fiction.
For many decades, SF has been included in the literature classroom as a
serious genre for study. I remember reading Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 in the
eighth grade and Ursula LeGuin’s The Left Hand of Darkness in high school. In