PowerPoint: A Lesson in Visual Rhetoric

While in the process of creating a PowerPoint (PPT) for Monday night’s class, which Sue, Ryan, and I are hosting, I thought about what I wanted my second weekly blog to be about. Given the amount of PPTs the class has been creating (teachnology, class discussion, class activities, etc.), I figured I may as well blog about a lesson involving PPT – and I don’t mean using PPT to deliver a lecture or information to a class.

Rather, by using PPT as a platform to teach visual rhetoric, composition instructors can incorporate a Writing Across the Curriculum service to students. Teaching how to better manage visuals in a PPT (or similar software) presentation not only imparts the value and impact of rhetoric, but also aids students in other classes where they may be required to create PPTs.

The lesson plan would cover the creation process: Given the students already had an assignment and primary text, they would first cover some basic research sources to find images; second, select context-appropriate visuals from those sources; third, pair the image with adequate and essential text; fourth, arrange the image and text in a meaningful and rhetorically productive way; fifth, learn and exercise proper visual and textual citations. And this list is by no means comprehensive – there are still many other components to creating an academically or professionally appropriate presentation (transitions, animations, etc.).

Although the lesson is very time intensive (there is a lot of material to cover), the students will strengthen their analytical, rhetorical, textual, and visual skills. If an instructor assigns a presentation, and uses lesson plans centered on PPT and visual rhetoric leading up to that presentation, the students can follow along in the creation process: after each class they will have the tools to better format their presentation. At the end, the class can be called upon to grade each student’s presentation: they will have the tools necessary to critique and judge and praise and grade.