Discursive Writing

 

Since the arrival of the 2019-2023 NSW Senior English syllabus, the biggest point of contention (or confusion) has perhaps been the introduction of the 'discursive' writing genre for Module C: The Craft of Writing. There's a whole bunch of advice floating around on discursive writing and just about all of it is worth following, such is the flexibility of the term, and this is because the term has been partially invented to fill a 'gap' in the syllabus. I don't want to get too far into defining it but will say that it exists primarily as a useful label to cover a range of creative non-fiction writing styles. 

Getting students to understand this flexibility is one of the keys to building their level of comfort with writing in the discursive mode. In the case of my own classes, once we shook off the fear of tackling an unfamiliar term it became a preferred way of writing for quite a few students. It's really quite a freeing genre to write in.

Here's an activity that can be used for Year 11 Reading to Write or Year 12 Craft of Writing. 

Step 1: Read an example of discursive writing. I like to use a short extract from Judith Lucy's The Lucy Family Alphabet called 'B is for Bullshit' because it's funny, accessible, and can be used for either Standard or Advanced English. Lucy's book is out of print now but, honestly, it can be any piece of general non-fiction writing that fits our purpose - it doesn't have to be this particular extract. 

Step 2: Students annotate the text after reading and discussing briefly. This involves collecting together examples that reflect specific elements that are common to discursive writing. By doing this students will build up knowledge of the required metalanguage for analysing discursive texts and practise judicious selection of textual evidence. Students should look for the following:

• A thesis - what is the singular topic that the piece of writing focuses on?
• Conversational tone - give an example that reveals the author's personality.
• Use of humour.
• Evidence that wide reading or background knowledge has been called upon - find examples of allusions to other texts or historical events.
• Personal anecdotes - find an example that illustrates or adds detail to the thesis.
• Orientation - examine the opening sentence and explain how it encourages the reader to want to know more.
• Conclusion - is the ending reflective, open-ended, posing a question, or circular ('calling back' to an earlier joke, thread, or idea)?

An annotation sheet can be downloaded here.

Step 3: The best way for students to get an inside-out knowledge of discursive writing is to pen their own discursive pieces. After completing the above steps, students can practise writing their own discursive articles with the following thematic engagement activity. 

1. Select and highlight a line from 'B is for Bullshit' that stands out to you.
2. Use this line as the prompt for your own discursive piece of writing about dishonesty.
3. After you are finished, annotate your own piece in the same way that you annotated 'B is for Bullshit'.

Teaching Advertising with Nathan For You

I'm currently in the midst of teaching a unit of work to Year 10 that's centred on advertising and advocacy, which I love because it gives me a chance to look at the role of rhetoric with my students. Before getting to the point where the students tie advertising to a social issue that they wish to advocate for (their assessment task), the time is spent looking at persuasive techniques and helping students work backwards from a final product to examine the purpose of these sort of texts. 

Last year I shared an activity on the three major persuasive modes (ethos, logos, pathos) in conjunction with the brilliant Reality TV satire Nathan For You. 

In today's blog I'll look at another way that Nathan For You can be used to teach some of the finer aspects of advertising but, before I do, I'll just reiterate the persuasive modes. In prior years I've focused on logos, pathos, and ethos. This year I've decided to bring in more explicit discussion of a fourth persuasive mode; kairos - something that is touched on when dealing with target audiences but could always be dealt with in a little more detail.

(Note: There's a fifth persuasive concept called topos but I'll leave that for another day!)

• Ethos: The use of authority or credibility to get someone to trust an opinion.
  
• Kairos: The use of an opportune time and place to achieve maximum persuasiveness with a target audience.
  
• Logos: The use of reason or logic to convince someone of something.
  
• Pathos: The use of emotion to persuade.

The clip above comes with an associated activity focusing on Nathan's wacky idea for rebranding a real estate company. The concept of 'rebranding' is primarily a marketing strategy but it can also be utilised here for English purposes when talking about audience and purpose. The effectiveness of re-positioning a product to suit a hitherto un-targeted audience (as Nathan does in the clip) is dependent on how well an advertiser or company understands kairos. For instance, if you are going to target a particular audience then you need to at least have an awareness of how and when this could best be achieved. The success (or lack thereof) of Nathan's ploy could be seen as indicative of both an understanding of kairos or a lack of understanding of kairos.

For anyone who is familiar with Nathan For You and its humour - fear not, I've edited the clip to avoid any elements which may be inappropriate for the classroom.

Here is the activity sheet that accompanies the video: Nathan For You - Rebranding.

This sheet includes the following questions (I have included possible answers here for ease of delivery but feel free to expand or adapt in whatever fashion you like).

Question 1: "In an oversaturated market it can be hard to stand out in the crowd". What does Nathan mean by this, and what language technique is he using?

• Nathan is referring to the abundance of real estate companies and how difficult it can be to find a point of difference for just one such company.
• Metaphor - "standing out in a crowd"
• Jargon - "oversaturated market" (also a metaphor)

Question 2: What is the benefit in finding an 'unrepresented' audience? What does this mean?

• An 'unrepresented' audience refers to a group of people (or demographic) that hasn't been catered for before. In this case Nathan is referring to people who believe in ghosts - an identifying characteristic that, as far as he knows, has never been the basis for marketing a real estate company before.

Question 3: Annotate the advertisement below; label the kind of persuasion used and point out any symbolism that reinforces Sue's rebranding as 'the Ghost Realtor'.

• The stretching of Sue Stanford's body into a ghost-like shape symbolises her affinity with the spirit world.
• The cross is a well-known symbol of Christianity, and this is also a religious allusion.
• Quote on billboard: "My homes are 100% ghost and demon free" - this is an example of logos.
• The colour palette leans heavily on shadows and the colour blue, which gives the advertisement a sombre, haunted feeling. Note also the shadowy faceless figures that are representative of unidentified beings from 'the other side'.
• The line of Sue Standford's ghostly tail and the underlining of her name both work as vectors that lead the reader's eye from her body to the quote.
• Gaze - Sue Standford's eyes are looking directly into the camera, which builds a connection with the audience. Note also her confident, positive facial expression.

Question 4: What does the psychic add to Sue's new branding?

• The presence of the psychic adds a sense of credibility to her new angle on real estate salesmanship. As an authority on this particular subject he is a perfect example of using ethos to strengthen one's business.

Question 5: What problems are there with the example of re-positioning?

• Students may have a whole range of responses to this question! Chief among the potential problems is the fact that some people just don't believe in ghosts, which essentially means that Nathan's scheme will never appeal to a sizeable portion of the market. 
• Students should have a range of ideas in relation to this question, especially considering how intentionally ridiculous Nathan's idea is.

Teaching Modes of Persuasion with Nathan For You

The following is an activity that has been developed to assist in teaching modes of persuasion to Year 10. It chiefly relies on Nathan For You, in which business guru Nathan Fielder assists failing businesses by giving them outlandish ideas designed to bring in new customers. For those of you unfamiliar with the twisted genius of Nathan For You, the Comedy Channel's reality TV satire is a near-perfect vehicle for teaching English concepts and skills that relate to persuasive writing and advertising. Unfortunately, the show often veers into inappropriate territory, which means that carefully selected excerpts accompanied with parental permission notes will be necessary to make it into a teaching tool.

One such clip deals with Nathan offering his help to a burger restaurant in Los Angeles. In this segment of the TV series, Nathan latches onto the business owner's spurious claim that his burgers are 'the best in L.A.' and literally goads him into putting his money where his mouth is. In other words, Nathan plays naive and takes this claim at face value, offering every customer of the burger restaurant a $100 bill if their burger isn't the best they've ever eaten. Anyway, before I talk too much more about it, here's the clip:

Some students will pick up on the absurd humour and Fielder's satirical exploration of reality TV genre tropes. For those who don't find anything funny in the host's schtick, the extract still affords an opportunity to examine each of the three mode of persuasion: logos, pathos, and ethos.

Before undertaking a study of the clip, revise the three modes with students.

• Logos: The use of reason to convince someone of something. Examples include the use of logic, statistics, facts, supporting evidence, analogies, some figurative language. Note that logos does not necessarily equate with the truth.
• Pathos: The use of emotion to persuade. Examples include emotional manipulation, imagery, vivid language designed to engender sympathy or empathy from the responder, personal anecdotes.
• Ethos: The use of authority or credibility to get someone to trust an opinion. Examples include celebrity endorsement, professionalism, brand identity, confidence, credible sources.

The clip should be used after the students have a working understanding of these modes. Once they watch Nathan's disastrous plan unfold they can then have a go at answering the following questions (I have included the answers here for ease of delivery but feel free to expand or adapt in whatever fashion you like)

Question 1: When Gustavo claims that he makes the 'best' burgers, what kind of persuasion is this?

Answer: This is logos. The term 'best' is an absolute term, inferring that there are no better burgers to be found anywhere. This is a form of logic, albeit one that is alarmingly and amusingly used by many fast food restaurants without any supporting evidence. Students may be able to make a connection with their own experience here by pointing out the existence of multiple 'best pies in Australia' pie shops.

Question 2: Explain Nathan's idea and how this is a form of ethos.

Answer: Nathan is offering customers $100 in cash if they do not agree that the burger is the best after eating it. He hopes that this will help Gustavo attract sceptics who will then be converted into returning customers after they realise how great the burgers are. The $100 is a kind of guarantee. The use of a formal assurance offered to customers before they eat the burger is intended to encourage trust, therefore this is ethos.

Question 3: Why do you think Gustavo seems worried by Nathan's idea?

Answer: Gustavo is worried because he knows that his claim is a lie. I like to include this question because it helps students invest themselves in their investigation of persuasive techniques. By acknowledging that Gustavo isn't telling the truth when he says that his burgers are 'the best', or that he can't possibly know that, we're encouraging students to be more critical in their thinking. Question everything!

Question 4: How were Nathan and Gustavo able to attract so many customers to Gustavo's burger business?

Answer: Nathan and Gustavo make an appearance on radio so that they can promote Nathan's idea to a wide audience. The use of a famous radio station to spread a message has undertones of ethos.

Question 5: Why does Nathan say to one customer, "Do you want $100 or an Academy Award?" What kind of language technique is this?

Answer: Nathan is using hyperbole to point out that the customer is overacting. Hopefully your students are aware of the Academy Awards' status as the most prestigious film acting awards, otherwise you can make it clear that the cultural allusion to famous actors is intended to sarcastically draw attention to the customer's performance. The extreme exaggeration in Nathan's comparison alludes to an opinion that the customer is acting when they spit the burger out and, therefore, lying about it not being 'the best'.

Question 6: Why does Nathan bring holy books for customers to swear on? What form of persuasion is he using?

Answer: Nathan is attempting to use the holy books as a way to discourage customers from lying. The Bible, Koran, Torah, etc. are authoritative texts in that millions of people consider them to be the literal word of God. This is therefore a form of ethos.

Question 7: What form of persuasion is Nathan using on the young couple when he talks about firing Raquel?

Answer: The form of persuasion used here is pathos. This is evident in the way that Nathan manipulates the young couple into feeling bad about the impact of their actions upon the staff of the burger restaurant. By making them feel guilty he persuades them into not taking the money.

The questions above are included on this worksheet here. Also included is a paragraph-writing activity concerning one of Gustavo's burgers, in which students must take a position on the burger and use persuasive techniques of their own to convince the reader to agree.