Christina Giarrusso

Final Project Thinking Text

For my final project, I have three ideas. My first idea is writing a bibliographic essay on
race and the visual. When talking to Jeff about my first project on an image of Mulan in different
contexts, he directed me to a Sue Hum piece on Mulan; after reading an article of hers on the
racialized gaze in Dr. Fleckenteins reading group, I began to see connections between my
interests emerge. This would be helpful for me because I plan to choose my final paper for
rhetorical theory and practice (which was about mestiza consciousness and Anzalduas
Borderlands) as my radical revision paper for the MA portfolio. I think ideas of race, being
mixed, and the visual, have research-worthy connections, and looking into them further could
help me revise that paper. Im also interested in how conceptions of race develop (what I ended
up focusing on in this first visual rhetoric project was the way that seeing could influence how
children understand race as they grow up). Im not sure where to start or who to read first, but
this project could give me the avenue to explore that. I also think that my identity as a FilipinaItalian-American woman is urging me to explore issues of race and how people see and construct
race through seeing.
If I were to take up this project, I would need to find relevant articles to read. I would
consult R/C journals and comppile.org first, and while wading through, I would ask you and Dr.
Fleckenstein for any advice on scholars you recommend me reading. After narrowing down
maybe 10 or so articles, I would begin to write the bibliographic essay, trying to find connections
between the readings. I need help writing texts like bibliographic essaysthe most difficult part
of the R/C research class for me was navigating the literature review section. I have many
anxieties about my abilities to contextualize my ideas using past research, which is funny
because I seek to ease those same anxieties for my students in ENC 2135. I constantly have this
feeling that I am not accurately portraying the whole picture, or that Im missing something, or
misunderstanding someones writing. Completing this project would force me to engage with
these skills and practices. This could also be helpful for me because, in forcing me to write a
bibliographic essay, I might use this assignment to meet a requirement of my final MA portfolio.
My second idea is writing a paper on the aforementioned topic. I could write a paper with
a specific focus on race and visual rhetoric. I would like to explore the ways that race is
constructed through the visual. Recently, I saw a video from the New York Times about ways
that Asian Americans have experienced racism in America. Hearing Asian-Americans describe
situations in which others have judged them, spoken to them, or acted violently or cruelly toward
them due to their appearance was moving, and made me think of the times this has happened to
me and shaped who I am. I think I could explore a lot by writing this, though Im not sure how
prepared I am to pursue a paper without first doing the bibliographic essay.
My third idea would be to design a syllabus. The more syllabi I make myself create, the
happier I am. I would like to think about maybe even ENC 1101 (which I would love to be able
to teach before I leave) with an emphasis on the visual and how the visual is rhetorical. This is
the least thought-out idea of the three, but I would always love the chance to design a
composition course that has students see writing in a different way. Even with small activities
supplementing creative writing and researched writing, showing the ways that visuals work
rhetorically in what we do when we compose might be engaging for students who have the idea
that writing is Times New Roman, 12 point font on a white page, and that there is no visual
element to that at all.