Reflecting and Shaping American Cultures 7-10 pages (plus a works cited page, which does not count as part of the page requirements)This paper moves beyond personally exploring one's own culture and asks you to critically analyze variouscultures existing within America, but instead of looking at American culture on television and film, this paper will allow you to examine other cultural facets of America. You will examine how American culture is reflected and shaped through various legal actions, media formats, and concepts. Your paper will select one of particular facets of American culture-one that closely reveals a part of America's culture. For example, you could explore the increase number of college students who watch John Stewart's Daily Show, and how this television show becomes the main, or only, source of news for this particular group; how does this show impact youth's perception of news? Also, you could examine the ways gas prices or global warming has shaped and continues to shape America's automobile industry. Then you will compose a feature article or exposé in order to reveal how your particular topic defines our overall culture and how do the rhetoric and images surrounding this topic impact one's understanding of it. How do current events and news shape our understanding of American culture? We want to examine what we take for granted in our culture, interrogate it, and bring our discoveries to light in this paper. In order to investigate a particular part of our culture, you will become journalists, freelancers, and authors, writing for the news publication, magazine, or insider program of your choice. 11When approaching this topic, you need to look past the simple news story and closely analyze what this specific part of our culture means both to us and the American culture. Like with the first paper, do not summarize but analyze. Find something that engages or troubles you within the American culture.
• You could take a closer look at some of America's obsessions such as Facebook,
text messaging, and conveniences (with fast cars, food, and cash).
o How has Facebook altered the social aspect of American culture or how
does our culture affect Facebook?
• You could also consider current events and news, ranging from political decisions
to technological inventions to media programs that depict these events.
o For example, you could explore: what has happened to Miami and the
United States Immigration Policy since Elian Gonzalez?
o What is an American college degree in the twenty-first century?
• You could also explore America's shifting understanding of gender, politics, race,
sexuality, and other concepts.
o You could analyze the "modern" American concept of beauty (where does
it come from or how has beauty shaped our culture and vice versa?).
o Another example is looking at the impact of Florida's law on adoption in
connection with homosexual couples, and you could use the Steven
Lofton's lawsuit against Florida's legal standing on homosexuals and
adoption rights, deeming it a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment of
the Constitution.
o You could also examine America's understanding of art and aesthetics,
using Stephen Colbert's portrait hanging outside the bathrooms in the
Smithsonian.
After finding an interesting topic to analyze, you need to consider who you want to
address-who is your audience-as you compose your feature article or exposé. Where
might such an article or exposé be published? A feature article informs the reader and
engages them in an interesting way, while an exposé exposes some stories or information,
uncovering untold truths. Make the topic interesting for the audience; make us want to
read it. You need to not only catch the reader's attention but also hold that attention
through your choice of language and your tone. Your language and rhetoric become tools
for presenting your critical stance of this part of American culture. Think about how
writer's rhetoric and your own rhetoric conveys a topic; how do images alter one's
perception of culture and how can you also use images to deliver your message.
There is a minimum of 5 sources required to support your 7-10 page article, drawing
from a variety of source materials: library books, journals, magazines, newsprint,
credible web publications, interviews, etc. Our text, The Curious Researcher, will guide
us through the steps to researching for your feature article/ exposé and to documenting
your sources using MLA format.
As previously stated, you must use at least 5 outside sources (not including the primary
object of attention, which would be the cultural facet itself).