COMP 110: ENGLISH COMPOSITION I BUCKS COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE, DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE CRAIG & SOLOMON GROUP ASSIGNMENT Steve Craig: “Men’s Men and Women’s Women” *pg 2-3 (scroll down) 2. Jack Solomon: “Masters of Desire” *pg 4-5 (scroll down) 1. Based on Craig and Solomon's essays in Signs of Life, select either of the authors’ essays to answer their respective questions below. Be sure to have expanded sentences that analyze and not simply summarize the author’s text. Consider using the Practicing Summary and Response Templates provided below for help with how to construct your answers. *See the last page. They provide several different ways to respond in a substantive way to a secondary source. Must be UPLOADED in Canvas before the due date by one member of your group. SEE CANVAS FOR DUE DATE/TIME. Please use Canvas to communicate online for this assignment as well as your email with members of your group. This Group Assignment must be submitted using one final version of the template attached. You may ask any classmate via Canvas Messenger to create a group with you for this project. If you prefer to work alone, you may work on this individually. 1 If working in GROUPS, please split up the work equally and not expect one classmate to bear the brunt of this assignment. o Divide the sections as equally as you can and allow each member to work on a part while also collaborating as a team. Make sure to write which group member has answered the question/s. This way, I am able to give each member of the group points for the work that they did and those group members who do not contribute will not be awarded points. Submit this assignment via Canvas and upload only one team Microsoft Word document. Other formats are not accepted as they often are unable to open. *Be sure to delete the pages for the other author that your group did not select. Thank you! Assignments will not be accepted once this is “locked” in Canvas and I did make it so it remains “unlocked” for one extra week on purpose to give everyone extra time. Professor Quigley COMP 110: ENGLISH COMPOSITION I BUCKS COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE, DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE Steve Craig: “Men’s Men and Women’s Women” Group Members: TYPE YOUR NAMES HERE 1. Introduction and Setup of the Essay: According to the essay, what are the main audiences that television advertisers target? What does Craig (or his sources) think drives the connection between TV programming and advertising? Basically, which one comes first? Do advertisers flock to ‘gendered’ programming or do networks create gendered programming to attract advertisers? 2. Sources: What are the primary sources (general and specific) that Craig uses in his argument? What secondary sources does he cite throughout the essay? 3. Thesis: What does Craig argue is the underlying purpose of using gendered images and portrayals in advertising? Refer to specific quotations and statements in your answer. 2 Professor Quigley COMP 110: ENGLISH COMPOSITION I BUCKS COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE, DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 4. Argument/Analysis of Examples: Craig structures his essay around four main categories. Based on his introductions and examples, list the main characteristics of each one in the correct box. Men’s Men Men’s Women Women’s Men Women’s Women 5. Response: What is your own response to Craig’s argument? Do you primarily agree? Disagree? Agree with reservations? Do any of his points seem extreme to you? Can you think of examples of commercials that might complicate his categories? 3 Professor Quigley COMP 110: ENGLISH COMPOSITION I BUCKS COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE, DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE Jack Solomon: “Masters of Desire” Group Members: Ryan Pearson 1. What is the “paradox” that Solomon identifies about the American Dream? Jack Solomon identifies the paradox as such, “that we desire social superiority, yet we also want social equality.” 2. What are the main qualities of elitist ads vs. populist ads? What specific products does Solomon identify from each category? Write them in their correct box. Elitist ads/appeals Populist ads/appeals -Status symbols. -Effective in the face of foreign competition. -Shows people in the social hierarchy. -Transform products into signs of belonging. -Rolls-Royce, Beverly Hills mansion. -Utilize country music, small-town life, family picnics, and farmyards. 3. When did the Chevrolet Heartbeat of America ads come out? What, according to Solomon, made their message so appealing to Americans at this time? The Chevrolet Heartbeat came out in the mid 1980’2 and was appealing to Americans at the time because it was all about patriotism. 4. To what does Solomon attribute McDonald’s success? Solomon believes McDonalds has been successful in its ad campaign because they transformed hamburgers into signs of all that was desirable in American life. 4 Professor Quigley COMP 110: ENGLISH COMPOSITION I BUCKS COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE, DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE 5. What trends does Solomon predict will characterize the future of advertising in America? Solomon finds that consumers no longer want to hear these extravagant and fantastical advertisements; they instead want a "real" ad with no clichés. So advertisers started creating "new realism ads" in an attempt to show people that this is actually how a product works. 5 Professor Quigley COMP 110: ENGLISH COMPOSITION I BUCKS COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE, DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE Practicing Summary and Response Templates (They Say/I Say, Chapters 2 and 4) Steve Craig, “Men’s Men and Women’s Women” and Jack Solomon, “Masters of Desire” Summary: Chapter 2, “The Art of Summarizing” (pp. 30-41) Consult the list of ‘signal verbs” on pages 39-40. Below, practice using some of these verbs to summarize parts of each essay. 1. He opens his essay by… 2. He structures the body of the essay around __________________________ in order to… 3. Overall, he argues that… Response: Chapter 4, “Yes/No/Okay, But” (pp. 55-67) This chapter offers a number of different ways to respond in a substantive way to a secondary source. A few are listed below—select at least two of them and try to fill in the template. Disagreement: (templates on p. 60) While Craig’s analyses of specific commercials are strong and convincing, he overlooks… Craig/Solomon seems, at times, to contradict himself. On the one hand, he argues… On the other hand, he also says… By focusing on… , the author overlooks the deeper problem of… Agreement: (templates on p. 62) His theory of… light on the difficult problem of… is extremely useful because it sheds I agree that… because my own observations of Agree and Disagree Simultaneously: (templates on pp. 64-66) 6 Although I agree with him up to a point, I cannot accept his overriding assumption… Craig/Solomon is right that…, but he is on more dubious ground when he claims that… Though I concede that … Though this analysis works well for the time that it was published, more recent commercials work differently/complicate his claims. For example… , I still insist that… Professor Quigley
