Blugold Seminar in Critical Reading and Writing
Grounding students in the reading, writing, and rhetorical demands
necessary for success in college and beyond
Faculty Teaching Guide:
“The Case Against Marine Mammals in Captivity”
Segment: Understanding Perspective
Goals/Purpose:
 To conduct a rhetorical analysis of an article
Establishing a Background:

Rhetorical terms that come up in this article include:
o Logos
 Facts and examples are used to support a logical view of the public
display industry
o Pathos
 The rhetor is adhering to the emotions of the audience by describing
violent methods of cetacean (whales, dolphins, and porpoises) capture
and shocking statistics of their capture, captivity, and mortality.
 Example of a violent capture method includes drive fishing in
which a line of boats “drives” the cetaceans into shallow waters
where they can be captured or killed.
o IMG7 and IMG 9 (pg. 6 and pg. 7 respectively) both
depict drive-style fishing and both contain the word
“bloody” in their caption. This is another example of
how the rhetor is using visuals to enhance the emotional
response of the audience.
o Enthymeme
 Each visual gives a statement of fact (reason) while appealing to the
emotions of the audience
 The rhetor uses visuals to appeal to the emotions of the audience
 IMG8 (pg. 7) depicts three whales hanging upside down. This
image causes the audience to link the hanging of these whales
to other images, such as hangings of people, which are seen in
a negative light by the most people. Therefore, the audience
gets a sense of how the rhetor feels about the issue.
 IMG2 (pg. 2) depicts a dolphin holding a soccer ball. Again
this image is being used to display the rhetor’s position


(dolphins are adorable and should be saved) implicitly, while
using the caption to explicitly state that dolphins are intelligent
naturally, but made into clowns in captivity.
To get students thinking about the emotional appeals of images, have the students
look at certain pictures and discuss how those pictures make them feel and why they
make them feel that way.
Watch a video clip of dolphin/whale hunting that shows either the negative side (to
support the article) or the positive side (to oppose the article) of it.
o CON: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsVheOmW9-k – drive fishing,
hanging (Video Clip A)
o CON: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhJcyK6Y-J4&feature=related –
Tiaji dolphins (Video Clip B)
o CON: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIlim8lo6oY&feature=related –
Captivity pt. 1 (Video Clip C)
o CON: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-XNR_Xr3HU&feature=related –
Captivity pt. 2 (Video Clip D)
o PRO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U5d4f6s6nA&feature=related –
SeaWorld (Video Clip E)
o PRO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY8Ntet8Rgc&feature=fvwrel –
Dolphin collision (Video Clip F)
o CON: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KRD8e20fBo – The Cove trailer
Teaching It: Instruction Ideas



Watch video clips that accompany what the text says.
o Video Clips A and B above could be shown during pages 5-8 under the
subheading “Live Captures”
o Video Clips C and D could be shown with pages 10-11 under the
subheading “Captive Cetaceans and Culture”
Discuss possible effects of outlawing the public display of cetaceans.
o What effect would this have on the wild cetacean populations?
o How might this boost poaching of cetaceans?
o What effect would this have on employment?
o How might this affect the capture and captivity of other animals?
Choose one of the images in the article and in small groups have the students
analyze the visual using the How to Analyze and Use Visual Rhetoric.
Follow-up and Making Connections:

Watch video clips about the positives of the public display industry.
o Video Clip E above discusses the positives that SeaWorld provides for its
orcas

o Video Clip F above discusses how the animals at SeaWorld are not
“slaves” and how they should be smart enough to know not to collide (i.e.
the death of one dolphin is its own fault)
 Read pbs.com interview about the positives of marine mammal captivity and
discuss.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/whales/debate/procap.html
o Do you agree or disagree with the statements?
o What questions would you ask?
o Are you persuaded in favor of captivity?
 Split the students up and have them debate the issue of marine mammal captivity.
 Conduct an in-class trial in which a group of students are on trial for the death of
an orca/dolphin that their company captured and sold to a dolphinaria. Some
students will play the jurors, some the defendants, and some the prosecutors (even
groups of prosecutors and defendants). Each side pleads their case and the jurors
give a verdict based on the evidence provided. Evidence can include any of the
material already used in class.
Other ways to discuss this article include:
o Visual Choice
 Discuss why these visuals were chosen
 What arrangement were the images shown and was there a
reason for it?
 Why were pathos visuals shown over visuals that clarify
numerical data?
 How do logos and pathos work with the visuals?
o Word Choice
 Discuss the word choice used in the captions of the images
 Why were certain words chosen?
 Was the selection of words random, or purposeful, by the
rhetor?
 How does the word choice in the captions support the purpose
of the article?
o Text Size
 Text size in the first paragraph is larger than in subsequent paragraphs
in order to introduce the topic
 Certain sentences/phrases are set apart from the rest of the text as a
visual (for an example see pg. 2 “U.S. records chart a history of
disturbing causes of death, high mortality rate, and low birth rates”)
which can also be viewed in the regular text after the set-aside text
(line right below set-aside text on pg. 2).
 This repetition of statements is being used to show the more
important points and is used where pictures or graphs cannot
help to prove the point.


The set-aside text also comes before the regular text because
the audience would be more inclined to skip over the set-aside
text if they knew they had already read the statement. This
stylistic choice “tricks” the audience to read the statement
twice, thus capturing its importance.
o In relation to other articles
 Herrick pgs. 18-19 – Rhetoric assists advocacy
 Article gives captivity issue a public voice
 Very political
 “From Pencils to Pixels”
 Exploratory (Pencils to Pixels) vs. Persuasive (Dolphin)
Connections to Writing Matters
o Page 79
 Appealing to Readers’ Emotions (Pathos)
 Some visuals appeal to the emotions of the audience
 Figure 11.3 shows a polar bear with the caption “Loss of sea
ice poses a threat to the polar bear.” This visual with the
accompanying caption is attempting to elicit an emotional
response from the reader in which they sympathize with the
polar bear. We can deduce from this that the rhetor is
attempting to persuade the audience that the loss of sea ice is a
terrible thing and needs to stop
 The visuals in this article are being used to appeal to the
emotions of the reader