essay: conflict between discourse

       Throughout this quarter, we have looked at situations of conflict that have—at least in part—been due to differences in discourse. The Spirit Catches You and You Falls Down tells us the story of Lia Lee and points to the ideological differences between the Hmong culture and the American medical culture as the primary reason for Lia’s fate. Serial discusses at length the different ways Adnan’s actions can be interpreted depending on who is doing the interpreting. For your final paper in this class, you will individually examine another case of discourse conflict.

There are two options for this paper:

1.    Think about the discourse communities that you belong to, and consider a time when you felt conflict between two or more of your own discourses. Describe the conflict and how you tried to overcome those differences. For this option, you must include citations from three sources: either Fadiman’s book or the Serial podcast, and two additional discourse-related citations.

OR

2.    Research an instance of conflict—such as a court case, a political issue, or a current event—and analyze that conflict from the perspective of discourse. How might differences in discourse have led to the conflict, and how might this conflict be handled using awareness of discourse? For this option, you must include citations from three sources: either Fadiman’s book or the Serial podcast, and two additional citations that establish your instance of conflict.

No matter which option you choose, the final result will be twofold: a 4 - 6 page academic essay and a multimodal text designed for a rhetorical context of your choice.

       You’ve had experience preparing an academic essay before: this essay will be prepared in MLA format with a Works Cited page and use vocabulary appropriate for an academic audience.

       We’ve practiced working with multimodality throughout our time together. Your multimodal text might be an audio podcast, a comic interpretation, a video, or any number of alternatives. The only requirement is that you consider the audience for your new format by taking advantage of the affordances and working within the constraints of your new medium.