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Hi, I'm Sid Dobrin. In this video, I'm going to talk about teaching Annalee Newitz's essay
"When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like Avatar?" I'll be talking about teaching
her essay in the context of first year writing, and I'll be addressing the essay specifically
from a rhetorical situational approach. When I teach Newitz's essay I usually start
by asking students some basic, key questions: For whom does Newitz write? What else do you
know about the situation in which she participates? "What is Newitz's thesis?" "Where does she
state it?" "How does she state it?" That is, I want to encourage students to start their
analytical writing by looking at the situation and then developing a strong thesis designed
for that situation, so I start by asking them to look for the same kinds of things in the
Newitz essay. Now, Newitz's essay is a strong example of
writing to analyze in support of a larger purpose. In this case she makes an argument
about a particular articulation about race in film. Obviously, when teaching essays like
Newitz's, it can be easy to get caught up in the argument and devote a substantial amount
of class room or assignment time focusing upon the content. Depending upon your pedagogical
objectives, this can be a good thing or a distractor. However, given that some analytical
methodologies specifically take up content analysis, helping students see the details
of Newitz's argument and evidence can be quite useful.
At the same time, though, I always want to address the rhetorical features of Newitz's
essay in terms of how they both serve and convey information about the situation in
which she writes. From the rhetorical analytical perspective,
I have students look at how Newitz's language establishes both tone and ethos. We talk about
how she relies on summary of the text she analyzes (the Avatar film) as a way of prefacing
her analytical points. Likewise, I talk with students about how her references to texts
other than Avatar—like Dances with Wolves, Flash Gordon, District 9, Edgar Rice Burroughs'
Mars novels, and so on—help her situate her analysis in a specific conversation.
Perhaps most important to discuss in analyzing Newitz's essay is to ask students to consider
the role of location and of media in how Newitz presents her analysis and argument.
Newitz's piece is ripe for conversation, both in terms of content analysis and situational
analysis, and using her essay as a way of helping students understand and practice those
two types of analyses can help them develop their own methodologies as they prepare to
write their own analytical pieces. So, those are some of the key aspects of how
I teach Annalee Newitz's "When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like Avatar? You
will probably have other approaches you find useful, too, that you might want to share,
as well. So, how do you teach this essay? Post a response to this video—either in
the comment section or as a video response—and share your thoughts on teaching this essay,
as well. Thanks for watching!