Length:  1200 words

Due Dates:  8.7.14 (rough draft), 8.11.14 (final draft)

 

We’ve made a great deal of the binary between surface and depth in this class, and of how photography and the visual image in particular suggest the space between surface and depth.  In this assignment, we will continue to rely on this binary as a way of describing the gap between what is seen and not seen about a particular subject.  There are many ways of articulating this gap:  the public face vs. the private face, the exterior vs. the interior, the revealed vs. the hidden, the performance vs. the performer, the perception vs. the reality, and so on.  Whatever version of this binary most clarifies your particular topic, the essential task here is to document and reveal the hidden or unseen side of some person, place, phenomenon, or issue—the side that a casual observer likely would not be familiar with.

We have a number of models by now of what this might look like.  It might be an exposé, revealing the seamy underbelly of some issue, the dark side that’s obscured from public view—as in Rachel Riederer’s “The Teaching Class.”  Or it might be a human interest profile, showing the human side of some public figure—as in Onward State’s profile of PSU’s “squirrel whisperer,” Louis Theroux’s documentary on the Westboro Baptist Church, or the various profiles of costume-clad street performers.  Maybe it reveals the largely unknown history of some common commodity.  Maybe it reveals an insider perspective on a job, or an identity category, or a socioeconomic class.  Maybe it unpacks and reveals some phenomenon about which very few people have thought.

Whatever your topic and approach may be, the goal here is to get inside your subject in some sense, to make visible the hidden depths or the unseen reality of that subject for some audience.  As we’ve discussed, this kind of writing—whether it has an “agenda” or not—often has powerful rhetorical effects, as when exploring the complex social obligations of baristas causes readers to interact differently with service industry employees, or when a sympathetic first-person account of poverty shifts our beliefs on meritocracy or the welfare state.  Even if you can’t put your finger on the definitive rhetorical effects your documentary writing produces, it’s worth considering the question.  Usually when something has been hidden, unnoticed, obscured, or inaccessible for a long time, the revealing of that thing has some real-world effects; rare is the revelation that has no rhetorical effect on its audience.  (Think about moments when you’ve revealed a secret:  there are always effects to this, whether on you, on the person to whom you revealed the secret, or on the person the secret is about.  Usually all of the above.)

On some level, your ultimate task here resembles the task of the rhetorical description essay:  you should transform your readers’ understanding of your subject, whatever it is and whatever you reveal about it.  A reader should come away with a different sense of what it is to be on welfare or to work at a coffee shop or of why a fringe family church might spew venomous bigotry with no regard for persuasive effects.  This will likely mean that you take advantage of the skill set you developed during the rhetorical description unit:  the careful attention to detail, the thoughtful choosing of what to show and what to conceal, the concrete sense of how descriptive choices lead your audience to have a particular impression of your subject.  Notice that many of the pieces we’ve read in this unit feature some very vivid descriptive passages, within which the hidden side of a subject is made to come alive for a reader.  The analogy to photography is useful here too:  think about what’s revealed in this image from the NYT story on costumed street performers, about how visually depicting the man inside the Elmo costume goes a long way toward changing our perception.

Possible approaches here vary widely, depending on your topic.  You may have to depend heavily on research, as “The Messy Business of Tacos” does.  Or you may depend on interviewing someone and quoting their words.  Or you may depend on direct, experiential knowledge of something.  Maybe you’re uncovering the hidden side of some issue via analytical writing.  Whatever the case may be, you should think seriously about what body and kind of information you’re drawing upon to substantiate your depiction of your subject’s complexities.

Though it isn’t required, it may very well be appropriate to include photos or visual images of some sort in your essay.  Consider whether doing so would enhance your documentary writing or distract from it (and, of course, whether you can take or have access to pictures that would be useful in your essay).