Using the rhetorical concept of the gaze, you will select and analyze a family photograph or series of images from a television show that involves a family. In addition, you will examine the rhetorical concept of memory: its persuasive power and its layers of meaning. Students will read essays by Maxine Hong Kingston, bell hooks, Annette Kuhn, and Dan Dobesh to provide a framework for ways to approach this essay. You may use the web or other resources to explore the significance of the objects, rituals, people, and events depicted in the photograph(s). You may also interview others involved in both photo taking and photo posing in order to discover alternative narratives. (By alternative narratives, I mean those stories behind the pictures which you may not know.) You may also consider how the gaze works in this image or images–as the spectator’s gaze, the intra-diegetic gaze, the extra-diegetic gaze, the camera or director’s gaze, or the editor’s gaze.

As the interpreter of the image/s, you will choose the analytical strategies best suited to your essay. The possibilities are varied; in general you will plan to:

Analyze the composition of the photograph or television image

Deploy the concept of the gaze
Explore and describe setting, character, actions/events, point of view, temporal relations, and audience
Explore and describe point of view or angle, scale, proportion, emphasis or subordination of particular subjects or objects as appropriate to the story you decide to tell
Interpret and analyze how the photograph or the television image/s tells the story

What’s missing? (Kuhn’s absent presence)
What is included?
What is significant about the photo?
How does the photo relate to your and other’s memories of what is depicted in the photo?
Where is the photograph kept? What is the significance of its placement? How does the photograph function in your family?
What order of events does it impose?
What does the photograph tell about your family’s identity and its sense of self in the world ? (59). What secrets does it tell?
Describe the photograph or the television image/s layers of meaning

How does it relate to concepts of American identity?
How does it relate to concepts of familial identity?
How does it relate to concepts of gender/race/class within families?
NOTE: YOU WILL NOT ANSWER ALL OF THESE QUESTIONS IN YOUR ESSAY. YOU WILL SELECT A PARTICULAR FOCUS AND APPLY RELEVANT QUESTIONS AS NEEDED.
Practical notes:

The essay should be five to six pages in length. You should use at least three to five sources and format your essay in MLA style. Your sources can come from the articles in chapter 3, but I would also include some outside sources.
You will create a first draft and hopefully a second. You will include a completed revision guide with this assignment.
You should include the picture(s) with the essay – a photocopy or scanned image is best.