Unit Three: the Decline of the American Empire

Unit Three: The Decline of the American Empire

Major Skills: focus; research; development of topic; informative tone; source use and citation; source evaluation; visual rhetoric analysis and production; detail orientation; multimodal rhetorical negotiation (group work), production (brainstorming), distribution (presenting to an audience), reception (reading/listening), socialization (changing ideas in response to a text), re-mediation (changing a text in response to audience’s response)

In Unit Three, we will discuss and write about the apparent decline of the American empire. Many people—politicians, journalists, public intellectuals—feel that the US’s dominance of the world is coming to an end. What do you think? Does the US still have a strong, healthy society and economy with a powerful, beneficial global influence? Or is US society falling apart, and is the US losing its economic, military, and political position as the Global Superpower? What do you think will happen to the US’s global status in the next couple of decades?

Your perspective may depend on your own relationship to the US, and what stake you have in the US’s power. Maybe immigrants to this country see the issue differently than do international students, who are only here temporarily. Maybe these two gropus want or need to see it differently, since they have different investments in the future of the US.

We will read several articles related to this issue, and then each of you will choose your own focus area for two assignments, and you will cover other focus areas in a third assignment.

Essay: Informative Report on “The Current State of the United States”

Write an essay (absolute minimum 4 pages, preferably 5) reporting on information related to your topic focus. This is not an opinion or argumentative essay; it is simply a report on information. Information may include description, definition of terms, history, classification, statistics and other facts, causes and effects of the problem. If you include solutions in the essay, you must not argue for the solutions; instead, present them objectively, as possible solutions that have been suggested by experts. You must think carefully about what kinds of information to include in your essay, and how best to organize the information, so that you may provide a clear and thorough report on the subject. Avoid emotional, argumentative language in this essay; take an informative tone.

Your essay must have a clear and precise thesis statement, a strong introduction and conclusion, and at least four body paragraphs. It should be well organized so that your reader may be informed and educated by your discussion. Use a minimum of two sources and a maximum of five sources to support and develop your essay. List your sources on aWorks Cited page at the end of your essay.

The following are possible focus areas for the essay: US economy, military power, education, health, family structure, and culture. We may think of other focus areas during our class discussion.

Web Page Analysis: Description and Evaluation of a Web Page, with Chart

Students today are faced with a wealth of resources online; in fact, you can find almost any kind of information that you need on the web. This is a great advantage over the past, when we had to do all our research in libraries and physically locate sources; often we could not get the sources that we needed. However, even though students now have easy access to millions of sources on the web, they now have an extra job to do: They have to figure out, by themselves, whether the sources that they find on the web are credible and acceptable for academic work.

In this assignment, you will write a formal evaluation of a web page related to your essay’s focus area. The assignment will be presented as a chart with a discussion paragraph. You should copy/paste the sample chart from your class Angel page and use that as the starting point for your own web page evaluation.

You will need to consider what you can learn about a source (its credibility, its intended audience, its purpose) by looking at its content, its design (color, images, lay-out, etc.), the links it provides, the producer/sponsor of the web page, and so on. See detailed instructions below. Your grade on this assignment will be based on the content of your analysis (how thorough and detailed it is), your use of language, and the visual appearance of your chart.

PowerPoint Presentation: Group Multimodal Presentation on Future Scenarios for the US

The class will divide into four groups, and each group will create a PowerPoint presentation on the topic of “The Decline of the American Empire.” Each group will present on one scenario from the article “4 Scenarios for the Coming Collapse of the American Empire” (economic decline, oil shock, military misadventure, World War III). Groups will do research related to their scenario; sources will be listed in proper MLA format on a separate slide at the end of the PowerPoint presentation but will not be cited in the body of the PowerPoint.

Everyone must carefully read and understand the introduction and conclusion of the article; however, you are not responsible for knowing the details in other groups’ scenarios.

Presentations will be a minimum of 8 slides, preferably 10 or more (maximum 15).

Groups will show their PowerPoint presentations to the class. Grades on this assignment will take into consideration all elements of the rhetorical/communication situation as those elements affect audience response: language use, organization of information in the presentation, PP visual design, oral presentation, body language.

Groups may choose one member to present the assignment to the class. Make a wise choice.

PowerPoint Evaluations: Responding to a Multimodal Text

Class members will evaluate PP presentations (see Evaluation Criteria below) and turn in their evaluations to me. These evaluations will affect my grading of the assignment.

Web Page Analysis Instructions and Sample

Since one of the biggest challenges of doing research today is evaluating the myriad sources available on the internet, you will complete a Web Page Analysis of a source related to your focus area for your informative report on “The Decline of the American Empire.” Look at several sources related to your topic, and then choose one that you think is credible and will be useful for your essay. You will use this source in your essay, so choose carefully.

Your web page analysis should include:

1. The web page’s URL
2. A description of the intended audience for the web page. What clues tell you who the web page is aimed at? Consider use of color, images, visual style, and writing style. Is the material on the web page accessible to the general public or is there a certain level of expert knowledge assumed?
3. A critique of the credibility of the page and the information it provides. What clues help you determine the credibility of the page and its information? You may not be familiar with the institutions, organizations, or individuals who sponsor or who contributed information to the page; however, you can do some quick research to learn something about the institutions or authors. Don’t assume that a web page is credible just because it has an impressive name or a nice logo. Look beyond the surface credibility to make a conclusion about the page’s reliability. Ask yourself: Who/what is the sponsoring organization or institutionassociated with? Does it provide research to other organizations? Does it provide documentation (sources) to support its information? Does the page have a bias toward one position or another position on the topic? For example, is it an advertisement for a product or a service? Does it have a political or social agenda?
4. Comments about what you learned about your focus area from the web page.

The sample below is very detailed. Your web page analysis may be shorter than the sample, but it must include all of the required points listed above. The chart in which the analysis points are presented is simple, but it is carefully designed. You, too, should pay careful attention to the visual elements of your chart. Part of your grade will be based on visual presentation.

Sample Web Page Analysis

Boston College Center for Work & Family, Carroll School of Management (CWF)

1. URL /
2. Website Overview / • The website serves the CWF’s function to “provide a bridge linking the academic community to leaders in employment settings who are committed to promoting workforce effectiveness.”
• Provides a newsletter
• Provides a “virtual roundtable” for members
• Provides information about CFW events
• Provides news about CWF and links to media coverage
• Provides links to resources (books, research studies, government reports, videos, web conferences)
• Provides links to Twitter, YouTube, Facebook
• Full access requires membership
3. Intended Audience / • Researchers, professors, students, employers, corporate representatives
• Writing style is clear, concise, moderately formal
• Uses references to some issues familiar only to people involved in work/family research.
• Website is very full of writing, not very many photographs or graphics, uses dull colors.
• Audience is expected to already have interest in the subject.
4. Credibility of Website / • Credible website
• Associated with university business school ranked among top 35 in US
• Works with “progressive companies in the work/life arena” around the world (Deere & Co., IBM, Walt Disney, etc.)
• Provides references to many academic and corporate studies
5. Relationship to Work, Family and Community / See below.
6. Other Comments / • The only people shown in the photographs on the website are white men.
• CWF is probably concerned most with employee productivity and corporate benefit, not employee happiness even though the website says CWF’s goal is “the benefit of employers, employees, families, and the community” (many references to “workforce management” and how to “enhance employee effectiveness”). Workers are seen as resources for making profit.

Relationship to Work, Family and Community Topic

The Boston College Center for Work and Family website provides much information about how employers can “create effective workplaces that support and develop healthy and productive employees.” One of the main issues studied by CWF is flexible work arrangements. This is related to being responsive to workers’ needs, which is also a recurring topic. One issue that CWF seems especially interested in is the changing role of fathers in American families; it announces a new study on this topic. The study found that fathers want to spend time with their families, “be there” for them, not just be good income earners. The website also announces conferences on the daily issues faced by low-level employees, and it mentions the need to take account of diversity in the workforce. The “Executive Briefing Series” on managing employees in emerging markets (Brazil, China, India, Russia) shows the CWF’s interest in global business. This Series is written for an executive level audience and “highlights research findings, data trends and best practices in a concise format, aiming to foster action-oriented dialogue within organizations.” It examines the economic, political and social context, culture and values, demographics, and labor and family laws in each country, and then shows how companies are successfully doing business there and makes recommendations. For example, in Brazil, the Series recommends flexible work time, more childcare and eldercare, consideration of women’s equality and human rights, assisting employees with career development and providing childcare.

PowerPoint Presentation Evaluation Criteria

Print this form before the class days on which students give their PowerPoint presentations. Bring the form with you to class and be prepared to evaluate presentations immediately, quietly, and without disturbing the presenters. Read the evaluation criteria before class so that you are familiar with the questions. Give each criterion a numerical score on a scale of 5 to 1 (5 = best).

1) Visual Design 5 4 3 2 1

• Is the PP’s visual design attractive and well constructed, according to the rules of CRAP?

• Does the PP’s visual design help you to follow the oral presentation? Do the visual elements (color, spacing, graphic bullets, images) help to organize the information in the presentation?

2) Language Use 5 4 3 2 1

• Does the PP use language effectively? (Is the language clear, powerful, and error-free?)

3) Oral Presentation 5 4 3 2 1

• Is the oral presentation clear and easy to follow?

• Does the oral presentation (speaking, body language) add interest & depth to the PP slides?

4) Content of the Presentation 5 4 3 2 1

• Does the presentation teach you something about the subject?

• Is the content of the presentation well organized?

• Are sources cited properly on a final slide?

Total: ______

The Fabric of America Is Fraying as the Economic Downturn Continues

by David Wann

By certain measurements, the U.S. economy has been quite successful in the last several decades, but the fundamental question remains: Successfully what?

We may lead the world in categories like gross domestic product, average house size, and ownership of color TVs, but we also "lead" the industrial nations in debt per capita, the child poverty rate, overall poverty rate, ratio of people in prison, rate of traffic fatalities, murder rate, carbon dioxide emissions per capita, and the per capita consumption of energy and water.

These are hardly distinctions we can be proud of. Clearly, we're not taking care of what really matters. On the upside, increased awareness of where we stand can guide a reordering of national and local priorities, resulting in a healthier and more satisfying American lifestyle.

Especially eye-opening is data compiled by John de Graaf, director of the non-profit Take Back Your Time, which advocates legislative and lifestyle changes to provide more discretionary time.

The data compares the U.S. with 14 European Union countries in key quality-of-life indicators, demonstrating that many of our economic and cultural priorities are out of step with what humans actually need. Despite the familiar aspiration to be/appear optimistic, it's clear that health care, safety, personal security, equality, education, and leisure time are faltering in America.

For example, even a need as basic as nutrition is compromised when money is poorly allocated or spent. The average American slurps 53 gallons of soft drinks every year, and now spends more in restaurants (many of the fast-food variety) than in grocery stores. "Even wild monkeys have healthier diets than most Americans," says anthropologist Katharine Milton, partly because in our fast-paced world, the emphasis is on snackability, convenience and shelf life rather than human life.

Americans also rank near the bottom among industrial nations in health per unit of food, spending the least for food (as a percentage of income) but the most for health care. In spite of these expenditures, we've fallen to 42nd place in the world for longevity, ranking below Guam and just above Albania. We're also 42nd in infant mortality but No. 1 in obesity, pumping 1 billion extra gallons of gas each year to carry the excess weight -- enough to fuel 1.7 million cars, according to a University of Illinois study.

Coincidentally, Americans are no longer the tallest population in the world; the Dutch are. (In fact, most European populations are, on average, taller than the average American). Researcher John Komlos of the University of Munich speculates that the EU's emphasis on social safety nets, especially in the critical childhood years, may be responsible. De Graaf, co-author of Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic, agrees. "A 30-year trend of income tax cuts for the rich has decreased quality of life overall in the U.S.," he says. "In contrast, Western European countries invested in their social contracts. Strategic investments in health care, education, transportation, and common space reduced the need [and desire] of individuals to maximize their own incomes."

On the other hand, in America, the subsidized and culturally familiar quest for privacy and exclusivity often spins off unhealthy isolation. A 2007 National Science Foundation study reported that one-fourth of all Americans have no one they can confide in or celebrate with, and the inner circles of the rest have fallen from about three confidants to two. Our need to elevate social connections to a higher priority is literally a matter of life and death.

In one study reported by Dr. Dean Ornish in his book Love and Survival, men and women who were about to have open-heart surgery were asked two questions: "Do you draw strength from your religious faith?" and "Are you a member of a group of people who get together on a regular basis?" Those who said "no" to both questions were dead within six months, compared to only 3 percent of those who said "yes" to both questions.

Another primordial human need is connection with nature. When people view slides of nature, their blood pressure counts fall. Hospital patients with a view of trees go home sooner than those whose view is a brick wall. When people with ADHD spend time in nature, the results are often as effective as Ritalin.