2. Academic Language Infer Analyze Compare Contrast Argue / Persuade Support / Evidence

3. Semiotics The study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation.

4. Visual Rhetoric The use of images as persuasive argument

5. Cultural Artifact An object that reflects, promotes or subverts the current or aspirational values, needs and practices of the culture that produced it.

6. Cultural Work The process by which an artifact transmits, reinforces or enables values and practices of feeling, thinking or acting in a culture, or enables individuals in a culture to imagine, rehearse or enact new patterns of feeling, thinking or acting.

7. Pre-reading Activities Conventions of the genre Unfamiliar vocabulary

8. Viewing Question What does this artifact communicate to viewers that they should be, do, want or think?

9. Iconography of Hip Hop Video Cash Luxury goods Transportation Jewelry Clothing Houses Beautiful, mostly-naked women… plural Alcohol

10. Viewing Questions What does this artifact suggest to viewers that they should be, do, want or think? What conventions of hip hop does this artifact undermine? What conventions of hip hop does this artifact reinforce? What is Macklemore’s thesis?

11. Conventional Hip Hop Videos “Hypnotize” by Notorious B.I.G. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glEiPXAYE-U “Candy Shop” by 50 Cent http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRcnnId15BA “Money ain't a thing” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcBH9wqQUnE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glEiPXAYE-U http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRcnnId15BA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcBH9wqQUnE Miami http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwBS6QGsH_4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwBS6QGsH_4

12. Conventions of Hip Hop Music Easy delivery of complex rhymes; bonus for speed Women as sexual objects Bragging (rooted in The Dozens game) Rapping skills Sexual conquests Sexual prowess Rise from poverty to wealth Disposable income

13. Artifact Analysis Assignment Analyze a cultural artifact Develop a thesis about the cultural work the artifact is performing and what the implications of that work are for youth in contemporary U.S. society. Prove your thesis with analysis, evidence and argument.

14. Hip Hop Critique Videos “Thrift Shop” by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis (clean edit) https://vimeo.com/56256943 “Wings” by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAg3uMlNyHA “Royals” by Lorde http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlcIKh6sBtc https://vimeo.com/56256943 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAg3uMlNyHA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlcIKh6sBtc

15. Based on your analysis of the verbal and visual rhetoric within this artifact: What is Macklemore’s thesis?

16. Complete Thesis What? What is the artifact doing? How? What is your evidence for this claim? So What? What is at stake? Why should we care? What does reading the artifact your way do for our understanding of it, the culture that produced it, or the people who consume, use or are affected by it?

17. Got questions? Elizabeth Bleicher ebleicher@ithaca.edu