Examining 19th Century Reform

The 19th century, and into the early 20th century, was a time of dramatic change. With the
kickoff of the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th/early 19th century, the industrial changes and
technological advancements led to a shift in human interactions. In this course, students
examined various conflicts and expressions of reform in the 19th and early 20th centuries. In
particular, we focused on labor conflicts and reform. One of the primary goals of this course was
to learn how to effectively create, support, and communicate an argument through a variety of
projects. Each project addressed a WOVEN (Written, Oral, Visual, Electronic, Nonverbal) aspect
and allowed us to develop unique argumentative styles. In each project, we analyzed different
characters and events, created an argument about our subject of interest, and used factual
evidence to support our arguments. The multimodality of the projects taught us to express our
arguments in diverse ways.
The written project best demonstrated our mastery of written English, as well as our
handle on a standard argumentative style. One of the projects in the class was a Reacting to the
Past game. In the game, students role-play to re-enact and learn about an important event in
history. In this game, students followed the events of the Paterson 1913 Silk Strike and wrote
an essay-speech arguing the opinions and viewpoints of a certain character. My character
was a weaver in Paterson, and she was a strong feminist with anarchist tendencies. In my
initial draft of the essay-speech, I wrote an essay about supporting womens emancipation. I
used some instances from the game to support my argument and a few historical facts, but
not much more. After being peer-reviewed and began revising for my final draft, I realized
that in order for my essay-speech to be effective and serve its purpose, it would have to
sound more like a speech. It had to be more convincing. I changed the speech to be in first-

person, used stronger diction to emphasize my thoughts, and spoke directly to my audience. I
spoke to the workers and manufacturers about incorporating womens emancipation into
their respective objectives for the strike. I also reached out to the townswomen of Paterson
and encouraged them to stand up and make a change for themselves. I used a variety of
citations- both historical support and examples from the game sessions- to validate my
reasons for supporting womens rights. This essay-speech helped to improve my rhetoric,
argument, research, and process skills. In order to create an effective argument, I went
through the drafting, peer-review, and revising process to develop and use creative rhetoric
in my essay-speech. As every good argument needs support, my research skills helped me
find credible historical evidence to validate my argument. While I thought I had mastered
persuasive writing in high school, this project allowed me to re-examine my persuasive
writing skills and add creativity to create a far better argument.
The oral and nonverbal projects allowed me to improve my verbal communication
and presentation skills. The first project of the semester was a podcast that analyzed an
aspect of 19th century industrialization. My group decided to have a debate between a factory
manager and an employee in the factory. Throughout the debate, we analyzed the various
goods and evils of industrialization through perspectives such as wages, working conditions,
and technology. After writing our initial script, we realized that it was boring and wouldnt
translate to an engaging podcast. We incorporated rhetoric such as humor and dialect to
spruce up our script. When recording our script, we acted in-character, as well as used voice
inflection and enthusiasm, to reflect the added rhetoric. We also added music and sound
effects to enhance certain parts of the podcast we wanted to emphasize. Through the use of
oral and auditory rhetoric, we were able to improve our argument and make it more engaging.

However, throughout the project, we lacked historical evidence in our podcast. Although this
was a weakness in this project, this setback made me begin to understand the importance of
factual evidence and support to substantiate an argument.
The Pecha Kucha presentation, the nonverbal artifact, was the final project this
semester. Based on our experiences in the Paterson RTTP game, my group members and I
had to create a game centered around the events of the 1914-1915 Fulton Bag and Cotton
Mill Strike. We presented our game design in a Pecha Kucha presentation. The Pecha Kucha
was a unique presentation style that allowed this project to have very similar characteristics
to the podcast project. Although the presentation was not completely oral and did have a
visual aid (the PowerPoint), we had to convince the audience through a verbal argument that
our game design was well-planned and reasonable. To make this even more challenging, the
Pecha Kucha followed a strict format: there were 20 picture slides, each presented in 20
seconds, resulting in a total presentation time of 6 minutes and 40 seconds. This meant that
we could present only the most important information about our game design. This project
definitely tested and improved our argumentative skills. Rather than just using standard
historical evidence, we branched out and drew upon occurrences and examples from the
Paterson RTTP game to validate our game design. We also had to carefully choose the
images to include in the presentation, as the images played a crucial role in supporting our
presentation of the game design. Overall, this project taught me to identify and communicate
the most important ideas, as well as diversify my methods of validating an argument.
The verbal artifact, my labor poster, also helped me develop my nonverbal
communication skills. The purpose of this project was to create a labor poster based on a
labor conflict in the 19 th/20th century. Although we did write a supporting artists statement

to explain the background behind the poster and its significance, I wanted to focus on being
able to portray an effective argument through an image. My poster was based on a child labor
conflict, and the theme was Lost Childhood. To depict this, I drew a picture of a child
working while dreaming about playing with other kids. The picture was framed by bold text
advocating the end of child labor. This image changed and altered with each draft in order to
make the message of the poster very clear. This project made me implement visual rhetoric
to communicate my argument. The image coupled with the text created a simple, yet
powerful poster that created a clear message about ending child labor.
Periodically throughout the semester, we read articles and documents about 19 th
century conflict and reform. We also read Contesting the New South Order by Clifford Kuhn,
which was a nonfictional account of the 1914-1915 Fulton Bag and Cotton Mills Strike.
Based on these readings, we would write commonplace discussions and post them on
Canvas, which was our classs online platform. These commonplace discussion serve as my
electronic artifacts. The discussions werent entirely different from written artifacts, as I had
to write about an aspect of the reading that interested me and factually support my argument.
However, the discussions integrated other types of media, allowing my argument to be
expressed in a unique way. Each discussion started with a quote that alluded to the topic of
interest, which effectively hooked readers into the discussion. The commonplace would
also include a form of digital media, usually an image, that would relate to and support the
discussion. Finally, the discussion would end with a series of summarizing hashtags, adapted
from Twitter. The commonplace discussions allowed me to tie together all the forms of
communication I had been practicing all year to create an effective argument.

On the first day of class, my professor showed the class an image and asked us to
analyze it. Everyones analysis was similar- except for mine. My professor assured my
much-panicked self that as long as I could support my argument with appropriate evidence, it
would be legitimate. This is perhaps the most valuable skill I have learned in this course.
Throughout the course, I have been able to experience a variety of perspectives, as well as
offer my own unique perspective. By supporting my thoughts and ideas with historical and
contextual support, I was able to substantiate my arguments, and eventually turn a big
weakness into a strength. Through the multimodal projects, I also learned a variety of ways
to express an argument and support it- be it written, verbal, visual, or electronic. Even
though this course has ended, I would like to continue to hone the communication skills I
have learned this semester. With everything I articulate, I want to use diverse and effective
modes of communication, as well as back my argument with factual evidence and support, to
strengthen my communication.