Ayala, Shuttleworth, Sun 1

Alex Ayala, James Shuttleworth, Ruochen Sun

Professor Erin Dietel-McLaughlin
Multimedia Writing and Rhetoric WR13300
December 11, 2015
Moreau First Year Experience
Moreau. A word dreaded by so many First Year Students at the University of Notre Dame
today. The short word represents the class called The Moreau First Year of Experience, a new
class that replaces the old physical education requirements at the University. The Class of 2019 is
the testing the waters class for the course. The courses goal is to help students transition to
college in an academic, personal, and social setting. The current freshman class has given
generally poor reviews of Moreau and its contents. As First Year Students who wish to make a
difference and change the University for the better, we created a satirical video to mock the class
and hopefully incite a change.
In response to this new class, we created a satirical video proposing the idea of taking
Moreau First Year Experience to the incoming freshmen in an effort to mock the class. The video
can be seen as a piece of rhetoric since it is in response to a certain situation. As Lloyd Bitzer
describes in The Rhetorical Situation, all pieces of rhetoric reply to a rhetorical situation and
pragmatically seek to produce [an] action or change (3-4). Our video shows some of the
faults of the Moreau First Year Experience by exaggerating the course materials. The reason that
we decided to critique the class was because we wanted the administration to see the need for a
complete revamping of the class. In order to create this change, our video has three audiences: a
surface audience, a secondary audience, and a tertiary audience. The surface audience, towards
whom the video is directly addressed, is the up-and-coming freshmen at Notre Dame. This

Ayala, Shuttleworth, Sun 2

surface audience allows us to incorporate much of our satirical and exaggerated material in a
humorous but serious way. The secondary audience is our fellow Notre Dame freshmen who take
the Moreau First Year Experience like us. Our tertiary audience, the administration and designers
of the Moreau course, is not directly implied, but can be inferred from the video. The reason that
the administration is the tertiary audience is that the administration can incite change. An
audience that can arouse change is known as a rhetorical audience (Bitzer 8). Our piece does not
simply aim to complain about the course, but seeks to make a change through the rhetorical
audience. As our video mocks the new course, the only audience that could make a change to the
course is the administration. The connection between the rhetorical audience and the video
comes with the surface audience. The administration consistently attempts to create a strong
public image for the university in order to lure more students to apply to Notre Dame. If our
video were to circulate the internet, the universitys public image would take a hit and the
number of applications may also be damaged. Therefore, our video attracts the administrators
attention by showing the need for a change.
In an effort to make our point clear, we address parts of the class that many students have
given negative feedback about with a satirical lens. We used satire for this piece of rhetoric
because satire effectively reforms societal issues. Satire is potent because it gives [the audience]
emotions and [throws] the absurd into prominence (Ziv 40). In our video, satire is used to
show the faults of Moreau in a humorous way. We, personally, and many other of our peers have
complained about how we learn things that are just common sense, such as how it is healthy to
go to bed early and yes, how to make friends. Because of this, the largest theme of our video is
the exaggeration of learning things that are generally known. For example, we showcase a
student learning how to eat properly, which addresses how students think that learning about

Ayala, Shuttleworth, Sun 3

topics like knowing that sleeping is healthy for you is just as ridiculous as learning how to eat
would be. In addition, the reason the spokesman said, we also understand that many students
will have never learned how to be a real person because they spent all of their time trying to get
into Notre Dame is that by making them learn about common sense topics, many students feel
that the administration does not think that new students know how to be a normal person in
todays society. Thus, we are consistent with what Ziv writes because we hope to give the
audience a feeling of happiness from their connection to the course and because the absurdity
that is brought into prominence is those common sense topics. Obviously, most of our video is
not actually factual, but there are some elements of truth that do help add to the humor. For
example, the statistic about one hundred percent of freshmen taking the course is true. However,
we use that statistic and use it to make it seem like freshmen want to take the course rather than
the course being a university requirement.
The response we hope to garner from most of our viewers is ultimately laughter and
change. As we mentioned earlier, our secondary audience is our fellow freshmen. We hope that
they will be able to appreciate our exaggerations and connect them with their actual experiences
in the class. Those connections should be able to cause our fellow students to recognize the
veiled insults and laugh. The other response we seek is from the administration. We want
something to change about the Moreau course, whether it is cancelling it altogether and requiring
physical education again, or restructuring it to be more effective and less pointless. Even if the
video does not cause immediate change, it will show the administration how students feel in a
more effective way than simple student feedback surveys. The video will show administrators
how students have enough angst against the course that they are willing to put in time and effort
to seek change.

Ayala, Shuttleworth, Sun 4

The Moreau First Year Experience is in dire need for modification. Our video utilizes
satire and rhetoric to show this extreme need for change. It mocks the course by exaggerating the
courses content. In addition to examining the content, the video also develops a rhetorical
position by emulating traditional styles of a proposal video. The video will attract the
administrations attention due to its potential to damage the universitys public image. The
administrators will see the need for change and more fully understand the students feelings
against the course. In the end, our video will incite necessary changes through the administration
with a humorous yet serious tone.

Ayala, Shuttleworth, Sun 5

Works Cited
Bitzer, Lloyd F. The Rhetorical Situation. Philosophy & Rhetoric 1.1. (Jan., 1968): 1-14.
JSTOR. Web. 24 Sept. 2011.
Ziv, Avner. The Social Function of Humor. 26-43. Print.