Introduction


This is a site created to promote the development of a lesson plan I've been musing upon for a long time. It first came to me when discussing the monologue of a Shakespeare villain with Dr. Robert Stillman at UTK.
It centered around the nature of evil characters and people, and the ways in which they communicate. He'd mentioned many years ago he'd done a similar lesson, using the Holocaust, Mein Kamph, and a showing of Alain Resnais's Night and Fog.

This is basically my interpretation of that one assignment, expounded to include a modern day collage of various sources of hate rhetoric from around the world, and throughout history. I plan to use various online resources, Ning, wiki, etc. to compile and collect such information, and develop into a teaching lesson during my internship.

On a fundamental level, people think with words, yet few people realize the profound power and influence words can have on the world. I think this is a point that we, as English teachers, need to make sure our students are aware of.

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Goals

The lesson I'm primarily concerned with is how words and rhetoric have translated into acts of terrible violence throughout history. The lesson meets a plethora of English standards, from rhetoric and writing to critical thinking and analysis of complex texts. However, the ultimate goal of this lesson is to illuminate to students the profound influence of language, and as an extension, the dangers of 'othering'.

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Contributions

I have a vision for this wiki to end up as a sort of "information pool" of various sources of rhetoric and the violence caused by it throughout the world. If you're interested in contributing this pool, please feel free to contact me, and I'll be happy to add you as a member to the site. If you are not that comfortable with using technology, feel free to leave me information and links to resources, and I'll add the contributions myself.

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A note: This all started as a small assignment in a technology class at KSU, which I suddenly realized would be a great subject to turn into my master's thesis. A big thanks to Brian McDearmon for his contributions in the early stages of this, and to anyone else who contributes in the future.


-Zach