Integrating Theory and Content Learning
Integrated theory and content learning by developing and completing a comprehensive communication project.
Mural: Mexican Mermaid Artist and photo credit: Sharon Dowell
Integrated theory and content learning by developing and completing a comprehensive communication project.
I am finally working on my Capstone! I am in the home stretch, the final leg of the marathon that is graduate school. My thesis is the culmination of everything that I have learned over the past three years. It is what I have been working toward.
I was not one of those people who knew what they wanted to do their capstone on when they began. I did not determine that until the semester before I started COM 680. It was truly the Visual Rhetoric and Aesthetics class that helped me identify my interest in how visuals impact our decisions and identities and truly forced me to look more closely about what I am interested in.
In looking back, I see the pattern of curiosity about this topic and how my classes led me here. My interest in the use of visuals as persuasive symbols is evident in my rhetorical analysis of the Carolina Panthers Facebook page and how they used them to influence their fans collective identity. The examination of Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s “Notorious RBG” nickname and the crooked crown graphic and how she became a cultural icon to Millennial’s and finally now I am exploring murals impact on the perception or identity of a neighborhood. I will be examining this through a phenomenological approach, in other words, how our experiences can shape the way we create meaning from a mural or other visual item and how those experiences lead us to developing a narrative for a specific place.
My proposal which was submitted last semester outlines how I am going to proceed with my project. Through the examination of two murals in the South End neighborhood I hope to answer that research question and by doing so better understand how our experiences lead us to interpret the meaning of murals and how they may in turn lead us to apply that meaning to a place.
Looking forward, I can see myself utilizing this paper and its findings by sharing it with others who can benefit from it, such as urban planners, artists, educators and any other agencies interested in better understanding the impact murals make on a community. I also see me applying this principle in my work to give a more thoughtful approach to how people may perceive images meaning based on their own experiences.
Below is an example of the integrating theory and content learning outcome:
Inquiry Project Proposal: Impact murals have on a neighborhood