In Class Writing 2

Yesterday morning I happened to notice some very strange things within Johnson Complex A, where I live in my residence hall. These strange things happened to be flyers, upon closer inspection. And not just any flyers, they were political flyers. I remembered that we were having a hall council meeting and election later that night. I had some time, so I scanned the walls of the lobby and tried to find good candidates to vote for. Strangely enough, all the flyers were very short and heavily focused upon visual rhetoric. One candidate wore a cowboy hat, saying he was for the working man. Another wore a business suit and promised that he would bring in more money for the council. A female candidate running for P.R. chair advertised that she was rather popular and people listened to her when she spoke becuase she was loud. Obviously we had some pretty lousy candidates. I lost interest, then started on my way to my next class. Who did I see near McKinnley street, right outside the stadium? Charlie Cardinal. Again, this made think of the visual rhetoric implied in our daily lives. The rhetoric in Charlie is that he's Ball State's mascot, and when we see him we should fell more proud of who we are as students of Ball State. Not only that, the bright colors and the excited, dance-like actions of Charlie are meant to engage us at sports events and help us cheer on our sports teams. To most people on McKinnley, however, they do not appear to want to be engaged and simply want to go to class. Though when someone with a shirt or piece of clothing with the Ball State name or logo passes by Charlie, they become excited and dance with him and look happy. The visual rhetoric of those with Ball State apparel reminds me to stay away from them in the future at sports games.

This activity has changed my perception of visual rhetoric a bit; I tend to look just a little deeper at the logos and hidden meanings of the things I see. Like how the Teacher's College is a monument to commemorate the Teachers only.