This in-class visual rhetoric activity was submitted by Professor Sara Hasselbach. You can download a copy of the assignment here.

Visual rhetoric assignments are similar to close-reading assignments, asking students to close-read an image in a similar way that they would close-read a text. Using visual details as evidence, students can create arguments about the message the artist may be conveying.

In this activity, students work in groups of 3 or 4 to analyze two engravings by 18th-century political satirist William Hogarth. Through a series of 6 guided questions, they gain practice with the following skills:

• Interpreting visual details, including tone
• Distilling information into shorter statements (topic sentences)
• Comparing companion pieces and analyzing their associations
• Writing a thesis statement for comparative analysis

Professor Hasselbach explains how she paces this activity in a class that meets for 80 minutes. Breaking the assignment into three sections––questions 1 & 2, 3 & 4, and 5 & 6––she gives groups 15 minutes to work on one section at a time. The class regroups for about 10 minutes of discussion before moving onto the next section.

She also notes, “If time and occasion permit, and if students seem to like these images, it’s worth knowing that the USD print gallery owns a number of Hogarth engravings (I believe one of these, even)! I’ve set up print gallery visits for students to view them, and they tend to enjoy the change of venue.”