Matt Hill
Assignments & Activities Archive
Activity Description
The activity is meant to encourage thinking about sonic pollution in our world and about the rhetorical nature of such pollution. It could also move into other sonic topics: effects of noise on hospital care, effects of anthropogenic noise on the natural world, how military sonic technologies have affected and continue to affect our sonic surroundings, etc. (see “Further Reading” for some sources to help students pursue further research in these sonic ideas and others). I use it as an invention activity to help students develop research topics. I base this activity on composer John Cage’s notion that everything we hear is “noise” (3), but the contexts in which we hear help us consciously and subconsciously define what we hear as “noise” or as something else (e.g., we often define pleasing noises as “music”). One goal is to help students develop a critical ear so that they may rhetorically analyze their sonic environments (soundscapes). I have students complete the first listening portion on the second day of an introductory course on sonic rhetorics, but it may easily fit at any point in your course. The activity presumes some basic terms about sound (such as pitch, ambient, harmonious, and discordant) that may need some definition beforehand. Additionally, this activity presumes some common FYC concepts will have already been addressed either in this course or in previous courses.