In the spring, I am helping to pilot a visual rhetoric textbook for the 2nd semester of the First-year Comp sequence. In the past, this course has focused on formal argument via the Toulmin Model and the Rhetorical Triangle. I'd like to maintain as much as I can of the rhetorical focus while bringing visuals into the mix--not as contingent to the verbal, but in synergy; and not purely as objects of analysis, but also as possible inventive/expressive strategies. If anyone has attempted/accomplished this in hir own classes, I'd love to hear how that worked for both teacher and student writers. Any resources to share? (The textbook we're using is Rhetorical Visions: Reading and Writing in a Visual Culture, 2006, eds. Hesford and Brueggemann.)

Also, I'm looking at the possibility of using visual/video representations of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina for one unit, focusing on the documentary gaze (cf: Kozol)/discourse of witness (cf: Zebroski) as guiding metaphor. I'm especially interested in first-person accounts or representations of first-person accounts. This will be in a computer-mediated classroom with plenty of tech support. Can anyone recommend applicable resources?