The art of organizing your discourse

1. Arrangement
The art of organizing your discourse

2. FOUR FEATURES OF A STRONG ARRANGEMENT
1. It DEVELOPS the thesis statement by fleshing out its key
ideas.
1. It organizes those ideas in a LOGICALLY PROGRESSIVE
SEQUENCE THAT BUILDS TO A CLIMAX.
2. It signals the argument’s progress at the start of each
paragraph with TRANSITIONAL WORDS AND PHRASE.
1. It devotes the MOST SPACE to the most original,
interesting, and/or controversial aspects of the thesis, and
LESS SPACE to the less original, interesting, and/or
controversial aspects of the thesis.
2. It DOESN’T STRAY from the thesis.

3. FOUR FEATURES OF A STRONG ARRANGEMENT
A “climactic” sequence has an underlying organizing
principle. For example:
• Simple to complex
• Cause to effect
• Problem to solution
• Least controversial to most controversial
Their isn’t a “right” organizing principle. The most important
thing is that you choose one and that you can put a name to
it.

4. ARRANGEMENT OF JOHN’S CARRIE THESIS
Revised thesis: If Hunt is right that the most exalted political and moral values of the 18th
century are the unintended consequences of consuming some of that century’s most
“lowbrow” cultural artifacts, then we might ask whether contemporary pop culture
artifacts, too, are teaching us new ways of being human today. Are our psyches being
rewired in bold new ways via our consumption of seemingly silly Instagram stories,
schmaltzy reality TV shows, and schlocky horror flicks? Consider the example of Kimberly
Peirce’s recent horror film Carrie, an even gorier remake of the infamous 1970s splatterfest
based on Steven King’s first best-seller, All three tell the story of a teenaged girl who uses
her newfound psychic powers to take deadly revenge on her high school tormentors. On the
one hand, the new version of the film seems, contrary to Hunt, not to teach new ways of
being human but rather, to reinforce old ways of thinking, drawing upon shopworn clichés
that depict women as “more emotional” than men in ways that threaten the human
community. On the other hand, however, a video created as part of the film’s viral
marketing campaign has an altogether different effect on viewers. By foregrounding the
process with which the elaborate practical joke depicted in the video is carefully stage-
managed for maximum effect, the Carrie video fosters in viewers a critical self-
consciousness that reveals how their own seemingly natural world and their own seemingly
organic responses to it are in fact artfully constructed, how our own lives are actually roles
we have been cast to play in someone else’s script — and the joke has been on us. This new
critical consciousness is at the heart of some of the most important cultural transformations
of our time: from the Occupy movement to the Black Lives Matter movement to #MeToo,
contemporary activists are changing the world by refusing to play the roles assigned to
them in someone else’s script, instead writing counter-narratives of their own.

5. Arrangement
Simple —> Complex
Para. 1: Context: Lynn Hunt on empathy.
Para. 2: Thesis: See above
Para. 3: Summary Brief summary of what happens in the video.
Para. 4: Analysis:
Evidence:
Para. 5: Analysis:
Evidence:
Para. 6: Analysis:
Evidence:
Para. 7: Analysis:
Evidence:
Para. 8: Conclusion: By emphasizing how what we perceive as reality is constructed for
us, a script in which we’re assigned a role, the Carrie video teaches
us how to exercise ‘critical consciousness,’ etc.