Group Project--Chapters 1-5. To be presented in class on September 24.

Below you will find a case scenario. Each of you will be assigned to one of the teams in this scenario.

Your job will be to come up with a recommendation to make to the other three groups about what action to take, based on the case. You will have ten minutes’ time for oral arguments to present your group’s position. After all four groups have expressed their position, there will be time for a quick conference, then each group will have up to five minutes for rebuttal.

For your team to successfully persuade the others, you will have to

and then

· develop an action plan to recommend to all the groups.

Your team’s performance will be graded on

  1.  the evidence that you have used what you learned in chs. 1-5 to analyze the situation
  2.  the case you make to the other groups
  3.  the care with which you listen and prepare your rebuttal
  4.  the teamwork you demonstrate (it must be clear that everyone on the team has played a role)

Extra credit will be awarded to the team whom the class decides has presented the best case. This decision will be made by secret ballot.

Plainfield, SC, is a small central Piedmont town. It used to be a big fabric-producing town, but now that many of the mills have closed down, it is mostly a goods-and-services place. People in the town are very proud of their children and of Araising them right.@

Bobby Owens is fourth in his senior class at Plainfield High. He is an Eagle Scout and a youth leader at First Baptist Church; he got early admission and a scholarship to Clemson. He was one of the candidates for homecoming king and is very popular not only with his classmates but with the people he knows in town. His family is not very wealthy.

Since the 1920s Plainfield High has sponsored an art contest for members of the senior class. The cash prize for the winner is only $50 and a showing in the high school lobby till graduation, but there is an additional reward: the blue-ribbon winner=s painting is displayed in the rotunda of Plainfield City Hall for the months of June and July. Typically, some leading citizen or organization of Plainfield then buys the picture from the artist for about $500, providing her or him with a little extra money for starting college or career. The contest is judged by the chair of the art department at Winthrop, the chair of the art department at USC, and the president of the Charleston Professional Artists= Guild, so standards are high and the competition is keen.

Bobby did well in his two art electives in high school but you wouldn=t really call him an artist. Yet this year Bobby has surprised his classmates by submitting a painting for the 75th anniversary of the contest; titled Decision, it is a representational portrait of a girl, though her face is in shadows. She is seen through a window, staring at a bed while holding a knife. Her body is about three quarters visible front on, but her head is turned away so no one can say for sure it=s Bobby=s girlfriend Trish, even though both Trish and the subject of the painting have blonde hair and angel tattoos on their right ankles. The young woman in the painting is nude.

The painting wins first prize; the judges commend it for its mature insight, its excellent technique, and its command of emotion. A hubbub erupts when the decision is announced; most of Bobby=s classmates support him publicly but are less comfortable with the painting in private. Trish isn=t saying anything but her father is threatening to go after Bobby with a shotgun. The school board, Mayor and City Council must decide whether to break tradition and refuse to hang the picture.

Advocacy groups:

  1. Concerned Christians for Plainfield (group 1)
  2. American Civil Liberties Union, Central Carolina Chapter (group 2)
  3. Student Government Association, Plainfield High (group 3)
  4. Plainfield Parent-Teacher Association (group 4)