Eng 471 Calendar

8/28

Introductions
Syllabus: theory
The Rhetorical Triangle and rhetorical analysis.

8/30

Homework: perform a rhetorical analysis on a text or object that you can bring to class.
In class: A Natural History of the Chicken--illustrating how the meaning of "chicken" is socially constructed.

9/4

In class: The Persuaders.
Read and annotate chapter one of Literary Theory: a Very Short Introduction. Pay special attention to the examples Culler draws from from Foucault and Derrida. Also read and annotate "The Dehumanized World," by Berger and Luckman. Annotate means using a pen or pencil (not a highlighter) to underline key ideas and write notes to yourself. Notes can be paraphrases of key ideas, questions, or ideas of your own that relate to the passage at hand.
Discuss presenting readings.

9/6

Read and annotate Sternberg's "The Economy of Icons" and O'Hara's "Constructing Emancipatory Realities."

9/11

Read and annotate Culler, Chapter 2: "What is Literature and Does it Matter."

9/13

Read and annotate Culler, Chapter 3: "Literature and Cultural Studies."

9/18

Read and annotate Culler, Chapter 4: "Language, Meaning, and Interpretation."

9/20

Read and annotate Culler, Chapter 7, "Narrative," and Chapter 8, "Identity, Identification, and the Subject."

9/25

Read and annotate "Introduction," from The Truth About the Truth.

9/27

Mid-semester project: use rhetorical analysis of texts to show how an important concept is socially constructed (25 % of semester grade). For this paper, select a "text" (perhaps a literary or journalistic text, or perhaps an "alternative text," like an art work, an advertisement, or anything with design and intention) that participates in some way in the definition of a social concept within a culture.
Note: you should try to limit and define the culture you're referring to. Rather than referring to "society today," try to refer to something like "student culture at Viterbo," "the drinking culture of La Crosse," "my family's culture of gender stereotyping." If you can't get that specific, at least narrow the focus somewhat: "talk show culture," "the culture of advertising," or even "American commercial culture." These are still very broad strokes, but they're slightly more limited than "our society today."
Once you've selected a text, a concept, and a culture, then use the rhetorical triangle to study the three main positions of text, author, and audience. Ultimately, this close analysis of a single text should clearly illustrate how one small site of social construction works within a larger network of texts and social acts--the existence of which network your paper should suggest--to define your chosen concept.
Your paper should begin with an introduction that describes how you became attracted to this text, and justifies your study of it in an academic context. By "justify," I mean argue for the significance of your study, anticipating an audience that might see studies of Brittany Spears or South Park as too trivial for a university context. In this justification, draw from the Culler book and/or the excerpts from The Truth About the Truth to help support your argument.
The main body of your paper should consist of a well-organized report of the findings of your rhetorical study of your chosen text. Note the emphasis: the main body of your paper is not the study of the text--the main body reports the findings of the study you have already executed. When carrying out this study, you should make your best effort, through primary and secondary research, to "get at" the author and audience positions on the rhetorical triangle. When your research hits its limitations, you should explain those limitations in your report. In other words, you should raise the questions you were unable to answer as "questions for further research." The text position is a little bit easier, since your own direct analysis of the text will fit that slot.
Conclusion: in the final section of your paper, you have an opportunity to speculate about the importance of your chosen text in larger cultural operations. What does your one little study suggest about how the whole big thing works?

10/2

Library work day: by end of class, please let me know what you're working on, i.e., what text, what culture, what kind of research you're planning to do, what you're anticipating as discoveries and difficulties in the process.

10/4

Library work day.

10/9

Project presentations: Kim, Megan, Nathan, Brian

10/11

Project presentations: Eric, Reuben, Aften, Ashley

Friday, 10/12

Projects due to me by 5:00 PM

10/16

From Landmark Essays: Writing Process, Janet Emig.
Discuss "Composition and Rhetoric."
Discuss second half project.

10/18

From Landmark Essays: Deena Metzger, "Writing for Your Life" (227) and William Stafford, "A Way of Writing" (231).

10/23

From Landmark Essays: Ann Berthoff, "The Intelligent Eye and the Thinking Hand" (107)

10/25

No Class

10/30

From Landmark Essays: Flower and Hayes, "The Cognition of Discovery: Defining a Rhetorical Problem" (63) and Sondra Perl, "Understanding Composing" (99).

11/1

From Landmark Essays: Sondra Perl, "The Composing Processes of Unskilled College Writers" (39).

Final paper assignment: Frame a specific question regarding the creative process, then attempt to answer that question drawing on secondary sources (from our course readings and/or your own research) and direct observation of a working writer, artist, designer. This paper should include the following sections:

An introduction that articulates your question within the context of other studies (i.e., a "review of literature" something like Janet Emig's).
A description of your primary research methodology, i.e., how did you study your research subject, and why? What are the advantages and shortcomings of your approach to the research?
A clearly organized report of the findings of your study, i.e., what you learned from your primary and secondary research.
A conclusion which suggests how this knowledge could be applied to writing and/or the teaching of writing, and which suggests further questions that might be answered by subsequent studies.

11/6

From Landmark Essays: Mike Rose, "Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language: A Cognitivist Analysis of Writer's Block" (85)

11/8

From Landmark Essays: Lester Faigley, "Competing Theories of Process," (149)

11/13

Proposal due for Final Project--discuss.

11/15:

Work day on final project--meet in Franny's.

11/20

Revisions due of Midterm projects

progress reports on final projects

11/22

No Class

11/27:

Work day on final project--meet in Franny's.

11/29:

Presentations: Megan, Eric, Aften

12/4:

Presentations: Reuben, Kim, Nathan, Ashley

12/6

No class

Final Exam

Friday, 12/14, 9:50 - 11:50 AM: final projects due.