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Week one:
1/13
-
Intro:
"Rhetoric," "Composition": what is this "Field?"
-
Terms: "The
Rhetorical Triangle" ("Audience, "'Text,'" "Author"), "Intention," "Social
Constructivism," "Truth" (no, I won't actually define it).
1/15
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Reading:
syllabus, especially Course description
-
Response
writing #1: choose anything that provoked a response from you--a
conversation, product packaging, song lyrics (not actual music,
though, which is very difficult to rhetorically analyze), the design of a
useful or artistic object, or... etc. Using the "Rhetorical Triangle,"
discuss the way this "text" made an impact on you. What
features of the text were most responsible for its affect? What was
its affect? What does the text say about its author? What does
the text say about its audience?
-
Intro to
the Sophists,
Socrates and Plato.
Week two:
1/20
1/22
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Reading:
Medieval Rhetoric: Augustine, from On Christian Doctrine, Christine
de Pisan, from The Book of the City of Ladies.
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Lecture:
Medieval Rhetoric
Week three:
1/27
1/29
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Reading: Renaissance Rhetoric: Desiderius
Erasmus, from Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style, Francis Bacon,
from Novum Organum, Madeline de Scudery, from Of Conversation
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Lecture: Renaissance Rhetoric
Week four:
2/3
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Second response writing
due: script a 3-5 page, double-spaced dialogue between Socrates
and any other figure from our reading thus far. In your dialogue,
Socrates and his partner (opponent?) should explore a line of questioning that
leads toward the relationship between rhetoric and truth. Do your best
to hold your characters to the positions you think they would take, based on
your understanding of the readings. Don't feel pressured to try to
approximate their dialects or speaking styles, though. In other words,
your characters can speak in the conventions of 21st century English.
2/5
Week five:
2/10
2/12
-
RC: chapter 3, pp. 25-33 only
-
Third response writing
due: In 3-6 pages, use the readings and lectures to summarize Classical
through Enlightenment rhetoric. Make sure to name 3 principle ideas,
conflicts, questions, or issues in rhetoric, and trace them through each
period's key thinker(s), as you see them. Obviously, this history will
be a substantially reduced version of what is already a thumbnail historical
sketch. Speak broadly, but support your generalizations with quotes
from, or characterizations of, particular thinkers.
Week six:
2/17
2/19
Week seven:
2/24
2/26
*********
3/2
-- Spring Break: no class
3/4
-- Spring Break: no class
*********
Week eight:
3/9
-
Artifact workshops: Gretchen, Conan, Chanel,
David, Sherry
3/11
Week nine:
3/16
3/18
-
RC chapter 11: pp. 383-390 + 401-406 (half
the class read each sample essay)
-
RC chapter 9: pp. 299-305 + 320-325
-
Fourth response writing
due: Develop a compelling research question that might be used to
examine the rhetoric of the artifact you chose for your artifact workshop.
In this response paper, provide the research question, then explain why you
think it would lead to significant findings about the artifact and about how
rhetorical processes work. In evaluating your papers, I'll draw on the
guidelines for formulating a research question, laid out in Foss, pages 14-16.
Week ten:
3/23
3/25
Week eleven:
3/30
-
Methodology workshop for term paper: bring your artifact to class, if you can,
along with your preliminary research question and your preliminary ideas about
how to answer that research question. To prepare for the workshop,
please review the specific methodologies in RC that seem most
appropriate for your study, and come to class prepared to discuss the pros and
cons of these. Please bring your RC text to class. In your
workshop, try to either select a methodology or piece together an effective
methodology of your own invention, based on some of the characteristics of the
methods outlined in RC.
4/1
-
Intro to the process movement
-
Paper proposals due (30 points). Provide a
description of your artifact and the context in which it operates.
Provide your finalized research question, explaining how it relates to the
artifact's context, and explaining why the research question is worth
pursuing. Provide a description of your proposed methodology, justifying
your selection of that methodology instead of others. Provide a timeline that
shows how you'll complete your research and writing process (refer to the
essay assignment sheet for relevant draft workshops and final due dates).
Scores on the proposal will be based on the manageability of the project, the
significance and interest of the research question, and the appropriateness of
the methodology for answering the question.
-
EXTRA CREDIT: for 15 extra credit points, attend
Terry Tempest Williams's presentation, "Ground Truthing" (FAC Main Auditorium,
7:30 pm) and write a 1-2 page response, focusing on some aspect of Williams's
rhetoric.
Week twelve:
4/6
-
From Landmark Essays (LE): Emig, "The
Composing Process of Twelfth Graders" and Perl, "The Composing Processes of
Unskilled Writers" (skim pages 41-45, and skip the appendix, but read the rest
attentively).
4/8
Week thirteen:
4/13
-
Reading: from LE: Hairston, "The Winds of Change: Thomas Kuhn and the
Revolution in the Teaching of Writing," and Faigley, "Competing Theories of
Process: A Critique and a Proposal,"
4/15
-
Reading: essays from LE: Flower and Hayes, "The Cognition of
Discovery," and Berthoff, "The Intelligent Eye and the Thinking
Hand."
Week fourteen:
4/20
4/22
Week fifteen:
4/27
-
Presentations: Sherry, Conan, Kathryn,
David, Karrie
-
Response Essay Five Due: Draw on your experience
as a writer and a writing student, and at least two of the articles from
Landmark Essays: Writing Process, to assess the values and shortcomings of
the writing process movement. Do you feel that process research and
pedagogy is effective and worthwhile? If so, how so? If not, why
not, and how can we, as writers and/or writing teachers, build on the
limitations of the movement?
4/29
Finals week
-
Monday, May 3: additional exam review or help-session w/ term paper 5:00 PM,
RC 003
-
Take-home essay exam
-
Thursday, May 6: 3:00-5:00 PM:
Final Exam. Term
Paper Due.
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