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Lectures: 2 sessions / week, 1.5 hours / session
Rhetoric is the art and craft of discourse; it is the study and creation of effective communication and persuasion. Studying rhetoric teaches us not only how to write persuasively but also how to understand the rhetorical efforts of others. Understanding rhetoric gives us the means of judging whose opinion about issues is the most accurate, useful, or valid, because such knowledge allows us to see beyond the persuasive techniques to the essence of the opinions. Further, understanding rhetoric is the best way of understanding the assumptions of and the points made by those who disagree with our positions. Further still, understanding rhetoric is the best way for us to deepen and refine our own positions and beliefs by exploring our own assumptions and our cultural contexts. In short, rhetoric teaches us how to find the limits of our own positions, how to argue effectively against others' positions, and how to create powerful and persuasive arguments for our own beliefs.
At its best, rhetoric is used ethically by people of good will who wish to present their ideas forcibly but fairly to their communities. At its worst, however, rhetoric is used unethically by people to manipulate us instead of enlightening us, to spread propaganda instead of seeking truth, to make palatable those ideas and products whose adoption actually runs counter to our best interests. Understanding rhetoric, then, is our best defense against its abusers - e.g., political "spin doctors," advertisers, demagogues, apologists for immoral business practices, and hate mongers. Using rhetoric in an ethical manner is our best method for becoming agents for positive change in our society.
This course is an introduction to the history, the theory, the practice, and the implications (both social and ethical) of rhetoric, the art and craft of persuasion. This semester, many of your skills will be deepened by practice, including your analytical skills, your critical thinking skills, your persuasive writing skills, and your oral presentation skills. In this course you will act as both a rhetor (a person who uses rhetoric) and a rhetorician (one who studies the art of rhetoric).
"Imagine that you enter a parlor. You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about. In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before. You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him (sic); another comes to your defense; another aligns himself (sic) against you, to either the embarrassment or gratification of your opponent, depending upon the quality of your ally's assistance. However, the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress." - Kenneth Burke. (Burke, Kenneth. The Philosophy of Literary Form. 3rd ed. revised. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1974, pp. 110-111. ISBN: 9780520024830.)
"I imagine good teaching as a circle of earnest people sitting down to ask each other meaningful questions. I don't see it as the handing down of answers." - Alice Walker (Walker, Alice. Meridian. Fort Washington, PA: Harvest Books, 2003, p. 206. ISBN: 9780156028349.)
This course requires your attendance, participation, and on-time production. I do not distinguish between excused and unexcused cuts: if you are not in class, you are not contributing.
Just about every class session leaves some ideas unspoken, some questions unasked, some concerns unaddressed. The forum on the class Web site is the place for speaking those ideas, asking those questions, and expressing those concerns. Everyone should post at least one meaningful entry each week (14 entries will earn you 5 points; no entries will earn you 0 points). These postings might be responses to questions or comments made by other students or by me, or they might raise a new topic. Rhetoric is everywhere around us, so some of your entries might point to articles in current newspapers, journals, the Tech, etc. that use particular rhetoric strategies and devices or that raise issues related to the texts that are assigned for class.
As the writer, bring a written list of specific questions about your content and organization. As a reader, give specific advice about how to deepen and clarify ideas, organization, etc.
Everyone writes the 1st Critical Reflection (CR). After that, you must write 2 additional CRs during the semester. Since students will have different interests as well as different schedules of exams, presentations etc. in other classes, I will leave it up to you to decide which 2 CRs you write. It is probably not a good idea to wait until the last 2 possibilities to write your 2 CRs. You must use the CR topics listed for each reading in the syllabus above.
The topics for your 2nd and 3rd Major Essays must be taken from the "Connections" questions that follow each essay (at the end of the "Suggestions for Writing").
Versions: Each ME must have 2 versions, and you have the option of writing a third:
Complete Workshop Draft: Only your peer's comment on this version.
Mandatory Revision: Decide how many (if any) of the suggestions made by your workshop group to incorporate; then fine-tune and tweak the essay. I grade each Mandatory Revision.
Each CR and ME should be a well-written, coherent essay that takes a position and defends it by using close analysis of the author's text, quotations from the text, and examples and personal experience drawn from your own knowledge. There is no need for research unless a particular question requests it. CRs and MEs are intended to give you training in thinking and writing the way ancient rhetors thought and wrote-emphasizing logical demonstration and arguing from principles while putting very little emphasis on expert testimony or statistics.
The "Suggestions for Writing" are phrased as prompts rather than as outlines for a complete answer. In other words, simply answering each part of the question is not enough. You need to give examples (quotations from the essay, explanations of your own personal experiences when appropriate). It's a good idea to consult "Writing About Ideas" (IDEAS, 833-852) if you feel stuck. After each assertion that you make, ask yourself
All out-of-class written work must be typed (no credit if handwritten). All out-of-class written work (Critical Reflections, Major Essays, Final Speech) must be emailed to me before the beginning of class on the day they are due; an automatic penalty if it is not.
Your CRs and MEs will be evaluated on the following criteria:
For CRs and MEs, assume that you are writing to a mixed audience - before reading your essay, some readers are skeptical about your thesis, some readers are undecided about it, others are hostile to your thesis, some are indifferent to it, and some agree with it. Your readers include students from other comparable universities, so you cannot simply allude to our class discussions.
For speeches, your listeners are the people actually in the room with you - namely, your fellow students and me.
I correct the way technical editors do - namely, I correct the first occurrence of an error and explain how to fix it, then I leave it up to you to go through the rest of your essay and make similar corrections.
There are no penalty-free extensions. Please do not ask. If you have to pass something in late, then you have to pass it in late. There will be a 10% penalty for each class meeting that the assignment is late (so an assignment that is worth 10 points would lose 1 point; an assignment that is worth 30 points would lose 3 points).
I use an easy-to-figure system: Each task is worth a certain number of points which, when all added together, equal 200 points. So your total number of points is equal to the following to determine your course grade:
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Here are the values of each activity:
|1st Major Essay (Sophist)||35|
|2nd Major Essay ("Connection")||35|
|3rd Major Essay ("Connection")||40|
|Critical Reflection 1||20|
|Critical Reflection 2||20|
|Critical Reflection 3||20|
|Final Persuasive Speech (Oral + Written)||20|
|Class Forum Entries, Class Participation, etc.||10|
I do not round averages up-so, if your final point total is 179.9 points, your grade is still a B+.
Write an additional Critical Reflection (i.e., a 4th one or a 5th one - no more than 2 extra credit CRs)
If you have no cuts for the whole semester, I will add 5 points to your point total. Only 1 cut for the whole semester, I will add 3 points to your point total.
In all academic writing, then, you must give citations each time you use
Further, you show appropriate respect for other writers and thinkers by giving them credit for their ideas, their structures, their phrasings, and their information. In Western culture, not giving credit is an insult as well as an act of dishonesty.
In other words, never take credit for someone else's words, ideas, or style (this prohibition includes material found on the Web). Although the material on the Web is free, you did not create it; someone else thought it, researched it, wrote it-and that someone must be given credit.
There are 4 guidelines for using sources in your academic writing:
In sum, your essays should always be your own work (but you are encouraged to seek writing advice from the Writing Center and from workshops). Your essays should always be your new work created specifically for this course. Using work written for other courses will result in an unchangeable zero.