COURSE OVERVIEW:
The catalog description for ENG 306 first mentions that the course will cover “rhetorical theory and practice.” Our theory will come from studying what ancient Greek and Latin rhetoricians taught their students about how to use language to persuade. We will, I hope, discover that–oddly enough–these millennia-old theories in fact do have striking relevance to writing produced today. Our practice will be producing in at least a couple of media informal and formal texts on contemporary issues: we will begin with issues arising from your participation as students in an institution of higher learning; then, in the latter part of the semester, you will be selecting, investigating, and writing about an issue of your own choosing. Throughout the semester, you will be reprising what those classical rhetoricians taught their students to do: participate in debate about important (and often quite controversial) civic issues. (No lack of those these days.)
The second part of the catalog description for this course indicates that it will emphasize the “analysis and production of persuasive texts in various contexts, genres, and media.” The course text, a classic in the field, will help us with both of these tasks. We will also be looking at how others have tried to be persuasive; and we will learn better how to write “persuasive texts” ourselves.
STUDENT LEARNING OUTCOMES (SLOs):
By the end of this course, you should be able to do the following:
- Demonstrate rhetorical awareness by writing in ways that are appropriate to particular purposes, contexts, and audiences.
- Demonstrate knowledge of genre as a concept by adapting stylistic conventions to differing rhetorical purposes, contexts, and audiences.
- Demonstrate understandings of rhetorical theory by analyzing rhetorical practices and, in the process, successfully utilizing appropriate terminology, disciplinary frameworks, and scholarship.
- Produce texts in at least two different media.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS AND PROCEDURES:
Letters to the class, posted to the class’s Lamakū site (20% of the course grade)
A portfolio based on the letters to the class (10%)
A commonplace book (10%)
Two substantial rhetorical analyses (20%)
A proposal (10%)
Four peer reviews (10%)
A major argumentative essay (15%)
Class attendance (5%)
Group report on a chapter from the course text (more about this in class)
We will work our way through the course text, applying what we are learning to, first, writing about issues that involve where you are going to school: the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa (about a decade ago, I was the oxymoronic Faculty Administrator for the UH-Mānoa General Education Office; so I have lots of material from that experience to share); and, second, to issues that the class itself decides to investigate. This is decidedly not a lecture course (although I will probably deliver a few mini-lectures during the semester), so be prepared to do some careful reading and thinking, a lot of writing, the taking of (and maybe even the abandonment of a few) positions, and what I hope will be productive collaboration with your classmates.
Since this class is writing intensive, we will also spend time in class talking about writing as a process: your major pieces of writing will all go through a process of drafting, getting feedback, revising, and editing.
REQUIRED TEXT:
Sharon Crowley and Debra Hawhee, Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students, 5th edition (Pearson, 2011).