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RHE 321 course description


Submitted by longaker on Wed, 11/07/2007 - 3:26pm.

This thread is intended to begin the discussion about the course description, which I put in all of your boxes last week. If you don't have this document or need another copy, please let me know. I'll be glad to deliver.

I propose that we eliminate or replace the last (3rd) paragraph and the list of recommended texts in the interest of opening up the course. I make this suggestion for two reasons:
(1) Reviewing the 3 syallabi that have been taught for RHE 321, I see a range of flexibility not reflected in this description.
(2) Reviewing the conversation at our dept. retreat two years ago, I notice many calls for flexibility. For instance, Peg requested "latitude for faculty to teach in their strengths." Davida wanted allowances for "individual instructors to teach to their strengths." The conversation turned to the need for restraints but consensus developed that these constraints should be with regards to course goals, to questions, and not to texts, assignments, historical periods, thinkers, etc. Trish summarized this sentiment when she said the course would be restrained in terms of "goals, not content."

The course description, as it's presently written, particularly the 3rd paragraph and the list of recommended readings point exactly to the kinds of restraints to which many objected in the departmental retreat: periods, media, assignment types (students will "read, discuss, and apply at least two different contemporary rhetorical approaches"), etc.

In lieu of these paragraphs, perhaps we could articulate course goals. Something like:
At the end of this course students should be able to: (1) analyze a controversy; (2) argue a position in a controversy; (3) analyze a specific effort at persuasion; (4) argue a position with regards to a key question in the discipline, such as: "What is the relation between civic virtue and persuasive ability?" "How can be best teach people to be responsible and effective writers/speakers?" "What is the relation between language and truth?"

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How about something like
Submitted by longaker on Fri, 11/09/2007 - 8:19pm.

How about something like this:

At the end of the term, students should:
(1) Be able to write and/or have written a substantial rhetorical analysis.
(2) Be able to write and/or have written an argument relevant to a contested issue.
(3) Be able to discourse about some of the major issues in the field (such as What is the relationship between truth and language? How do technologies of communication affect discourse? What is "good" public argument? What constitutes a quality rhetorical education? etc.)
(4) Be able to talk and write about some of the canonical figures in rhetorical studies.
(5) Be able to apply the basic principles of rhetorical study (kairos, appeals, public discourse) to contemporary situations.

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I'm fine with your revised
Submitted by faigley on Thu, 11/15/2007 - 2:50pm.

I'm fine with your revised list, Mark. I would make three stylistic revisions.
1. Delete "and/or have written" (be able to write implies familiarity).
2. Move "be able to" before the colon.
3. Change etc. to "and so on."

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Ok.
Submitted by longaker on Thu, 11/15/2007 - 9:57pm.

So, do we agree that the following should replace the third paragraph in the present RHE 321 description:

At the end of the term, students should be able to:
(1) Write a substantial rhetorical analysis.
(2) Write an argument relevant to a contested issue.
(3) Discourse about some of the major issues in the field (such as: What is the relationship between truth and language? How do technologies of communication affect discourse? What is "good" public argument? What constitutes a quality rhetorical education? and so on.)
(4) Write about some of the canonical figures in rhetorical studies.
(5) Apply the basic principles of rhetorical study (kairos, appeals, public discourse) to contemporary situations.

If so, please register your consent, so we can move onto the next topic: What should we provide new instructors of RHE 321 by way of guidance?

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btw
Submitted by ddd on Mon, 11/19/2007 - 2:10pm.

Since this is an upper-div course, we don't have to come up with course materials for new instructors. Our two-part task involves:

1. Reviewing and perhaps revising the current course description for 321
2. Drafting a description of the broad goals for this course

So we are already almost there...

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slight tweak
Submitted by ddd on Mon, 11/19/2007 - 12:08pm.

I'm a little uncomfortable with some of the language in this list, so i tweaked. See what you think about this:

At the end of the term, students should be able to:
(1) Write an effective rhetorical analysis.
(2) Write a responsible argument relevant to a contested issue.
(3) Discourse about some of the major issues in the field (such as: What is the relationship between truth and language? How do technologies of communication affect discourse? What is "good" public argument? What constitutes a quality rhetorical education? and so on.)
(4) Situate the significance of some of the canonical figures in rhetorical studies.
(5) Apply the basic principles of rhetorical study (kairos, appeals, public discourse) to contemporary situations.

My reasons for the tweaks are probably clear, but this may be something we'll want to discuss. Be right back.

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More...
Submitted by ddd on Thu, 11/08/2007 - 3:54pm.

I just read over the documents, and it does seem to me that what the 3 different syllabi have in common is an effort to foreground the rhetorical principles: exigence, audience, kairos, forum, commonplaces, ethos-pathos-logos, etc. One thing we talked about in one of our faculty discussions of 321 is that though it should give students a sense of rhetoric's history and historical development, it should not turn into a simple history of rhetoric course--they should be getting that in the 330Ds--and none of these syllabi do that. Each syllabus historically situates the study of rhetorical principles, but for each, the principles are foregrounded. Each syllabus also includes a handful of "major figures" in the history of rhetoric: Gorgias, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Richards, Burke, etc. And each syllabus requires students to both analyze and produce, teaching rhetoric both as an interpretive and productive art. Perhaps we could extract some "goals" out of these common practices?

When students leave 321, for example and in no particular order, i'd like them to
1) know a little bit about the history of rhetoric
2) be able to differentiate between a rhetorical inquiry and, say a historical or philosophical one
3) be able to analyze a "text" (broadly defined) rhetorically by calling on their understanding of certain rhetorical principles
4) be able to name at least a small handful of rhetoric's "major figures" and confidently discuss each one's contribution to the study of rhetoric
5) be able to responsibly and effectively advocate for their chosen position by drawing on their understanding of certain rhetorical principles, and
6) produce effective written prose

I think each of those goals could be accomplished via very different methods, and one could as easily teach it in a CWRL classroom using blogs and other Web 2.0 options as in a traditional classroom relying mostly on print.

I should note, too, that I offered the very first 321 course during the very first semester we had a major. So as is painfully obvious in my syllabus, i was in *recruitment* mode. I had a parade of DRW faculty members come in and talk about what they do in 330C, 330D, and 330E, and I tried maybe too hard to incite interest in the major in various ways. I was desperate, in other words. :) However, as i apparently said in the 2004 DRC retreat, i don't think 321 ought to be a kind of sampling of the 330s.

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Agree
Submitted by ruszkiewicz on Mon, 11/19/2007 - 10:49am.

JR

These strike me as sensible goals for an introductory course. They help to differentiate RHE 321 from the 330s while, at the same time, at least preview the interests of those required classes. Perhaps the third goal could specify different "in different media" rather than just acknowledge "'text' (broadly defined)"? And we'll want to tweak the language: What's academese for "a little bit"?

We probably need to define some parameters for the types and number of writing assignments since this is the one shared course our majors will take. But I'm not sure we need to demand three major projects of at least 1500 words. There's too many different ways of handling writing in a course like this. But, playing devil's advocate, perhaps we should require a research or term paper that leads students to explore basic research tools and gives them a form to follow for subsequent papers in the field? In other words, RHE 321 is the place where our students learn to write a fully developed, properly formatted and correctly documented academic paper. Nobody graduates in Rhetoric & Writing without that experience.

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research paper
Submitted by ddd on Mon, 11/19/2007 - 12:26pm.

Though I know you're playing "devil's advocate," I'd argue against requiring a term paper for all 321 classes and against making that course the place where everyone learns the proper term paper mechanics. First, i'm afraid it would end up limiting the focus of the course to research and documentation, when the faculty wanted this course first to introduce and help students engage with various rhetorical principles. I'm also afraid it would limit too much the sorts of rhetorical productions that might be invited in differently organized courses--it would certainly severely limit the intended forum for those productions (to "the teacher"). I'd much rather invite more active (less artificial) forms of engagement, especially since most of these students will not be going to graduate school. They will likely never write another term paper, probably not even in their other rhetoric courses, but certainly not after graduation.

My two cents.

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i agree...
Submitted by ddd on Wed, 11/07/2007 - 8:44pm.

I agree with you, Mark. And let me just say, for background purposes, that there are no particular investments in that last paragraph of the description or in the texts listed there. We were up against an extremely tight deadline to get the course description out to get it approved and on the books, so Linda asked me to do it, asap. (The date on my computer says Oct 1, 2005, 5:01 am.) I put together a rough first draft and sent it to Trish and Jeff to get their instantaneous input. We revised, polished, and sent it to Linda, who then revised some more and got it out. We tried to draw on what the faculty had said about what this course should "do" in terms of the curriculum and the major, but that last paragraph in particular, and the text suggested there, are nothing any of us would argue for.

Since part of our mission as a subcommittee is to articulate the goals of the course, that third paragraph seems to me a good place to do it. But i think we should discuss the specifics about the assignments in the second paragraph, as well.

More tomorrow, after i've picked up and looked at the docs you left in our boxes.
best, ddd

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