Course Calendar

 Week 1
Introductions, key concepts, & course goals

• Key rhetorical contexts: purpose, audience, and occasion; reader-based writing that accomplishes something
• Key terms: rhetoric, ideology, analysis, claim, argument, context, critical thinking
• New York Times [+subscription info]
• St. Martin’s Handbook
• Reading
• Digication and my example

Due #1: post your revised initial, first summary in précis form, and keep both versions; we want to be able to see your original summary and the revised version, in précis form. Here’s one possible organizing principle for that.

Due #2: Due: Rhetorical précisSt. Martin’s 13b: ”Working with quotations”; note how some of the signal verbs are rhetorically active verbs (“claims”) and some are not (“says”). Can you tell the difference? Samples.

In class: Page One: Inside the New York Times
Due: Rhetorical précisReading: NYT, as assigned Sunday via email:
Everyone should read the front section and the Sunday Review section; you should also be seeking out sections that tend to interest you more than others — Sports, Business, Arts, Style & Fashion — try to note stories, trends, and writers that interest you.

In class: We will begin class by going around the room and hearing an informal 60-90 second overview of an interesting article that you read in the Sunday NYT — any section, any topic — why it was important and relevant to you, and why it should be important and relevant to us. It’s a great way to get a tour of the Sunday paper, and to find out what people are interested in.

• Page One: Inside the New York Times, continued
• Rhetorical Analysis notes; St. Martin’s chapter 8 on reading & analyzing arguments, especially 8g: A student’s rhetorical analysis of an argument

• 9b: Determining whether a statement can be argued
• 9i: Organizing an argument
• 9k: A student’s argument essay

Background:

• Wordle
• Oxford English Dictionary

The first sentence of your first paragraph will begin, “I have come to believe that _______________________ …” The first sentence of every subsequent paragraph will begin with some variation on, “I wonder sometimes, however …”
“And sometimes I wonder …”
“But sometimes I wonder …”

• Procedure: How to
• Background: Tips for getting your letter published

• Portfolio Assignment
• First Year Writing Portfolios: formatting, banners, and generative ideas
• Portfolio Showcase

Types of First Year Writing Portfolios:

• Organized by learning outcomes
• Organized by curatorial method

Due: Letter to the Editor