Course Calendar

• Key rhetorical contexts: purpose, audience, and occasion; reader-based writing that accomplishes something
• Key terms: rhetoric, ideology, analysis, assumption, assertion, claim, argument, context, critical thinking
• New York Times [+subscription info]
• St. Martin’s Handbook: 
  • 1d Becoming an engaged reader and active listener
  • 7a Reading print and digital texts
  • 8b Thinking critically about argument
• Digication and my example
• Digication getting started video

Advice: For most of us, college is the only time in our lives when we get to read and write and talk about ideas. Don’t squander it while you’re here.

In class: NYT Page A1 and Sunday Review section

Due: article summary on “Can Dreamers Trust Anyone?” — Sunday Review, page 11 — bring your summary in digital form, emailed to yourself, or on your laptop; we’ll need the digital version so that we can post them to your Digication site, which we’ll work on in class. Here’s my example.

In class: NYT, as assigned

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: Rhetorical précis — Bruni, “The Real Campus Scourge”

Background: St. Martin’s Handbook — 

• 8e Identifying elements of an argument
• 8f Identifying fallacies
• 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.

For class discussion, we’ll focus on p. A1 and the Sunday Review section — come prepared to discuss.

In class: NYT, as assigned

In class: For class discussion, we’ll focus on p. A1 and the Sunday Review section — come prepared to discuss.

Due: Rhetorical précis #3 — Sitaraman, “Our Constitution Wasn’t Built for This”

 Week 3
Reading and writing rhetorically: ethos, pathos, & logos

In class: NYT, as assigned

Due: Rhetorical précis #4 — your choice:

• “Amber Tamblyn: I’m Done With Not Being Believed” — SR3
• Thrity, “An American Story of Writing Across Race” — SR9

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 — no longer on Netflix, but is available via Hulu and Amazon Prime — free trials are available for both.

Due: Rhetorical Précis #5

In class: 

• “How to Win a War on Drugs” Kristof, SR1 
• “Do Women Get to Write With Authority?” Krauss, SR4
• “Trump Rebukes Athletes. A Star Posts , U Bum.” Page A1

St. Martins Handbook PART TWO—Critical Thinking and Argument

7. Reading Critically
8. Analyzing Arguments

Reading: NYT, Brooks — “The Abbie Hoffman of the Right: Donald Trump”

Due:

• Rhetorical Analysis test drive (in class)
• Annotated copy of a NYT article for your Rhetorical Analysis: post a photo on your portfolio and bring the paper version to class

In class: Writing Center Presentation; moving from summary to rhetorical analysis

St. Martins Handbook PART TWO—Critical Thinking and Argument

7. Reading Critically
8. Analyzing Arguments

In class: NYT, “”What the Cubs Could Teach the President” (SR 3)

Peer reviews: St. Martin’s Handbook: 4b

Due: Rhetorical Analysis draft #1
Previewing: good editorial reviews and feedback

 Week 5 Advocacy and Argument:

Op-Ed Project … and why you’ll want to be in a good writing group the next several years

Reading: NYT TBA

In class: Preparing Editorial Peer Reviews — SMH 4.b

Due: Rhetorical Analysis, draft #2

Send your peer-review notes to your partners by 5:00 p.m. Sunday:

Use your SMH 4b.: 

• Read “Understanding the role of the peer reviewer” — read carefully — it’s just a few paragraphs, but they are good paragraphs
• A summary of the draft: use the examples from Compliments | Constructive Criticism table — 2-3 from each column
• Apply our assessment criteria that we brainstormed yesterday  
• Provide editorial feedback — no proofreading! — in 3-4 fully developed paragraphs

In your final draft for Tuesday, add to your Rhetorical Analysis page:

• The peer review I received (paste it in)
• The peer review I gave (paste it in)
• If you have a Writing Center Report, add it there

In class: NYT, “Seeing Through a Glass, Darkly” (SR 9) and be responsible for A1 and the Sunday Review section

Due: Rhetorical Analysis, draft #3

Rhetorical Analysis assessment criteria: 

• The rhetorical analysis uses precise rhetorical terms in order to describe the rhetorical structure & strategies of the persuasive NYT essay
• The writer’s emphasis is on analysis, not on her opinion or a summary
• TBA on Tuesday, we’ll collaborate
• TBA on Tuesday, we’ll collaborate

Preview Persuasive/Op-Ed Essays & Letters to the Editor:

• Procedure: How to
• Background: Tips for getting your letter published
• Successful examples from DePaul students

• Last names A-L: submit by Thursday 10/26
• Last names M-Z: submit by Tuesday, 11/7

Reading: NYT, as assigned

Due: Op-Ed Inquiry Question, posted to Digication

In class: Op-Ed Inquiry Question Workshop

Reading: “Why Are More American Teenagers Than Ever Suffering From Severe Anxiety?”

In class: Persuasive Writing Workshop

Due: Op-Ed inquiry question & your 350-500-word exploratory essay; yellow-highlight your best, or most interesting, or most compelling, or most intense sentence:

• Connect & Analyze
• Contextualize
• Imagine & Design
• Act & Socialize in an Op-Ed Essay

Reading: NYT “Why Are More American Teenagers Than Ever Suffering From Severe Anxiety?” continued 

Due: Op-Ed project 2nd draft 

What’s in your self-editing toolkit? Brainstorming, revising, editing, proofreading

• SMH: Levels of revising, editing, and proofreading: Chapter 4, especially 4b (“stages”), 4.g,  4.h, and 4.i.
• [P] [I] [E] paragraphs
• SMH: Paragraph transitions: 5.e-f
• SMH: Intro/Conclusions — “special purpose”– 5.g

Reading: NYT Obituaries, A 28-29: moved to Thursday

• Can you identify 2-3 conventions for Times obituaries? All genres have their own conventions — lyric poems, academic essays, science-lab reports — and obituaries do, as well. What are they?
• Which obituaries stood out for you? Why?

Due: Op-Ed Draft #3, and made available to Peer Reviewer; mark-up 2-3 [P] [I] [E] paragraphs 

In class:

• SoundCloud
• Phenomenology — sense 1c.
• Phenomenological, adj.

What we’re looking for is your experience reading the essay — how it made you feel, not making corrections or arguing back. A phenomenological-reading peer review is a description, so we expect to hear you saying things like,

• “This made me feel …”
• “I felt swept right up in the rhythm of that paragraph …”
• “I’m confused here. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to get from this”
• “That made me laugh”
• “This made me a little sad”
• “This reminds me of …”
• “My essay is on a similar topic, and this made me think about …”

Post your SoundCloud link to Digication

• Upload a file directly, bypassing SoundCloud altogether
• Or record directly into your peer-review partner’s Digication page; to give them that kind of access, make them Editors under your Settings > ALSO SHARE WITH SPECIFIC PEOPLE, GROUPS, OR COURSES

Reading: NYT Obituaries, A 28-29:

• Can you identify 2-3 conventions for Times obituaries? All genres have their own conventions — lyric poems, academic essays, science-lab reports — and obituaries do, as well. What are they?
• Which obituaries stood out for you? Why?

St. Martin’s Handbook:

• 4h: Revising titles, introductions, and conclusions (SMH)
• 4i: Editing paragraphs and paragraph transitions
• 4l: Proofreading the final draft
• CMOS: Proofreading
• SMH Top 20
• Why It’s So Hard to Catch Your Own Typos

Due: Op-Ed, final draft & Journal Reflection; submitting mid-term portfolios in class

 Preview: Remix the New York Times

Reading: NYT “Happiness Is Other People” (SR1) and Kristof: “Hey Men, Listen Up” 

In class: Remixing the New York Times workshop

Due: Remix worksheet — in class; bring 2-3 good questions

Reading: NYT TBA

In class: Remixing the New York Times workshop

Due: Remix “draft” #1 — can be messy & rough — photo, sketch, etc. moved to Tuesday, 11/7

Reading: NYT Sunday Magazine: “Stop Motion” — Jane Coaston, pp. 9-11.

Due: Remix “draft” #1 — can be messy & rough — photo, sketch, etc.

In class:

• Remix Workshop
• Portfolio preview

Reading: NYT, “I’m a Lesbian Who Hates Cats. I’m Going to Die Alone.” SR7.

In class: Digital Portfolio Workshop

Reading: NYT, as assigned

Due: Remix final with user’s manual; Remix Statement of Goals and Choices (SoGC)

In class: Digital Portfolio Draft Workshop

Our scheduled exam time, when we will meet for the final, official delivery of your WRD 103 Digital Writing Portfolios and Dialogic Reading Journals: Tuesday, November 21st,  11:30 a.m.-1:45 p.m.

If you’d like to turn your portfolio early, prior to the official date, here are some opportunities to do that:

• Wednesday, 11/15, 10:00 a.m.-noon — my office, 362 SAC
• Sunday, 11/19, 1:00-3:00 p.m.  — our classroom, 300 SAC

You can locate final exam times for all of your classes here.