• Key terms
  • assumption
  • assertion
  • claim + plausible support =
  • argument
  • argument vs. persuasion
  • ethos
  • exigency
  • logical fallacies: your SMH 8f
• Key methods
  • summary
  • analysis
  • synthesis
  • integration — two forms: mechanical and rhetorical 

Test-driving our Rhetorical Analysis skills: Brooks, “The Retreat to Tribalism”

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.

Reading: TBA
In class:  Summary and analysis workshop; annotating & note-taking with digital texts:

• “Social Reading and Technology Design”
• MIT: Annotation Studio
• hypothes.is/

Due: Dialogic Journal Entry #1 — handwritten rhetorical analysis of “A Note From Our New Publisher” — 250-350 words

Background:

• St. Martin’s Handbook: Reading Critically 7a

Reading: Kristof, “Why 2017 Was the Best Year in Human History”
(Sunday Review, p. 9)
In class: Summary & Analysis, continued
Due:

• Article summary and annotated copy
  
• Dialogic Journal Entry #2: compare & contrast 3-4 different Reading Methods & Strategies with very specific examples

Reading: NYT, Douthat SR (11:20 section)
In class: Summary and analysis workshop
Due:

Dialogic Journal Entry #3: Describe and annotate three problems that you have experienced or seen — a description of the problem; your proximity to the problem; who the problem affects. Don’t provide a solution or thesis.

Reading:  Sunday NYT: “Without Her.” (SR 1)
In class: Mindful reading and other reading strategies


Due: Dialogic Reading Journal #4 — Video Tutorial: How to Search Academic Search Complete (3:08 video) — watch and test-drive video tutorial by applying it to two of your three annotated problems: comment/reflect on both the video tutorial and what kinds of sources you find, especially in terms of the problems’ potential & possible causes: interesting? Not interesting? Helpful? Not helpful? Include some journal and article titles; no need to be comprehensive — just some notes are fine.

Be prepared to give us a 60-90 second summary & overview of an article from the Sunday paper that you thought was interesting & significant, telling us why it is significant to you and why it should/could be significant to the rest us; we’ll do this in class.

Reading: NYT —

11:20 section: Keep Our Mountains Free. And Dangerous (SR 4-5)

1:00 section: The Heartbeat of Racism Is Denial (SR 1)

In class: Previewing the Contextual Analysis Project
Reviewing critical thinking vocabulary & concepts

Active & Empathetic Listening

Reading: NYT, Mustafa Umar’s “Islam Teaches Us That Life Is a Test. So Is This President” (SR 2)

Due: Inquiry questions for workshopping
In class:

1. Identifying an issue for research & developing a Research Question 
2. Exercise: Contextual Analysis Proposal & Map
   * Confirm that your completed proposal & map exercise is available on your Digication workspace for our library instruction session on Tuesday, January 30th
3. Tutorial: How to Search Academic Search Complete (3:08 video)
4. Exercise: Search Academic Search Complete and locate one article relevant to your topic. * Bring the article to the library instruction session

Background: review in St. Martin’s Handbook

• 9b Arguing to understand
• 10: Preparing for a Research Project
• 11: Conducting Research
• 12: Evaluating Sources and Taking Notes
• 13: Integrating Sources into Your Writing

Reading: NYT

11:20 section: “A Golden Age of Drag?” (Arts & Leisure, p 1)

1:00 section: “Does ‘Three Billboards’ Say Anything About America? Well …” — print and digital article titles are wildly different on this one — (Arts & Leisure, p 1)

In class: Workshopping Proposals
Due: Inquiry Question

Reading: NYT TBA
In class: Library Workshop — meet in Richardson Library, Room 110: focus on the hands-on searching aspect so that you can get personalized help during the session. 

Due: posted to your Digication:

• One article from your Academic Search Complete search
• Contextual Analysis Proposal & Map 

Due: Journal entry #5: How would you characterize your intellectual contributions to our class thus far? Provide specific examples.

Reading: NYT — bring your annotated print copy of “Why Is Hollywood So Liberal?”(SR12)

1:00 section: let’s also have another go at “Does ‘Three Billboards’ Say Anything About America? Well …”

In class: Writing workshop and Stasis Theory & Practice
Due: Contextual Analysis Draft #1: Exploratory — 500 words

Review in St. Martin’s Handbook:

• 12c Evaluating usefulness and credibility
• 13: Integrating sources into your writing

Dialogic journal #6: Your Contextual Analysis: what part(s) are you most looking forward to and about which you feel confident? What part(s) concern or worry you? 250 words +/- (Post-library workshop reflection)

Reading: NYT as assigned
In class: Contextual Analysis writing workshop

Review Contextual Analysis Scoring Guide

Reading: NYT TBA
In class: Peer Reviews
Due: Contextual Analysis Draft #2 —

• Mark every paragraph — except your Intro and Conclusion —  with a [P] [I] [E]

Reading: NYT — “Welcome to the Post-Text Future”

Find our WRD 104 Hypothesis Group and try sharing a generative annotation or note; see your email for instructions

Due: Dialogic Journal entry #7: credibility and “little leaps of faith”
In class: Contextual Analysis Writing Workshop

Reading: “Welcome to the Post-Text Future,” continued
Due: Contextual Analysis Draft #3 — Abstract (SMH 33b) and self-assessment scoring guide — moved to next Tuesday, 2/20

Hypothes.is review & discussion

Workshop: Proofreading

• Are sources integrated with rhetorical and mechanical sophistication?
• Are paragraphs fully developed and have transitions?
• Has the essay been proofread for clarity & correctness?
• Works cited: formatting and accuracy

Due: Dialogic Journal entry #8: Hypothesis test drive: “Welcome to Post-Text”

Reading: NYT T Magazine — for our Hypotheses annotations and shared reading for Tuesday: “The Power of Wearing Flowers”

In the print version of the Magazine, the essay is titled “Cover Me with Blossoms.”

• Can you identify the places where the writer is making persuasive efforts on contemporary issues?
• Please add your own generative and additive annotations, and respond to at least one classmate’s annotation. We’ll look at them in class on Tuesday.

Due: Contextual Analysis Draft #3
In class: Persuasive Writing Workshop

Due: Dialogic Journal entry #9 Hypothesis test drive: “Welcome to Post-Text” part II

Reading: NYT — “The Tyranny of Convenience” — your Dialogic Journal entry #10 will serve as our discussion prompts:

• Can you identify any connections to other issues we’ve discussed in class over the past eight weeks?
• How would you characterize the Wu’s rhetorical strategies?
• What generative questions arise for you from reading this essay?

In class: Persuasive Writing Workshop:

• Using stasis & common ground to make better arguments:

“A speaker persuades an audience by the use of stylistic identifications; the act of persuasion may be for the purpose of causing the audience to identify itself with the speaker’s interests; and the speaker draws on identification of interests to establish rapport between herself or himself and the audience.” — Kenneth Burke, A Rhetoric of Motives.

Identification, Burke reminds us, occurs when people share some principle in common — that is, when they establish common ground. Persuasion should not begin with absolute confrontation and separation but with the establishment of common ground, from which differences can be worked out. That is the point of our work with stasis.

• But also, how can you ask people to care?

Reading:

• NYT in print, Page A1, above the fold: “Nakesha’s Demons”
• Online title: A ‘Bright Light,’ Dimmed in the Shadows of Homelessness

In class: Digital Writing Portfolio Workshop

Due: Final draft, persuasive essay, scoring rubric & audio version

Reading: “A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.” – Arthur Miller, 1961

Due: Portfolio Draft
In class: Portfolio editing workshop

Final Exam Week

We will meet during our assigned Final Exam time for the final, official delivery of your WRD104 Reading Journals & Portfolios 

Section #228: Tuesday, March 13th 11:30 AM to 1:45 PM

Section #229: Thursday, March 15, 2018, from 11:30 AM to 1:45 PM