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English 7620: Modern Rhetorics

Spring 2019 | Syllabus

Instructor

William P. Banks, Professor
Director, University Writing Program
Office: Joyner 1009
Phone: 252.328.6674
Email: banksw [at] ecu [dot] edu
Office Hours: Monday, 1:00 pm – 3:00 pm; Tuesdays 10:00 am – 12:00 pm

Introduction

One key contribution that rhetorical study has made to contemporary disciplinarity is the idea that perhaps time, whether chronos (linear, watch time) or kairos (opportunity, situational time), isn’t a particularly useful method for understanding how ideas come into being, how they operate, how they proliferate or how they move into disuse. In fact, rhetorical study continues to suggest that while any historical moment may privilege certain ideas about the world, about language, about writing, and about text, each of these moments also contains a host of resistant, subversive, or counter ideas that exist for the effective rhetor to marshal/make use of.

As such, this course is both a ‘history’ in the sense that we are going to explore certain rhetoricians/rhetors based on when they lived and what ideas they worked with during their lives, but it is also an applied course in that we will be working to connect rhetorical concepts over time to the impact those ideas have had on our ideas about writing/composing, and ultimately how those ideas have worked to shape modern and contemporary composition instruction.

Course Goals

Upon completing English 7620, graduate students should be able to

  • articulate a working definition of rhetoric that is both historically and personally relevant;
  • recognize and articulate rhetorical patterns/strategies and intellectual genealogies at work in major rhetorical theorists of the last three hundred years;
  • differentiate among different rhetorical theories based on their understandings of writing as an act, an artifact, and an idea;
  • locate, evaluate, and synthesize primary and secondary print and electronic bibliographic sources that contribute significantly to projects developed in consultation with the professor;
  • propose and carry out a sophisticated rhetorical genealogy project which demonstrates 1) the ability to postulate an advanced thesis regarding modern/contemporary rhetorical theories, and 2) the ability to integrate course texts and individual research in ways that assist in supporting the thesis/argument of the project.

To meet these goals, graduate students will typically read between 100 – 150 pages per week, take part in online discussion boards, post responses to readings/activities on individual blogs, and engage in other projects listed below.

Required Texts


Projects

The following brief annotations will provide some context for the work of this course. More thorough explanations, where necessary, will become available over the course of the semester through the “Schedule” and “Assignments” links on this website:

  • R² Trading Cards (20%) — In order to foster both depth and breadth of thinking/coverage in the course, students will be responsible for creating Rhetorician Trading Cards; these visual-verbal artifacts will take the place of traditional “reading responses” in the course. Each card will focus on a particular rhetorician from 1700 – 2018 CE and will be based both on what we read in class and individual research on the part of the students. Additional information and formatting available on the Assignments link above.
  • Lesson Plans (20%) — When students are not assigned rhetoricians to highlight as part of their biweekly trading cards, they will work together with other classmates to plan the key inquiry and discussion points for the week. These “lesson plans” will represent their reading response for that week. Additional information and formatting available on the Assignments link above.
  • Genealogy Project (30%) — Around midterm, students will propose a rhetorical genealogy of a key term or concept in modern/contemporary rhetoric (e.g., invention, ethos, argument, visual). This essay will address what scholars have said about the term or concept, paying particular attention to where scholars have disagreed and agreed regarding the concept or term. Essays will typically be 12 – 15 pages.
  • Rhetorical Teaching Activities (10%) — Following the “application” thread of the course, students will be expected to develop one teaching activity, suitable for a first-year writing course. Teaching activities should be focused on the rhetorical concept from the student’s genealogy project and imagine how this concept can be taught in a first-year writing course while maintaining some of the modern complexities involved in the concept.
  • Genealogy Project Presentation (10%) — At the end of the semester, students will construct a short presentation on their genealogy projects that connects the project itself to one of their teaching activities.
  • Studentship (10%) — Studentship refers to attending class, participating in face-to-face and online discussions, and meeting assigned deadlines for projects.

Expectations

Obviously, I expect a great deal of commitment from graduate students. By choosing to tackle graduate school, you have plunged yourselves further into the world of the scholar. I hope you will enjoy that work and take advantage of this time to read, write, and think about issues and ideas you haven’t considered before, or to go further than you have in the past. “Reading” in graduate school, especially for doctoral students, is an exhausting activity. While I expect graduate students to “read” everything I assign, I hope that you will learn quickly how to “skim and save.” Do NOT try to read all these texts like you would poems or novels, pouring over each sentence looking for nuances of meaning. Try to get the big picture, isolate the key arguments/points in the text, and keep it archived for future reference. Make notes as you go! Develop coding strategies for helping you to read the text now and that will be useful in a year or two when you need that text again. Some texts, I expect you to devour; others may not hold your interest. That’s normal. Regardless, I expect you always to have a passing acquaintance with ALL our readings and an engaged friendship with selected others. Obviously, I expect that we’ll have tremendous fun as we work hard together this semester.

Attendance

Graduate students by default should be at every class meeting, especially for a class which means only once each week. Emergencies and problems arise, so I can overlook your missing one week of class, especially since individual students can contribute significantly on the course blog the week they miss in order to “make up” for not being physically present. Missing more than once, however, will impact the course grade. Graduate classes rely on the presence of engaged students to be successful; as such, your absences will jeopardize learning for others, which isn’t acceptable.

Late Work

We all have very busy, trying lives, and as such, there come times when we have to complete some work late. Each student in this class is allowed an occasional late reading response, or other short piece of writing. Midterms assignments are set in stone and may not be late. Neither major projects nor drafts of major projects may be turned in late, as turning the drafts in late would invalidate the reason for drafting in the first place and turning in final projects late would prevent me from reading and evaluating them in time to turn in grades at the end of the semester. Students may always turn projects in early.

Conferences

Students should schedule conferences with me when they do not understand comments I’ve made on their projects or when they become confused about the expectations of this course. Likewise, I may require a certain number of individual and/or group conferences during the semester. After midterm, I will schedule conferences to discuss major project proposals.

Academic Integrity

Students are expected to be honest about individual and collaborative efforts and responsible to peer/secondary source materials that are included in their projects. Both plagiarizing and turning in work written partially or completely by someone else are forms of academic dishonesty and carry serious penalties, the least serious of which is a grade of zero on the particular assignment (and thus a D, at best, in the course), but could also result in failure of the class and even expulsion from the university. Students who keep up with their work and consult with their peers and their professor have no reason or need to “cheat.” Since graduate school focuses on research ethics in all classes, I expect that students will see me if they are unsure about how to cite or represent ideas/writing by others so that we can figure it out without ending up in a nasty plagiarism case.

Beyond that, when graduate students, particularly doctoral students, are working on the same topic across multiple courses, perhaps with the idea of using this work in a thesis or dissertation project, there are special consideration for course work on those topics. If you plan to work on the same topic/project in this class and another course, or if you’re wanting to move forward work from a previous semester in this course, please consult with me before doing so. Turning in the same project for two different courses fits the university definition of academic dishonesty, and while there are ways of doing this sort of thing ethically, it is best to discuss your idea with any faculty involved so that everyone knows what you’re planning to do and whether or not it is appropriate.

Accommodations

East Carolina University seeks to comply fully with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Students requesting accommodations based on a disability must be registered with the Department for Disability Support Services located in Slay 138 ([252] 737-1016 [Voice/TTY]).