In our final week, we want to go for an understanding of the big picture, as well as clarify issues and fill in any gaps in our learning.
I invite you to post questions, issues, or topics for discussion as responses to this blog post. Then I'll try to plan our class meetings around your interests.
What do you want to know more about? What would you like to have a shot at clarifying? What insights would you like to share with us for discussion? Anything about rhetoric is open for discussion.
Enjoy!
Bill
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Essay Four: Reflective piece for English 360
The reflective piece serves as an analysis of your learning in English 360 this term. It is also the fourth graded essay for the course. In this piece, you have a chance to point out your strengths, to synthesize your learning for the term, and to try to identify the most important of those learnings, as well as discuss how you produced them. Note: This is not to become an argument for a grade. Instead, it is a chance for you to (a) discuss the highlights of your work in the course and (b) show, on a metacognitive level, what you know about what you have done.
At the least, there are several questions you want to address in the reflective piece:
What are your strengths as a writer? What tools have you acquired or improved upon this term? When you look at our rubric, which dimensions do you see as your strongest?
How do the essays you have written and the thinking you have done about class readings and discussions demonstrate or exemplify your strengths as a learner and as a communicator? How do you see your essays as connected with your strengths? How did those opportunities help your develop your strengths?
How did you manage to use those essays and your blog entries to develop your strengths? How did you manage all the input from your peers? What did you learn that you found particularly useful? What process(es) did you use in developing your essays, blog entries, and other class knowledge to their current state? What did you learn about yourself as you did that? This is an opportunity for self-evaluation—a self-assessment that, if done well, will surely demonstrate your effectiveness as a learner in this course.
Basically, again, you want to point out the highlights in your work and to demonstrate that you understand how you achieved those strengths. I’d expect these essays to be 4-5 pages in length, but as with any other assignment, a piece of writing should be as long as it needs to be.
The details:
If you want to use one of your course essays for the Jr. Writing Portfolio, hand it in with this essay and include the cover sheet with that essay (clip them together). Feel free to include more than one essay and cover sheet. You can only use one essay from this class in your Jr. Portfolio, but you can have me sign off on more than one and make your choice later. Or you can do things the hard way and find me for a signature when you are scrambling to get your Junior Writing Portfolio finished. Your choice.
At the least, there are several questions you want to address in the reflective piece:
What are your strengths as a writer? What tools have you acquired or improved upon this term? When you look at our rubric, which dimensions do you see as your strongest?
How do the essays you have written and the thinking you have done about class readings and discussions demonstrate or exemplify your strengths as a learner and as a communicator? How do you see your essays as connected with your strengths? How did those opportunities help your develop your strengths?
How did you manage to use those essays and your blog entries to develop your strengths? How did you manage all the input from your peers? What did you learn that you found particularly useful? What process(es) did you use in developing your essays, blog entries, and other class knowledge to their current state? What did you learn about yourself as you did that? This is an opportunity for self-evaluation—a self-assessment that, if done well, will surely demonstrate your effectiveness as a learner in this course.
Basically, again, you want to point out the highlights in your work and to demonstrate that you understand how you achieved those strengths. I’d expect these essays to be 4-5 pages in length, but as with any other assignment, a piece of writing should be as long as it needs to be.
The details:
If you want to use one of your course essays for the Jr. Writing Portfolio, hand it in with this essay and include the cover sheet with that essay (clip them together). Feel free to include more than one essay and cover sheet. You can only use one essay from this class in your Jr. Portfolio, but you can have me sign off on more than one and make your choice later. Or you can do things the hard way and find me for a signature when you are scrambling to get your Junior Writing Portfolio finished. Your choice.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Essay Three Assignment
First, choose a modern text on which to perform a rhetorical analysis--a text from the 20th or 21st century. The text may be written, oral, electronic, or a hybrid. That is, it may have been intended for a reader--a written text, intended to be read; or it may be a written text intended for oral delivery or an oral text subsequently written down. Or it may be a multimedia text--a video presentation, a web-delivered text, a YouTube video, a TED talk, etc.
Next, think about the rhetorical effectiveness of the text. How does it engage the rhetorical devices you’ve read about, from the Sophists forward? How, specifically, does it use tropes, figures, schema, etc, from ancient rhetoric--and how does it adapt those devices for modern audiences and media? How does it participate in the more recent adaptations of the ancients: Locke, Vico, Campbell, Whately, etc? And, especially, how and how well does it exemplify what you'd call modern rhetoric? Make notes here, getting down to a granular level as you try to understand the text, as well as the rhetorical knowledge that went into it.
Finally, write a 5-ish page essay in which you argue, from your own point of view, how this text exemplifies modern rhetoric--or not--and what rhetorical knowledge contributes to the ability to understand a modern text. In other words, analyze the text in order to develop an observation about rhetoric in the modern era.
Bring a draft to class on Thursday, November 17. The final essay is due in class on Tuesday, November 29.
Enjoy!
Next, think about the rhetorical effectiveness of the text. How does it engage the rhetorical devices you’ve read about, from the Sophists forward? How, specifically, does it use tropes, figures, schema, etc, from ancient rhetoric--and how does it adapt those devices for modern audiences and media? How does it participate in the more recent adaptations of the ancients: Locke, Vico, Campbell, Whately, etc? And, especially, how and how well does it exemplify what you'd call modern rhetoric? Make notes here, getting down to a granular level as you try to understand the text, as well as the rhetorical knowledge that went into it.
Finally, write a 5-ish page essay in which you argue, from your own point of view, how this text exemplifies modern rhetoric--or not--and what rhetorical knowledge contributes to the ability to understand a modern text. In other words, analyze the text in order to develop an observation about rhetoric in the modern era.
Bring a draft to class on Thursday, November 17. The final essay is due in class on Tuesday, November 29.
Enjoy!
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