Title: RHETORIC OF PROSE COMPOSITION

PRQ:

Course Description: The course will focus on the rhetorical dimension of “writing studies,” including topics such as audience, purpose, genre, argument, and style. The goal is to challenge ideas about writing and rhetoric and discover how a complex view of writing and rhetoric applies to careers in writing and writing instruction.

Objectives: Examine the importance of rhetoric as an artful practice of persuasion. Identify new perspectives in rhetorical theory that have shaped writing, research, and teaching. Become familiar with sites and topics of rhetorical investigation. Interrogate sophistic approaches to rhetoric. Explore the ethical application of rhetorical principles to written and multimedia projects.

Note: 610 may be counted as an applied rhetoric course toward the doctoral requirement for “at least two courses required for the Ph.D. with a pedagogical or applied component from two of the fields of language, literature, and rhetoric” (Graduate Student Handbook 19).

Requirements: Weekly 500-word responses to the assigned reading. Demonstration of an example of rhetorical practice that relates to assigned reading. Mid-length essay on a writing studies topic of your choice (6-8 pages). Presentation applying rhetorical principles to a contemporary topic. Multimedia essay based on your presentation.

Bryan Garsten, Saving Persuasion: A Defense of Rhetoric and Judgment, Harvard U Press, 2006, ISBN: 978-0-674-03229-3

Jacqueline Jones Royster and Gesa Kirsch, Feminist Rhetorical Practices, Southern Illinois U Press, 2012, ISBN: 978-0-8093-3069-0

Michelle Smith and Barbara Warnick, The Responsibilities of Rhetoric, Waveland P, Inc., 2009, ISBN: 978-1577666233

Frank Luntz, Words that Work, Hyperion P, 2007, ISBN: 978-1-4013-0259-9

Adam Banks, Digital Griots: African American Rhetoric in a Multimedia Age, Southern Illinois U Press, 2011, ISBN: 978-0809330201