Summarizing the feedback you received, looking ahead to your revision

When you finish discussing all three posts, please write a summary of the feedback that your peers gave you and post it to our course blog. In this summary, I would like you to identify 2-3 features of your post that are especially effective in this draft, and 2-3 features that need further work, and explain why they’re effective or not. As you look ahead to completing your final draft, what revisions will you prioritize as a writer?

Continue drafting your individual blog post

Over the weekend, I’d like you to continue drafting your individual blog posts in preparation for our peer review workshop on Monday. To help you with this process, I would like to remind you to review all the rhetorical strategies of invention that we’ve studied this quarter and encourage you to use them as a way to generate your draft.

To help generate a focus for your argument, you might consider returning to the stasis questions or the common topics. Clarifying the kind of question that you’re answering might be one powerful way to help you frame your argument about your topic. Or, you might start by appealing to kairos and situating your discussion in relation to whatever current debates are going on in relation to your topic. You might also find a way to address appropriately a very specific audience who’s invested in this issue (and again, think of one that might be somewhat skeptical to your approach). Similarly, you might think about how you could develop your logical appeals or the reasons behind your argument, cultivate your ethos within your piece, or appeal to pathos. As we’ve also been talking about, identifying and presenting extrinsic proofs are also a compelling way to persuade your reader.

However you proceed, please aim for a draft of 3-4 pages by Monday so we can make use of our peer review time most productively. If you have any questions or run into any difficulties, please post a comment here and explain what kind of help you need. Feel free to respond to your classmates if you’re able to help out, and I will do the same. Good luck drafting!

Problems finding extrinsic evidence?

If you’re having difficulties finding sources that will provide you with extrinsic proofs, then please let me (and the rest of class) know by commenting to this post. In your comment, please explain what kind of information you’re trying to find, where you’ve looked or how you’ve searched so far, and what you’ve found so far. If you’re able to help other students out, then please share any resources you’ve found. I’ll also follow up and assist you, too.

Responding to your team’s rough rough drafts

In lieu of class today, I would like you to read the rough rough drafts of the writers on your team and post a comment here providing them with an initial response to their draft. (Basically, post a comment here to each writer, and make sure you make it clear in your comment who you’re writing to.)

First, tell them what you like so far about what they’ve written. What seems promising or interesting to you about their piece? Second, what questions do you have or could you pose about their piece? Include three questions that might help them evolve their argument as they continue to draft over the weekend. Last, identify at least one outside source that you think might provide them with a compelling appeal to extrinsic evidence and include it in your comment.

Rhetor’s Notebook Post #9: Rough Rough Draft of Your Individual Blog Post

Before class on Wednesday, I’d like you to post a rough rough draft of your individual blog post here as a comment. In this draft, I’d like to see you expand on what you drafted in class on Monday, using the rhetorical proofs as a way to “invent” your argument and support for this piece. In addition to appeals to logos, ethos, and pathos, I’d like you to begin including appeals to extrinsic evidence that will support your argument. Find at least one outside example that will help you in this regard. Also, explain what kinds of additional evidence you might need to enhance your argument’s persuasiveness. Aim for (at least) 250-350 words in this initial draft.

Revising with an eye towards style

To help you practice revising your writing on a stylistic level, I’d like you to pick a (substantial) paragraph from any assignment you’ve completed thus far this quarter. (This includes your essay on stress and the high school student, or your first or second DenveRhetor posts.) Identify at least one—but no more than two—elements from today’s reading from Ancient Rhetorics and see if you can use them as you revise your paragraph’s style.

Here are three suggestions if you feel stuck on which element to practice:

First, if your language in this paragraph isn’t as clear and direct as it might be, consider re-writing it (sentence by sentence) to clarify or state more directly (and precisely) the ideas you’re trying to convey. Keep in mind our textbook’s suggestion to “use words in their ordinary and everyday sense” (330), or to avoid circumlocution.

Second, review your paragraph for appropriateness of style. Have you written it in too grand a style or too plain (to use our textbook’s classification)? If so, how could aim for a more appropriate level to your style considering your audience? For many of you, you should be writing at a high-middle level. That is, you’re writing for well-educated audiences, who are not specialists, but expect a thoughtful and semi-formal style.

Third, as you revise your paragraph you might focus on sentence composition. If you tend to use the same kind of sentence (simple, compound, complex, or compound-complex), then revise it to include a variety of sentence types. Or, if you want to have a bit more fun, write your paragraph using one kind of sentence exclusively. What happens if you all of your sentences are simple ones or complex? Then, once you see how this looks, go back and vary your sentence composition to achieve different effects.

Fourth, if you’re feeling more adventurous, pick a figure of language, figure of thought, or trope, to include in this paragraph. Identify a moment in your paragraph in which using such a figure would enhance the impression you’re giving to the reader not just for ornamentation’s sake, but in a way that will enhance your argument.

Once you finish revising this paragraph, post the original one and your revision here as a comment.

Getting started on your individual blog post

To get started on this assignment, I’d like to imagine that you’re writing your individual blog to readers who are somewhat skeptical about the argument you’ll be making. They aren’t exactly hostile, but they certainly won’t automatically be in agreement with you. As you imagine these readers, try to identify a few groups of people who might fit this profile of a skeptical audience.

Now that you have this audience in mind, I’d like you to write a paragraph that explores the following: 1) Describe the larger debate that you are entering into and characterize the issue or the problem as you see it. 2) State as directly as you can (at this point) what you think your argument or your main claim will be. 3) Anticipate the counter arguments that your skeptical audience might state in response to your argument (or even in the way you’ve framed the debate). Identify two or three points that these readers might make against your argument. 4) Identify at least three rhetorical proofs that you could use to strengthen your argument in relation to these counter arguments. Explain how you would use each one as specifically as you can. (That is, don’t just write that you would appeal to pathos; instead, describe as precisely as you can what you would do to cultivate a certain emotional state within your reader and how you would use that emotional state to move them into agreement with your argument.)

Rhetor’s Notebook Post #8

Before class on Monday, your blogging team will need to meet to generate a focus for your team blog. Based upon your shared interests, your task is to identify a topic, issue, or theme around which you can all frame your individual posts. Together, I’d like to you write a proposal for this project and post it here as a comment to our blog. In this proposal, I would like to see you: 1) clearly describe the focus of your team blog and explain how it relates to current debates or discussion on this issue (that is, begin to situate your blog in terms of its kairos), 2) provide a tentative sense of how each individual writer will address this issue and explain what his or her argument might be about it, and 3) give us a sense of the larger significance of this issue and explain how it relates to the notion of the “public good.”

Exploring possible issues to blog about

Identify three topics that you think look interesting from the list we brainstormed together as a class (or from your initial list.) Write a brief paragraph for each issue: explore what you already know about this issue, entertain some possible arguments you might make about it, and explain why you’re interested in possibly writing about it.

Finding and evaluating extrinsic proofs: Part II

Before the end of the class, I would like you to work together in your peer review groups and for each writer, find three promising sources that could help you strengthen your appeals extrinsic proofs in your first essay. Use the search tools we discussed today in class (Academic Search Complete, Access World News, and Google Scholar), and aim to find three different kinds of sources. For example, you might find a news source, an article or study written by an academic expert, and information from a credible non-profit or advocacy organization. In your comment, identify each source (author, title, sponsoring organization or publication) and describe why you think it is credible.

Finding and evaluating extrinsic proofs: Part I

Now that we’ve had a little fun at Wikipedia’s expense, go to its website and look up an entry on a contemporary issue that interests you, and ideally, one you’ve been following in the op-ed pages of the Denver Post. Read through the entry, keeping an eye out for what kind of “extrinsic proofs” or evidence or testimony it uses to support its claims. Pay attention to the footnotes and see where a few of these links take you.

After you explore this entry, write a paragraph evaluating this entry as a source of information. How reliable do you think it is? Why do you think it is or is not credible? What kind of support does it offer for its claims? What seems to be lacking? Do you think you could justify using it as a source for a college paper? Why or why not?

Rhetor’s Notebook Post #7: Arrangement

To prepare for Wednesday’s class, please read Chapter 9 of Ancient Rhetorics, which focuses on the classical rhetorical canon of arrangement. After you read this chapter, I would like you to apply some of its suggestions to your first essay on stress and the high school student and substantially revise your opening paragraph or two. That is, as our textbook suggests, I want you to urge your readers forward into your argument. Frame your introduction in a way that recognizes the stance of your audience more explicitly, as well as the kind of case you are making, whether that is an honorable, difficult, mean, ambiguous, or obscure one. (Please note: You don’t need to identify your case as such, but you should write to your readers in way that anticipates their stance and frame your introduction appropriately.)

To do so, you might consider using one of the topics for making audiences attentive and receptive, or using an insinuation to introduce your piece more effectively. Ultimately, the purpose of this exercise is two-fold. I would like you to demonstrate that you can put into practice some of the suggestions from classical rhetoricians, but also I would like to practice substantial revision. Even if you think your introduction is 100% perfect as is, I want you to try something different. You never know, you might discover something new by trying these suggestions.

Please post both your original introduction and your revision here as comment. I look forward to seeing how you revise your opening to this essay.

Practicing enargeia

To help you practice generating an effective appeal to pathos, I’d like you to use the technique of enargeia in the following situation: Imagine that DU’s student paper, the Clarion, is sponsoring a debate within its editorial pages on our university’s requirement that second-year students live on campus, and you’ve been invited to submit a piece. In the next 15-20 minutes, I’d like you to compose an introduction (a few paragraphs or so) in which you vividly narrate or describe an experience you’ve had living in the residence halls that helps your readers see what’s at stake in this issue. Remember that one of the things you can accomplish by using an appeal like enargeia is that you can stimulate emotions in your reader by representing events so vividly that they recreate the experience for your audience. As you craft this opening narrative, try to invoke your readers' senses—sight, sound, smell, feeling, even taste—and place them in immediate proximity to your past experience as a way to predispose them to accept your position. For an extra challenge, you should imagine your readers to be either hostile (perhaps university administrators?) or indifferent (faculty or students who don’t really care either way) to your position, whichever one you adopt for this exercise.

Post your response here as a comment, and we will review them together as a class.

Rhetor's Notebook Post #6: Pathetic Proof

After you read the chapter on “Pathetic Proof” in Ancient Rhetorics for Wednesday, I’d like you to identify an editorial or op-ed piece from the past week that draws heavily on or features a striking appeal to pathos. In your comment, I’d like you to summarize briefly the main argument of the piece. Then, describe the appeal to pathos and explain how it works. That is, what emotional response or psychological condition does it attempt to cultivate within its readers? How does this state of mind work to the advantage of the rhetor? How does the rhetor’s writing foster this state? As you respond to these questions, please draw on specific phrases or brief passages from the text to support your claims.

Please post your response as a comment to this post on our course blog before class on Wednesday, February 2. Aim for 250 words.

Highlighting your most effective paragraph thus far

To conclude class, I’d like you to review the draft you brought into today for our peer review workshop and select the paragraph that you think best reflects your ability to analyze rhetorically another persuasive text (or rhetorical event). Copy it into your comment and in a few sentences, explain why you chose this particular paragraph. I’ll ask for a few volunteers to share their paragraph with the rest of class for a brief discussion before we finish today’s workshop.

Developing your ethos as a student writer

In the second half of class, I’d like you to respond to any of the pieces you’ve read recently and develop an argument about the issue that reflects your own position on it. As you begin your response, make sure and give your reader a sense of the debate or a brief summary of what the writer you're responding to wrote. Then, as you develop your argument, emphasize appeals to ethos as your primary proof for this argument and draw upon your strengths and position as a student to help give you credibility on this issue. Try to use some of the strategies we’ve discussed in class today to strengthen your argument.

Rhetor's Notebook Post #5: Ethical Proof

After you read the chapter on “Ethical Proof” in Ancient Rhetorics for Wednesday, I’d like you to pick one of the regular columnists from the Denver Post and read three or four pieces by this writer. (Note: You can do this instead of reading all of the op-ed pages.) Feel free to choose from any of the regular columnists from the opinion section, including Dan Haley, Vincent Carroll, David Harsanyi, Mike Littwin, Ed Quillen, Mike Rose, or the other writers listed. You can also choose to explore pieces by the local news columnists, too, like Tina Griego or Bill Johnson. You can find links to their columns through our Blackboard page if you look under “Course Documents.”

Once you’ve read their columns, write one paragraph in which you describe the writer’s invented ethos or the persona that this writer cultivates in his or her column. How does this writer establish his or her expertise and credibility? What kind of values does he or she stand for? How do they secure the goodwill of his or her readers?

In a second paragraph present three brief quotations—a sentence or so—that offer evidence for the discussion in your first paragraph. Explain how these quotes support your ideas.

Please post your response as a comment to this post on our course blog before class on Wednesday, January 26.

Developing an enthymeme, practicing logical proofs

Go back to the editorial or the op-ed piece that you blogged about this past weekend and generate an argument that somehow disagrees with or opposes the original argument. (Try to do this regardless of your own personal opinion just as an exercise in reasoning.) First, see if you can identify a commonplace or a major premise within the original argument that you think could be debated. Rewrite the commonplace in such a way that you can develop it to support your opposing argument. Then, construct a new enthymeme that you think could be the basis for it. Last, draft a 250 word letter to the editor that presents your argument in a persuasive way. Please emphasize the appeal to logos in your argument, but feel free to add other persuasive appeals if you think they will enhance your logical proof.

For example, if I wanted to argue against the initial enthymeme that I started our discussion with—that the perpetrators of 9/11 ought to be defeated—I might start with a commonplace that since evil cannot ever be defeated, it ought to be forgiven. My enthymeme might look something like this:

* Major premise: People who commit evil actions ought to be forgiven.
* Minor premise: The perpetrators of 9/11 committed evil actions.
* Conclusion: The perpetrators ought to be forgiven for their evil actions.

If I were to develop this argument, I think we all might agree that in this case, I would have to expend much persuasive energy in convincing my audience of my major premise and that the perpetrators of 9/11 committed the kind of evil action that can be forgiven.

Post your response here as a comment and be prepared to discuss it with the rest of class.

Rhetor's Notebook Post #4: Logical Proof

For this post, you’ll analyze how a writer from the Denver Post reasons through his or argument. First, pick an editorial or an op-ed piece from the Denver Post that interests you. Then, summarize this piece’s main claim or argument. Then, examine how the writer appeals to logos to support his or her main claim.

To do so, you should first examine its use of enthymemes. For example, you might try writing out the piece’s major premise, minor premise, and conclusion (or main claim) like our textbook does on pages 165-177. Or, you might explain what widely held community beliefs—or commonplaces—provide a foundation for the argument and explain how the writer uses these commonplaces to strengthen his or her reasoning. Then, consider the rhetor’s use of examples, analogies, maxims, or signs. How effectively are these proofs used and how do they lead the reader logically to the conclusions the writer affirms?

Please post your response as a comment to this post before class meets on Monday, January 24.

Reflecting on your writing process

Now that you’ve completed your first formal assignment for this class, I’d like you to reflect on your writing and revision process. How did your essay evolve from its initial draft to your final submission? What feedback from your peers did you find helpful and respond to? What writing exercises or class discussion helped you think about this assignment differently? As you revised, what specific changes did you make to this piece? Ultimately, what did you learn from this assignment about yourself, writing for a specific audience, or your attitudes about education?

Using kairos as a means of invention

Now that we've generated a list of possible communities that might be interested in our debate, I'd like you to use kairos as a means of invention to help you start writing. Pick one of the communities that you think is the most interesting, compelling, or important one to address as you begin writing about this issue. Write a paragraph in which you introduce this issue to them and make a case for this issue’s urgency, in any way that makes sense given this community. How or why could this issue matter for them, right now? What’s the most effective and appropriate way to appeal to them using kairos?

Rhetor’s Notebook Post #3: Analyzing a Rhetorical Situation

After reading the second chapter of Ancient Rhetorics, I’d like to you reflect on the terms “kairos” and “rhetorical situation.” In your own words, explain what you think these terms mean. Then, I’d like you to apply your sense of these terms to the debate about the stress that high school students face. Based on our reading, respond to two or three of these questions: Why do you think this issue is urgent now? What communities find this issue urgent? What kinds of arguments are favored in the commentators we’ve read? What are the power dynamics involved in this debate? Which voices are being heard and which voices aren’t? What lines of argument are appropriate and which are not? As you respond to these questions, ground your discussion in the articles we’ve read, citing specific examples when you can. As you conclude your response, pick one piece and explain how its writer crafted his or her argument effectively in response to this rhetorical situation.

Post your response here as a comment before class begins on Monday. Aim for 250-350 words. I look forward to reading your response.

Introduction to thinking rhetorically

In the first chapter of Ancient Rhetorics, Sharon Crowley and Debra Hawhee introduce us to a number of rhetorical concepts that we will be learning more about this quarter. Since we weren’t able to meet today as a class, I’d like to know what you found to be the most interesting or engaging idea about writing or rhetoric that you learned from this chapter. Take a moment to tell us what it was that you found to be new and interesting and then explain this concept in your own words. As you conclude your response, tell us how you think this idea might useful to you as a writer. Also, if you had any questions about this chapter—something you didn’t understand or were confused by—go ahead and post them here. We can use these questions to start class on Monday if we need to.

Post your response here as a comment before class on Monday. Aim for 250-350 words. I look forward to reading your response.

What should an education be?

In his recent column for the Denver Post, Mark Moe, asks, “What can [high school students] learn? Higher-level skills such as critical, creative, and global thinking, not to mention that old-fashioned virtue currently being buried under the midden of standardized tests: wisdom. To Socrates, wisdom began in wonder, a state of mind CSAPs and their ilk neither encourage nor measure.

“So, in our haste to race to the top leaving no child behind, let's also consider that, as W.B. Yeats put it, ‘Education is not the filling of a pail; it is the lighting of a fire.’ The educational zeitgeist notwithstanding, we need to keep that fire alive.”

In your own words, explain what you think Moe believes an education should be. How should we be teaching our young people? What should they be learning? Then, connect this definition of an education to your own experience in high school (or more recently at DU if you’re not a first-year student). What has your educational experience been like? Has the wisdom been tested out of you? Have you felt overwhelmed by the pressure to succeed rather than empowered to learn and grow as a student and a person?

Post you response as a comment to this post before class on Monday. Aim for 250-350 words. I look forward to reading your response.

Rhetor's Notebook Post #2: Response to "Stress and the High School Student"

After reading the New York Times Room for Debate materials on “Stress and the High School Student,” pick the response from one of the main commentators that you think is the most interesting or compelling. Summarize the writer’s main claim and explain why you think his or her argument is persuasive. What does he or she do as a writer to convince you that this response or solution is worth acting on? (For example, what kinds of reasons or evidence does he or she provide? Or, what kind of connection to the reader does he or she create?) Post your response here as a comment before class begins on Wednesday, January 5.

Rhetor's Notebook Post #1: A Writer's Introduction

Using the material we’ve just drafted, I want you to continue writing and introduce yourself as a writer to the rest of class. You can approach this introduction in many ways, but the point is that we should learn more about your interests, talents, experiences, and/or aspirations when it comes to writing.

For example, you might expand on the narrative you started a few minutes ago and use it to open up a discussion about what kind of writing appeals to you (or doesn’t) or has been significant to you in your life. You might tell us more about your writing process and describe what it’s like as you move through a project. You might share with us what makes you proud about your writing, or, conversely what your fears or anxieties about writing are. You could also explain your strengths as a writer, as well as the areas you know you need to work on.

As you conclude this introduction to yourself as a writer, take a moment and look ahead to the next ten weeks. What do you hope to learn as a writer this quarter? What will make this course a rewarding experience for you?

Once you’ve composed your introduction, take a moment to edit it for clarity and correctness. Then post it here as a comment before you leave class. You should aim for about 250-350 words. I look forward to reading your responses.