Rhetoric and Composition, Class #22, Wednesday, April 17, 2013

EXEMPLIFICATION ESSAYS DUE MONDAY! Also, please bring the annotation you made for the oil spill article from last week.

Rhetoric and Composition Class #21, Monday, April 15, 2013

Wildness & Busyness!  Get outside! 

FOR WEDNESDAY: 

1. Draft of the exemplification paper.

2. Rewrites for Osprey paper

3. Apply the questions of evaluating "Quality of Rhetoric" to the oil spill article from the Ocean City Gazette. Make sure your ideas are written down -- NOT just in your head.

Rhetoric and Composition Class #19 (and now #20): Wednesday, April 10, 2013

***NOTE: So...I was involved in an emergency situation yesterday. Sorry that it impacted our class. You DO NOT need to write this essay. We will regroup on Monday. In the meantime, please read and annotate this article. Add it to your arsenal. These articles we have been working on will find relevance toward the end of the course. Hope all are well. 

Also, those of you with Twitter, check out #costalstock for another, related, Slate article. 

WRITE: Essay 5:  Definition using Exemplification (minimum of three pages) - (Due Monday)

Choose an abstract term to define through exemplification. Your definition should prove a point about the concept.

Remember our examples from class: WILDNESS -- wildness is closer to home than we expect. 

BUSYNESS -- Busyness is self-imposed and driven by self-importance. People aren't truly as busy as they think. 

Remember that you will be graded on the quality and use of your examples. Be specific to provide clarity about something abstract or general.

An exemplification essay (or illustrative essay) uses examples to show, explain, or prove an overall point (an argument usually established in the essay thesis).

Again...remember examples from class: 

"(People) are busy because of their own ambition or drive or anxiety, because they are addicted to busyness and dread what they may have to face in its absence." -- Tim Kreider (NY Times) 

"While wilderness might be untrammeled land along the Alaskan coast, wildness can happen anywhere — in the jungle or your backyard. And it's not just a place; it's a feeling. It rises up when you least expect it." -- David Gessner (nature writer)

Rhetoric and Composition Class #18: Monday, April 8th, 2013

We are preparing for the creation of an EXEMPLIFICATION paper. In my quest to to eliminate a textbook for this course, I am a slave to free resources. Here is a pretty good presentation provided by a professor and loaded onto Google for public educational use. It is valid and credible, and I suspect you may even find it more useful than a more traditional reading. It is more example-driven and less, well, "prose-y," so please read, annotate, review, but also be prepared to let me know if the learning it provides rivals that of a traditional text with a chapter on EXEMPLIFICATION. 

Please note: we will NOT be doing, obviously, the paper outlined by this professor. DO NOT WRITE THAT PAPER! MY paper will be assigned on WEDNESDAY! 

Please bring "This I Believe..." papers to class on Wednesday.

Rhetoric & Composition: Class #17: Monday, April 1

ASSIGNMENT: Final draft of "This I Believe" due Monday, April 8th.

Also, read and annotate the following articles...be prepared to discuss and respond to the pieces in writing. One is from Salon. The other is from Newsweek.

My inappropriate relationship

My inappropriate relationship

Rhetoric & Composition: Class #16: Monday, March 25, 2013

PLEASE NOTE...CLASS WILL BE CANCELED ON WEDNESDAY, MARCH 27. CLASS WILL MEET ON MONDAY, APRIL 1st...NO FOOLIN'!

ASSIGNMENTS: WRITE: This I Believe essay, as per instructions, due Monday, April 1. 

READ/ANNOTATE: The Slate article that appears as a separate post. Be prepared to discuss. 

“One of the lessons of life is we have to take care of each other, and we have to try to help people and we have to do what’s right.… And there were precious few people that night that were doing what was right.”—Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine, discussing the rape trial and conviction of two Steubenville high school football players.

Rhetoric & Composition Class #15, Wednesday, March 20th

http://thisibelieve.org/essay/24636/

http://thisibelieve.org/essay/36740/

http://thisibelieve.org/essay/8560/

FAMILY ASSIGNMENT: 

1. Break into sub-groups of your family. In other words, divide your family in half (approx 2 - 3 members each).

2. Pass around Essay #3. Each person in the family should read each other's papers. (approx 10 mins)

3. As a mini-family, choose the best paper.

4. As a mini-family, discuss and annotate the paper in order to point out what the author did to make it so good. Please put some time into this...really identify the parts of the paper that most stand our or have the greatest rhetorical impact. (approx 10 mins).

Rhetoric & Composition, Class # 14, Monday, March 18th

**So sorry, gang...forgot link to SI article, so do not sweat it.

Class Outline: 
Annotation Check (5)

Essay 2 notes (5)

Rhetorical devices & TIB p. 26 (15)

Introduction writing notes/discussion & This I Believe p. 224 (Introduction reading & family assignment) (20)

Sex on College Campuses (25)

Fact & Opinion discussion (end)

Rhetoric and Composition, Class #12, Monday, March 4th

Assignment: Optional re-write of Formal Essay #1.

On Wednesday, we will return to reading notes, work in families and gear up for a Formal Essay #3 writing this weekend.