Assignments

Mini Projects
#1 Clay Tablet Project
#2 Orality Paper
#3 Burke Identification Paper

Informal Reading Responses
Throughout the semester, you will compose 5 informal reading responses out of the 8 opportunities. Each reading response should be 500 words long, and you should attempt to go beyond merely summarizing the readings.

Group Presentation
At the beginning of the semester, you will sign up for a group presentation date. For this presentation, you and your group member(s) will present on a rhetorician not discussed in class. Your presentation should cover any pertinent biographical information, summarize his or her theoretical ideas, connect his or her ideas with our readings and other presentations, and in some way apply the rhetorical principles to analyze the discourse of a group or current event. This project will also involve the creation of an easily designed website to more fully understand that rhetorician.

Final Project
Your final project will be a rhetorical analysis of some cultural idea or discourse group using one or more of the theories discussed in class or presented through the group presentations. Your aim in this 2000 to 2500 word essay should be to use rhetorical theories we've engaged in class to illuminate the rhetorical impact of an idea or a discourse community. This project will also involve composing a one-page proposal for your final paper.

Viva Voce (Final Exam)
Your final exam will be an oral exam over the theories we’ve engaged throughout the entirety of the course. Before the final exam week, you will sign up for a time to drop by my office and blindly choose three notecards that contain a range of the names of course topics, ideas, or main theorists we’ve discussed. Following your choice, you will have 30 minutes to prepare for a 15 minute discussion with me about one subject from one of your three notecards. While these discussions will be fairly informal, I plan to push your knowledge on the topic you choose. Be prepared to provide an in-depth answer for any topic we’ve discussed.