CATALOG DESCRIPTION WRA 361 Rhetoric, Persuasion, and Argument (3 cr). Traditional and contemporary approaches to rhetoric, persuasion, and argument both in written and visual texts. Includes feminist, digital, political, and postmodern approaches. (Prerequisite: Completion of Tier I writing requirement.)

COURSE FOCUS AND GOALS

WRA 361 focuses on how to produce effective argumentative and persuasive discourse, with the main emphasis on written discourse about issues of consequence in the public realm. WRA 361 is an advanced writing course (junior level): The assumption starting out is, minimally, that you have successfully completed your Tier I writing requirement but, additionally, that you are a skilled writer with a high degree of stylistic fluency, organizational capibility, technological competence, and overall rhetorical skill who wishes to improve her/his ability to produce effective argumentative and persuasive discourse.

The course goals are as follows:

- You will understand the relationship and difference between the terms "rhetoric," "persuasion," and "argument." You will understand, and know how to apply, other related rhetorical terms.
- You will learn how to critique others' argumentative and persuasive discourse in terms of its logical structure and suasory effectiveness.
- You will learn how to construct effective argumentative and persuasive discourse (oral, written, visual) and will gain practice in writing, developing, and delivering effective argumentative and persuasive discourse of different types (oral, written, visual; in both print and online environments).
- You will learn how argumentation and persuasion are changed in online environments (versus print-based venues).
- You will be smarter, shrewder, more discerning, and more knowledgeable about public and political discourse. You will be a more capable citizen as a consequence.
- You will learn the processes underlying effective argumentative and persuasive discourse, the strategies that one can use, for instance, to analyze/engage an audience and thereby develop your position more fully.

GENERAL APPROACH TO ARGUMENT AND PERSUASION

Argument and persuasion are forms of rhetoric in which you engage your audience intellectually, emotionally, and/or ethically in order to secure their cooperation, to influence their thinking, or to induce them to action. Argument is not only expressing your position (though it certainly does include that). Good argument is not polemical, grossly disputatious, eristic, or antagonistic; it is not shouting, ranting, raising your voice, overpowering the opposition. or bullying your readers/listeners. Good argument relies on "good reasons." It works to engage an audience in collaborative and cooperative dialectic, not simply to bludgeon an audience into compliance. It aims to achieve a common good.

The primary approach to argument that I teach is based on a social, interactive rhetorical strategy that has its roots in Aristotelian dialectic, Rogerian approaches to cooperation, feminist modes of thinking, and, in the digital realm, social networking, all of which favor open and democratic processes of deliberation and respectful treatment of audience (i.e., working with them cooperatively in order to effect a positive outcome for all). In other words, we will favor eloquentia over logica. This approach requires dialectic engagement with your audience through the process of writing/developing your position. One implication of this approach is that YOU might be changed through the process. Engaging an audience openly and honestly means allowing yourself to be vulnerable to change and admitting that you don't know everything and can learn from other points of view. A key feature of this approach to argument/persuasion is audience analysis and engagement -- that is, explicit procedures that you use during the writing process to collect information about your audience but also to engage them interactively in ways that will be useful to your thinking.

REQUIRED TEXTS AND READINGS

• Faigley, Lester, and Jack Selzer. Good Reasons with Contemporary Arguments: Reading, Designing, and Writing Effective Arguments, 3rd edition (Pearson/Longman). —> Be sure to purchase the THIRD edition, a paperback edition, ISBN #0-321-36496-1. It may not yet be in the bookstore.

• You can expect to read about 5-12 short articles, essays, chapters, and/or classmates' papers per week, in addition to assigned reading from the textbook. Most of the additional readings will be online — either articles available on the web (the URLs will be posted on the WRA 361 schedule) or they will be documents posted to the ANGEL course site as PDFs. You are expected to complete all assigned readings before class on the day they are listed in the schedule.

USEFUL RESOURCES FOR RHETORIC TERMINOLOGY

• Gideon Burton, "Silva Rhetoricae: The Forest of Rhetoric"
http://humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/

• A glossary of rhetorical terms
http://www.uky.edu/ArtsSciences/Classics/rhetoric.html

COURSE PROJECTS, REQUIREMENTS, AND GRADING PERCENTAGES

#1 — Short Rhetorical Analysis of Argumentative Essay — 10%
- a short paper (maximum 2 pages singlespaced) doing a rhetorical analysis of an argument pertaining to the topic of sexual difference/identity (see Chapter 19 in Good Reasons for examples)

#2— Short Persuasive Essay/Editorial — 10%
- a short paper (maximum 2 pages singlespaced) presenting a position on a topic of public significance, intended as an editorial column for some public/news venue (extra credit assigned if you get this editorial published in a newspaper or reputable online forum)

#3 — Visual Argument (Billboard Project) — 10%
- a roadside billboard (reduced, web-based facsimile thereof) offering a political or social critique and using the hetorical device of irony. Your billboard should include some kind of visual/graphic plus some text

#4 — Visual Argument (Animation Argument) — 15% —> PERCENTAGE CHANGED 10.31.06
- a short Powerpoint slide slow (4-6 slides) using animated alphabetic text to make a visual argument

#5— Essay Exam — 10% —> PROJECT CANCELLED 10.31.06
- an in-class essay exam testing your knowledge and understanding of rhetorical principles of argumentation and persuasion (e.g., knowledge of basic terminology and how to apply it

#5— Longer, Researched Argumentative Paper — 20%
- an argumentative essay (5-6 pages singlespaced) based on evidence, facts, and appeals to reason concerning an issue of public significance; can be presented as a research paper or as a webtext (automatic A for publication in Atlantic Monthly or other reputable publication)

#6— Oral Presentation — 15% —> PERCENTAGE CHANGED 10.31.06
- an in-class oral presentation (10-12 minutes), using Powerpoint slides, based on Assignment #5

Class Participation — 20%

GRADING POLICIES AND CRITERIA

• Course projects will be graded on a 4.0 grading scale, according to the following general scale:

• You must complete ALL the major projects to receive a grade of 2.0 or higher in the course.

• A late major project will be downgraded one half of a grade marker (0.5). If an assignment is late by more than one week, it will be downgraded an additional 0.5 per week late.

• For major projects, you will submit your work in stages (e.g., preliminary topic ideas, planning, research notes, drafts, projects assessment memo, etc.). You should save all stages of each project. For some assignments, the instructor will ask you to submit a portfolio of your work for the entire project (not just the final document). Since one of the principle grading criteria is production (or process), your instructor needs to see evidence of your writing process and not just its final outcome.

• A major act of plagiarism (or other form of serious academic dishonesty) will result in a grade of 0.0 for the course. Minor forms of plagiarism will typically result in a grade of 0.0 for the assignment (depending on the extent of the plagiarism).

Grading Criteria
Specific criteria for each major project will be explained by the instructor. Generally, however, there are three main criteria for major projects: Purpose, Product, and Production (or Process).

PURPOSE. How effectively does the document accomplish its intended task for its intended purpose and audience? Is the document persuasive? informative? interesting? Does the assignment/document ...
- have a clear and definite point?
- provide relevant, useful, accurate and timely information?
- show careful and considerate thought about the subject?
- show adequate understanding of the subject?
- provide ample demonstration of its points? provide a sound argument in support of its claims? (is there enough "evidence"?)
- treat alternative points of view and adequately address complexities about the topic?
- meet the requirements of its context? (does it meet the parameters of the assignment? "parameters" include such things as due date, length, content requirements, and format requirements)
- meet the needs of its intended audience(s)?
- solve a problem or address a significant need?
- help people? improve people's lives? improve relations between people?

PRODUCT. How well constructed and stylistically crafted is the document?
- orderly and coherent presentation of material?
- readable? accessible? comprehensible?
- effective design and formatting? correctness?
- effective use of visuals and graphics?
- clear, concise, and syntactically sound style?
- professional tone and style?
- grammatically correct, carefully proofread, no obvious lapses or mechanical errors?
- overall document neatness and correctness: You are expected to produce high-quality professional documents, whether they are print pages, online resumes, web pages, electronic reports, PowerPoint slides, etc. A part of that quality is the appearance of your work. Neatness, visual appeal, and mechanical and grammatical correctness do matter — especially for professional writers — though of course neatness and correctness by themselves do not guarantee that a document is well written. Your documents should have appropriate margins, spacing, pagination, alignment, and formatting. (Exact document specifications will vary from assignment to assignment.) Assignments with spelling, grammatical, or mechanical errors will be downgraded.

PRODUCTION/PROCESS. How effectively was the document produced?
- quality of planning, collaboration, research & invention, drafting, editing, proofreading?

MIDTERM PROGRESS REPORT. At midterm the instructor will send out short progress reports informing each student of her/his grade in the course to date.

POLICY REGARDING ATTENDANCE AND PUNCTUALITY

Attendance at every class is expected. You are expected to show up for class on time. You are expected to pay attention and participate. However, because life is complex, some misses may be inevitable. For that reason, you are allowed a maximum of 4 absences over the semester. (An absence is an absence, whether you have a legitimate reason or not.)

More than four absences is excessive. If you miss five or more classes, then your final grade in WRA 361 will be lowered 0.5 per each absence over the four allowed. Being excessively or regularly late for class counts as an absence.

POLICY REGARDING CELL PHONES AND OTHER SIGNIFICANT INTERRUPTIONS

Do not allow your cell phone to ring audibly in class. The instructor will overlook one lapse (with a pained expression of deep disgust), because, he must admit, sometimes mistakes do happen. A second lapse will be viewed as significant disrespect for the instructor and your classmates — and thus will affect your participation grade as an unwillingness to support the communal atmosphere of the class. When you are in class, we need your full attention, concentration, and commitment to class activities.

POLICY REGARDING PARTICIPATION AND COLLABORATIVE ENGAGEMENT

Although there are no collaborative, co-authored projects per se in WRA 361, intellectual engagement and collaboration with your classmates and the instructor are an extremely important component of the course. Regular participation and engagement are expected.

There are four ways that you can participate and collaborate in class:

- face-to-face, oral in-class participation
- asynchronous participation (email, discussion board postings)
- synchronous participation (chat)
- peer review and feedback (online and F2F)

You are expected to participate in all four areas through the entire semester.

Regularity, substance, helpfulness, and relevance of participation are more important than frequency: Do you attend class; participate regularly; provide interesting, helpful, and substantive comments; and ask good questions? Are you responsive to your classmates and the instructor? Do you provide helpful feedback? In general, do you contribute to the intellectual community of the WRA 361 class? Do you engage your classmates and the instructor in ways (a) that help everybody learn, and (b) that help individual writers produce more effective argumentative and persuasive discourse?

POLICY REGARDING PLAGIARISM AND ACADEMIC HONESTY

In WRA 361, my assumption is that the writing you submit is your own original writing. An additional expectation is that you will appropriately identify that portion of your work which is collaborative with others, or which is borrowed from others, or which is your own work from other contexts. In other words, you must follow this basic ethical obligation: You should credit others’ contributions to your work. You should not claim, as your own, work (or writing) that is not your own.

It is perfectly appropriate for you to borrow graphics, to quote passages, and to use ideas from others. However, whenever you do that, you are legally and ethically obliged to acknowledge that use, following appropriate conventions for documenting sources. To borrow someone else's writing without acknowledging that use is an act of academic as well as professional dishonesty, whether you borrow an entire report or a single sentence. The most serious forms of academic dishonesty are to "buy" a research paper; or to have someone else write your papers for you; or to turn in someone else's entire report or paper (or significant portions of an existing piece of writing) and call it your own. Those forms of academic dishonesty will be dealt with harshly: for such actions, I am likely to assign an F for the course.

If you wish to recycle writing that YOU have done in a previous (or even current) class, you may do that as long as you check with me about that. If you recycle writing from another context, then I expect that you will do significant revision for purposes of the WRA 361 course (and not simply turn in the exact same paper).

If you have doubts about whether or not you are using your own or others' writing ethically and legally, ask me. Follow this primary principle: Be up front and honest about what you are doing and about what you have contributed to a project.

In addition to following the basic principles of fair use of others' work and honesty and forthrightness in crediting the contribution of others to your work, you are expected to adhere to another basic professional principle: treat others with the respect that you would wish them to grant you. "Others" includes the people you work for and with (classmates, instructors, corporation, clients); the people you write to (audiences); and the people you write about.

POLICY REGARDING EXPRESSING YOUR POLITICAL VIEWS

Your point of view, whatever it is, is welcome in this class. You are invited to express your position. In fact, for purposes of learning, you absolutely need to express your position/s. However, please keep this in mind: the purpose of WRA 361 is not primarily to provide an opportunity for you (or anyone, including the instructor) to express their point of view or to try to persuade others to adopt it. The primary purpose of the class is to learn about argument and persuasion and to become better at it. Thus, your contributions to class discussion should serve that primary purpose, and in ways that will help everybody in the class learn.

Everyone has the right to speak in class, in both face-to-face and online forums. However, no one will be allowed to rant, to dominate a conversation, to humiliate, denigrate, or bully others, or to silence or prevent others from speaking. Tolerance of others' viewpoints is expected. You have to be willing to listen. You don't have to agree, but you do have to listen and you do have to allow other viewpoints (even, sometimes, repugnant and inane viewpoints) the right to speak. Knowing when to be silent and how to listen patiently are also important rhetorical skills. You are expected to give others their opportunity to speak. You are expected to treat others in the class, including the instructor, with respect and dignity. (Blatantly racist and sexist statements and ad hominem attacks are not allowed in class, at any time.)

Your grade in WRA 361 will be based entirely on your ability to write/present effective argumentative and persuasive discourse, given the parameters of and criteria for each assignment. You will not be graded on WHAT you think or on the particular positions you espouse. You can espouse a position on the right or on the left, liberal or conservative, religous or atheistic, Democratic or Republican, or somewhere else, it matters not to the instructor. However, you will be graded on HOW effectively you present what you think, given the requirements and criteria for each assignment. And you will be graded on your willingness to engage, listen to, and respect other viewpoints. The goal of this course is not to change your political position but rather to help you write/produce more effective argumentative and persuasive discourse -- and, yes, also to make you more critically self conscious, reflective, knowledgeable, and smarter about the positions you hold.