Rhetoric

Description

This one-semester course will strengthen students' essay writing skills and give students a strong foundation in the study of argument. We will study the elements of argument, those characteristics that make an argument persuasive. Students will read and analyze arguments by other writers, including editorials and advertisements from newspapers and magazines. We will also study the four basic questions, a way to categorize the arguments we encounter each day. Students will then apply the tools they've learned in writing their own arguments in response to each of the four basic questions: definition (what is it?), causal (how did it get that way?), evaluation (is it good or bad?), and proposal (what should we do about it?). This course will enable the students to be more intelligent about the many arguments they encounter each day, whether it be a tv ad aimed at persuading them to buy a certain product or a seemingly convincing op-ed piece in a national magazine. Students will be equipped to understand how the argument has been built and how it can be countered. From this course, students should be more astute in responding to arguments and more skilled in writing their own arguments. Just as importantly, students' writing will be strengthened. In some sense, any essay is an argument, persuading the audience of the student's thesis statement. We'll focus on strengthening the student's basic writing skills (thesis statement, paragraph formation, introduction/conclusion) and give the students tools for making each essay they write - for any course - a persuasive one.

Text:

A Rhetoric of Argument: A Text and Reader, 3rd edition, by Jeanne Fahnestock and Marie Secor. Published by McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0072938234.

The text is available at Amazon, as well as used book sites such as AbeBooks. Used copies, if the correct edition, are fine. This is the same text I've used in past years, so you may also be able to get it from someone who took Composition & Rhetoric in past years.

Tutor: Megan Swartz