21W.013.01 Writing and Rhetoric: Introduction to Contemporary Rhetoric
Fall 2014
image restricted to class participants
Instructor: Louise Harrison Lepera
Lecture: MW9.30-11 (56-191)
Information:
“To be fascinated by rhetoric is to be fascinated by people, and to understand rhetoric is in large part to understand your fellow [human]” — Sam Leith
“We ought to treat words the way we treat nuclear energy or genetic engineering—with courage, caution, vision, and precision.” — Nadine Gordimer
“You write in order to change the world…if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it.” — James Baldwin
For centuries the branch of knowledge known as rhetoric, which we can loosely define as the art of using language to persuade or influence a specific audience, formed the cornerstone of academic life for young scholars in the West. From classical Greece through the medieval era and the Renaissance until relatively recently, wherever democracy and scholarship were highly valued, leaders, scholars, scientists, and citizens were trained to shape logical and convincing arguments through the study of rhetoric.
Our aim in this class at MIT is to set aside contemporary pejorative uses of “rhetoric” as a synonym for empty verbosity or political double-talk and rediscover rhetoric as a vital mode of inquiry and a rich body of knowledge, so that as researchers, scientists, professionals, and citizens we can reason, speak, write, and respond clearly and persuasively to our peers and to the public about the work and the issues that matter to us.
This class will study some contemporary theories of rhetoric as a framework for analyzing a variety of speeches, articles, and visual images drawn from the mainstream media and from the worlds of politics, public policy, and science. Authors discussed will include Martin Luther King, Jr., President Obama, Deborah Tannen, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Stephen Jay Gould. In the early weeks of the semester, students will focus on rhetorical analysis and then later apply what they have learned to the composition of a substantial written and oral argument of their own devising.
By the end of the semester, students will have written at least 5,000 words of revised prose, in addition to shorter homework assignments.
21W.013 is a CI-HW (Communication-Intensive/Humanities-Writing) course. Students cannot receive credit for this course if they have successfully completed another “Writing and Rhetoric” class. For information on the Communication requirement, visit http://web.mit.edu/commreq.
The goal of this class, like other CMS/W CI-HW subjects, is to teach students to:
• Create and shape their texts in relation to different
purposes, audiences, and rhetorical situations;
• Understand the concept of genre, and learn basic genre
analysis;
• Understand and construct the foundational structure of an
argument, especially how to link claims, evidence, and analysis to
support and develop a central thesis, including consideration of
alternative perspectives or counterarguments;
• Develop strategies for reading analytically, managing and
structuring information, drafting, and revising;
• Evaluate sources of information, integrate sources effectively
for specific rhetorical purposes, and understand reasons for and
systems of source citation in academic writing;
• Understand how to critique other's texts constructively and
productively and to use the peer review process to develop their
own texts;
• Develop the flexibility in word-choice and sentence construction
necessary for conveying complex ideas coherently and adapting prose
for different audiences.
Announcements
Essay 1 Revision Checklist has been posted in the Materials section.
Announced on 03 October 2014 9:18 a.m. by Louise Harrison Lepera
Homework 3, due Monday 9/29
21W.013 Homework 3Due in class: Monday, Sept 29
Fields and Topics
For this homework, your task is to brainstorm fields that you might
like to research and write about for your final essay (and your
end-of-semester individual presentation) in the class.
Please type up your answers and bring six copies to class. You are welcome to go into as much detail as you wish, but I am expecting you’ll write 1-2 pages, mostly in the form of a list with the subheadings below.
Use the following directions as a means of generating a list of possible topics for your final essay. This is just the first stage of the process, a starting point for your search for a topic, so you can suggest fields that are very broad (“nuclear power”) or more narrow and specific (“US reporting of nuclear energy policy in the wake of the Fukushima Daiichi power plant disaster”).
1. Suggest three topics of interest to you that relate to the field
of your major (or possible majors).
2. Suggest three more topics upon which you are already an expert, not necessarily in your academic life (e.g. scuba diving, cartography, the current state of Detroit, etc.)
3. Suggest three topics about which you know very little and have no expertise, but they interest you anyway and you’d like to know more about them.
4. Suggest three topics that have to do with rhetoric or the media (e.g. the rhetoric of TED talks; television ads for prescription drugs; the relationship between the mainstream news media and Twitter, etc.).
5. Suggest three topics that might be completely unfamiliar to your fellow students in class (e.g. a particular skill, event, technology, historical figure, place, sub-field of a discipline).
= 15 topics in all.
Announced on 24 September 2014 2:43 p.m. by Louise Harrison Lepera
Conferences to Discuss Essay 1 First Version
As you know, the first version of Essay 1 is due on Sept 24, and the revised version is due on Monday, October 6.You are required to meet with me for a conference at some point during your writing process for Essay 1. Although most students choose to meet with me right after receiving my feedback on the first version as they work on the revision, you may certainly choose to meet with me during the upcoming week as you write the first version if you feel that would be most useful to you.
So, if you would like to meet with me between today and next Wednesday, first look at my schedule below and then email me ASAP to request your first, second, and third choice of meeting times from those available.
(If you would like to meet with me while you are working on the revision, be on the lookout for another announcement of appointment times after Sept 24.)
Be warned that my office is in E39, which is just past the Kendall T station and a long way from most of campus, so make sure to request a time for which you can reasonably be on time, given the walking distance involved.
Thursday, Sept 18
10:00
10:30
11:00
11:30
12:00
12:30
1:00
1:30
2:00
Friday
9:30
10:00
10:30
11:00
11:30
12:00
12:30
Monday, Sept 22
12:00
12:30
Tuesday, Sept 23
9:30
10:00
10:30
12:30
Note: These are not walk-in office hours; please email me to schedule your appointment time.
Please contact me if you have any questions.
All best
Louise Harrison Lepera
Lecturer
MIT CMS / Writing
E39-367
Announced on 17 September 2014 2:04 p.m. by Louise Harrison Lepera
Homework for Wednesday, Sept 17
Quick reminder: the homework for 9/17/14 is to finish the in-class rhetorical analysis exercise on your assigned passage. Submit your answers in class on Wednesday. Remember to bring the index card to class and attach it to your answers.(Note: If you missed class on Monday you can catch up by choosing a short paragraph from King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail" and answering the questions below.)
Here are the questions again:
1. Whee in the structure and logic of the "Letter"
does your passage appear?
2. What function does this passage have in the argument as a
whole?
3. Is there a SUBSIDIARY CLAIM in your passage? What is it, and how
is it supported?
4. What STYLE features (e.g. FIGURES and TROPES) can you identify
in your passage? What are their functions (i.e. what work are they
doing?)
5. Where do you see appeals to LOGOS, ETHOS, PATHOS, and/or
KAIROS?
6. What are the functions of ALLUSIONS in the passage? How do they
contribute to any specific appeals?
Feel free to email me if you have any questions.
Remember to bring all the readings assigned for today's class--printed out--to class today! Also, we may need to refer to the little green textbook, so bring that too.
Have a good week and stay well!
Announced on 17 September 2014 8:52 a.m. by Louise Harrison Lepera
