21W.011 Writing and Rhetoric: Rhetoric and Contemporary Issues
Spring 2014
Photo Credit: Lange, Dorothea, "Destitute Pea Pickers in
California. Mother of Seven Children. Age Thirty-Two. Nipomo,
California." February, 1936. America from the Great Depression
to World War II: Black-and-White Photographs from the FSA-OWI,
1935-1945, Library of Congress.
The woman in this 1931 iconic Depression-era photograph is Florence
Christie Owens (later Florence Owens Thompson). Born in 1903 In
Oklahoma, Florence Owens Thompson died in 1983 in California.
Instructor: Andrea S Walsh
Seminar: TR EVE (7-8.30 PM) (8-119)
Class Description:
This course provides the opportunity for students -- as readers, viewers, writers and speakers --- to engage with social and ethical issues that they care deeply about. Over the course of the semester, through discussing the writing of authors such as Marian Wright Edelman, Charles Dickens, Alan Dershowitz, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jonathan Kozol, Susanna Kaysen and Michael Pollan, we will explore different perspectives on a range of social issues such as the responsibilities of citizens, freedom of expression, poverty and homelessness, gender and racial inequality, mental illness, the politics of food, the influence of popular media. Throughout the semester, we will discuss different rhetorical strategies that aim to increase awareness of social problems, to educate the public about different perspectives on contemporary issues, and to persuade readers of the value of particular positions on or solutions to social problems. In addition, we will analyze selected photographs, as well as documentary and feature films, that represent or dramatize social problems or issues. In assigned essays, students will have the opportunity to write about social and ethical issues of their own choice. For the three major assignments, students will revise each piece. This course aims to help students to grow significantly in their ability to understand and compare arguments, to use different rhetorical strategies, to integrate secondary print and visual sources and to craft vibrant, well-reasoned and elegant essays and grant proposals. Students will also do regular homework assignments and give oral presentations. In class we will discuss assigned texts, explore strategies for successful academic writing, freewrite and respond to one another's writing.
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