midnightrhetoric

2. Revise your NarraTive to conform to the standards of e-prime. Post the revised version to the wiki. Note: For reference, view these examples of e-prime writing: Encounter with a skill saw, Call me

3. Read all the narratives posted to the wiki by your classmates. Comment and create links between your blog and at least two others.

(0. Wikitastic?)

.5. UWC presentation

1. Rhetoric and the changing of mind. What have we done?

2. Tropisms (and the NY Times)

1. Read: Logic, Character, Feeling

2. Blog: Post an entry to your blog - on any topic of your preference - making use of the different types of tropes discussed in Wednesday's class.

0. Trope-trolling: Euthanasia, Bald?, Marlboro

1. Pathos, Logos, Ethos

2. Branding

3. Advertisers

4. Audience, Dialogue, and the Commons: On the importance of actual audiences

Neural Marketing - In this article, you can read about how marketing logos can affect your brain. Indeed, all of us, as rhetors seek to alter the consciousness of audiences, as individuals in common. Branding is one way to use rhetorical forms to alter consciousness, and branding repetitiously uses language and images to brand itself upon our attention. The case of Pepsi and the Yin Yang symbol shows that these branding strategies very likely draw on common forms humans have long used to attract and re-direct attention. For example:

1. Print and Read: The Case of Camel

2. Bring a copy of today's NY Times to class.

1. Audience

2. Identifying argument - ad analysis, rhetorical analysis.

3. The self in the midst of the rhetoric barrage.

4. Our place, our response: our wiki.

1. RhetoricalAnalysis first draft due to the wiki. Print and bring a hard copy to class.

1. How to self-edit, how to peer-edit, and things to look for.

2. Peer-editing RhetoricalAnalysis.

Audience
Pathos, Ethos, Logos (Tropes)
Judgment of Efficacy
Grammar, style, etc.

1. RhetoricalAnalysis due

1. The Einstein Gap

2. Tropes - Language as Metaphor (Descartes, Nietzsche, Saussure).

1. Read (it is not necessary to print a hard copy): Che, the Hero and The Cult of Che

0. Oral culture v. print culture (a.k.a. "why the wiki?")

1. Mr. Guevara, mediated

2. Groupmind: Debate topics.

3. Audience determining content.

1. Read (do not print): \"What is Music?\"

1. DefiNition: What is music?

2. Music, Apathy

3. Truth and (un)certainty?

1. Read (and bring to class): Weston, A Rulebook for Arguments p. 79-85.

2. Print and read: Love or Haight?

1. Audience and Definition: Arguing what is and what isn't...

2. Reference: FebruarySix

WesTon

(0). Create and compose with the Freesound music mixer. Detail the recipe for one of your compositions in your blog space.

1. Read a classmate's blog and respond to it in a paragraph or two. Do you agree with their propositions? Do you sympathize with their experiences? Would you like further clarification on any of their arguments?

2. Print and read: Steps in Writing a Definitional Argument

3. Reference: DefiNition

1. Revisioning

2. Audience determining content

1. DefiNition rough draft due to wiki. Print a hard copy and bring it to class.

1. Fundamentals of argument. Mr. Richards

2. Peer Revision Questions

1. DefiNition Final Draft due.

2. Read: Weston, p. xi-xii ("What's the Point of Arguing").

1. Truth, truth, trutH.

2. Hitler

1. Read: Weston, p. 1-9, 40-42.

0. Discussion: Analyses

1. Premises, Conclusions ( ArgumentsandEthics )

2. From Here to There: Modus Ponens, Modus Tollens

WesTon

1. Locate a textual argument online, create a link to it in your blog page, and label it in premise/conclusion form.

2. Blog: Create two arguments, one in the structure of modus ponens and one via modus tollens.

3. Read: Admiration Outlawed. Blog a brief response.

4. (Optional) Post a blog in response to ArgumentsandEthics.

0. Loose Cannon

1. Reductio ad absurdum

2. Enthymeme and Counter-Argument

Through the Courtesy of Their Two Feet: An Argument about Pre-Historic Physics

We can begin composing an argument just by playing with enthymemes. The game goes like this:

(1) Take a claim, any claim. Try to make it something that you have a bit of background knowledge about. "Fred Flintstone's car is slow ."

(2) Say "Because": "Because"

(3) Think. Read around. Beg friends to help you. And come up with something to say after "because" that seems to make sense. "Because Fred's feet do all the work."

(4)Think about what you would have to believe if (1) and (3) were to make sense together. Fred Flintstone's car is slow because his feet do all of the work." This is the Major Premise: "Any car that runs only on pre-historic feet is slow."

(5) Try as hard as you can to disagree with the major premise. Is it universally valid? How about this counterargument: "Cartoon cars don't run on feet or fuel. They run on gutters." You can learn to direct your counter arguments against the unstated assumptions of an argument, and render the claim doubtful. And indeed, Fred's car seems to be faster than expected, emitting a puff of smoke as it zooms away from the quarry.

Enthymemes tune into uncertainty, the way a particular narrative, question, or problem is rhetorically dependent upon the premises of a particular audience.

Enthymeme Checklist

Note: I've changed the readings to a topic immediately pertinent. If much agitation ensues, we can return to the originally-scheduled reading at some further point in time.

1. Read (for background information): Google and China

2. Read (print a copy and bring to class): Internet Lions Turn Paper Tiger in China and Google's Testimony (if you'd like further information, the complete testimony can be found here).

3. Blog a response to the reading. Did you know about these events? Who do you agree with? What are the most effective points of both arguments? Why?

1. No Luv 4 Google

2. Google.cn

3. Screenshots of Google.cn results v. Google.com results

4. Google's Chinese Results Toe the Line

1. Read: ReButtal

2. Read: Weston, p. 53-63.

Hitler

1. Read (and print): Censorship of Pornography Harms Women and Censorship of Pornography Benefits Women

1. Parade on Child Pornography

1. Compose the first draft of your ReButtal argument. Post it to the wiki; bring a hard copy to class.

1. Rebuttal Peer-Editing

WesTon

1. ReButtal final draft due in class.

1. The Power of Persuasion: "Dear John..." and Response

1. Read: A Handyman's Guide to Manmade Disasters

1. The guide to everything

2. A Wiki Construct

2. Muriel Harris, Prentice Hall, Demo for the Future

3. Prentice Hall directions

4. Student Codes

5. Surveyed?

6. Schemes and Plottings

7. Mr. Barry

1. Go to wiki-How, and compose a how-to on a topic of your choice. Create a link to your "how-to ..." in your blog.

2. Read (and print (note: to save yourselves some paper costs, copy and paste the text into a Word document, single-spaced and landscape-oriented in multiple columns)): Serial Killers

un. This sentence is false. I am lying.

deux. Tracking Morbidity: Jane was an American, and consequently, her rest is in peace.

trois. CauSal-ities

quatre. Wiki-hows

WesTon

1. Find a classmate's "How-To", read it, and (if possible) try it out. Then compose a blog about your experience. Were the directions easy to understand? Were they logically-ordered and comprehensive? Why/why not? Post a link to your response on your classmate's blog so they can read your feedback.

2. Refresh: Read (and print (note: to save yourselves some paper costs, copy and paste the text into a Word document, single-spaced and landscape-oriented in multiple columns)): Serial Killers

1. Revisioning - no reading necessary.

1. Ad campaign

2. Shakespearian drama

3. Simpsons episode

4. Children's story

5. Greenpeace document - Animal rights study

6. Choral reading

7. Academic paper: what is courage?

8. Letter to the editor

9. Lab report

10. Harlequin romance

1. Post the first draft of the CauSal paper to the wiki. Then read a classmate's draft and comment on it - on the wiki, below their paper. Post your draft as soon as possible, in order to allow classmates to comment adequately.

2. Print a hard copy of your draft (incorporating, if necessary, any comments made on the wiki) and bring it into class for peer-review.

1. Asymmetry

2. Causal Peer-editing

1. CauSal final draft due (As mentioned in Friday's class, this deadline has been pushed back to Wed., MarchTwentyTwo.)

MidCourseEvaluation
Questions of Value - Find the value in this sentence
Is this a good painting? This? This?
What makes a good song?
EvaluaTion
schemes
The medium is the massage
The Self & The Uploaded Self

Print and Read: Razr vs. Blade
Print and Read: David Brooks, \"Harvard-Bound? Chin Up\"

1. EvaluaTion: Establishing Criteria

Browse: College Rankings vs. College Rankings
Blog a response: Which ranking system(s) do you prefer? Why? Are you happy with Penn State's rankings in each of the categories?

Schemes
Evaluation of Evaluation
Criteria of a Good Education:

Print and read: Digital IDs can help prevent terrorism, and National ID Cards: New Technologies, Same Bad Idea
Blog: Respond to the readings. Are national IDs necessary or desirable? Why/why not?

Peer-calibrated grading.
schemes

Post the first draft of your EvaluaTion to the wiki.

Peer calibrated grading.
Assorted comments.
Schemes.

Bring a printed copy of your paper to class for peer-editing.
Read a classmate's paper on the wiki and evaluate it. Write a brief evaluatory paragraph, and give an overall grade to the paper, giving solid and compelling reasons for your decision (identify at least three areas of strength/weakness). Think about it as a causal relation: what about the paper caused you to give it the grade you did? Post your evaluation at the bottom of your classmate's draft on the wiki, including a link to your own blog page. Note: Comment on the paper which is below your blog in Spring 06 Blogs.

Revolvers.
Sundry queries.
Editing.

EvaluaTion due

Read: Jonathan Swift: A Modest Proposal

From EvaluaTion to ProPosal
Criteria
Call to action

1. Read: "The Cyborg Manifesto"

Weston, p. 71-78. Logical Fallacies

Propaganda

Opposing Viewpoints:

Read: The Medium is the Massage

FinalProject first draft due to the wiki.

blank

Final Project due

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midnightrhetoric

Spring 06 Syllabus

Spring 06

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