Oakland University
College of Arts and Sciences
Department of Rhetoric, Communication, and Journalism
Winter 2007

Students with disabilities who may require reasonable accomodations should make an appointment with OU’s Disability Support Services office for assistance, by calling (248) 370-3266 or TTY: (248) 370-3268; faxing (248) 370-4989; or e-mailing dss@oakland.edu.

Catalog Description

Rhetoric 160: Composition II (4 credits)
Emphasizes the process of writing in increasingly complex  rhetorical situations with focus on developing analytic thinking and problem-solving strategies in writing.  Students learn methods of academic research including evaluation and documentation of sources and are expected to create at least one research paper.  A grade of 2.0 or higher must be achieved to satisfy the university general education requirement in the writing knowledge foundation area.

This class satisfies the General Education Foundations Rhetoric Writing Requirement.

Course prerequisite

Students must have completed RHT 150 with a grade of 2.0 or better or its equivalent, or be placed based on an AP English Language and Composition exam score of 3, or be placed based on a score of Level 1 on the MEAP test of writing, or be placed based on a successful Placement Packet.

General Education Learning Outcomes

            The student will demonstrate:

• knowledge of the elements, writing processes and organizing strategies for creating analytical and expository prose

• effective rhetorical strategies appropriate to the topic, audience, context, and purpose.

Cross-Cutting Capacities

            Critical Thinking
            Effective Communication
            Information Literacy

Course Objectives

Writers in this class will

• Build on their ability, developed in Rhetoric 150 and elsewhere, to write effectively for a variety of audiences.

• Develop critical and formal strategies for identifying, analyzing, and addressing a variety of rhetorical situations.

• Practice composing, organizing, designing, revising, and editing documents.

• Learn to incorporate information, evidence, and authority into a variety of texts.

• Engage in collaborative writing and editing projects. Engage critically with the texts of other writers in the class by providing constructive feedback and advice throughout the writing process. Learn to incorporate the feedback of others into the production and revision of their own texts.

• Learn to use a variety of communication technologies to develop texts for different audiences.

Class Materials

• A computer with Internet access.

• A jump drive or other medium for storing electronic files.

• Web space available on your university web drive.

• A guide to grammar and usage.

Textbooks and Readings 

The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things - Barry Glassner

A grammar/research guide of your choosing. I recommend Keys for Writers, the OU version you purchased for RHT 150.

Additional readings will be provided online.

Course Procedures

This class is designed as a writers’ workshop, so much of the time we spend together this semester will be devoted to analyzing documents and using that analysis to draft, review, and revise your own documents. You will often begin projects in class, extend them beyond class time, and return to class to get feedback on your work. Class time will also consist of discussion based on the texts you are composing and reading (watching, listening to, looking at), and many of the projects you complete this semester will be produced in collaboration with one or more of your classmates.

We will work in a computerized, networked classroom throughout the semester, and as you develop documents, I will also introduce you to some editing, document design, and Web design software.

We will spend every Tuesday in our online classroom and every Thursday we will meet in the computer lab, Wilson 400.

Tuesday classes will be designated as either "synchronous," meaning that you will need to meet online during class time, or "asynchronous," when you will not meet online during class time, but you will be required to complete assignments, group projects, or discussion postings no later than that Thursday at noon. I will post the assignment for Tuesday's online classes the Friday before that class, so you will have six full days to complete online work. Because of this extended deadline for Moodle work, I will not accept any Moodle work later than Thursday at noon.

Because this is a writing class, there are no midterms or final exams: your grade will be based on the writing, editing, and collaborative work you do this semester.

Expectations of students

Attendance

My standard policy is be here, end of story. But I realize that perfect attendance is not always possible or desirable, so we will follow the Rhetoric program’s attendance policy: after two absences (the equivalent of one week for this class), for each additional absence, 4%  will be deducted from your final grade.  Six absences (the equivalent of three weeks for this class) will result in your failure of the course. You will be counted absent for this course if you arrive more than 30 minutes late for class. If you arrive 15-20 minutes late for 3 classes, I will count you absent for one full class period. You will also be counted absent if you fail to appear for one of the synchronous online classes or if you do not complete any asynchronous online activities by Saturday at noon every week.

Social Practices

I hope for lively, interesting, and informed discussion throughout the semester. I expect that you will respect your classmates and me by coming to class on time, prepared, and, if not entirely excited to be here, at least willing to fake it for our sakes. I expect you to be respectful to your peers, to me, and to anyone else you encounter in the course of completing research for this class. I expect your responses to your peers’ projects to be constructive and generative; and I expect your participation in your group projects to be professional and productive.

Late Work

Work submitted late will be graded 1/3 letter grade lower for each class period (this includes online class periods) it is late. I reserve the right to fail any work submitted a week or more after the deadline. I also reserve the right not to respond to or return late work until after I have caught up on my other work. After you have submitted two late assignments, any additional projects submitted late will not receive a grade above 0.0. Late projects cannot be revised for a better grade. Please Note: any work completed after the deadline on Moodle will not receive a grade.

Response Policy

A big part of my job as your course instructor is to provide you with helpful feedback about your work in this class—feedback that goes beyond a simple letter grade. You will notice that my feedback will typically present a summary reflection of what I think you are saying and doing in your work, a response to the ideas or arguments you advance, a discussion of your document’s design and usability, as well as several questions for you to think about as you revise. You will not see grammar corrections, and I do not typically use static abstractions like “flow” or “awk” or “improve organization,” as I think these responses may be less than to aspiring rhetors and writers. But I do expect you to turn in polished, copyedited drafts at all times.

Revision Policy

Because this is a writing class, you will be creating multiple drafts of each project throughout the semester, with a final revision of all documents that will occur at the end of the semester. While you are required to revise documents based on peer and instructor feedback prior to submitting those documents to me for a letter-grade evaluation, you may also revise those documents later for a better grade. After I have returned your graded work to you, you will have two weeks to revise that work for a better grade. To take advantage of this policy, you must email me one week after the document has been returned, letting me know specifically what you plan to revise and how you will do that work. You will then have another week to submit that work. In other words, revision is built into the construction of every document in this class, but you may also revise documents for better grades.Work submitted late may not be revised for a better grade.

Academic Integrity

Cheating on examinations, plagiarism, falsifying reports/records, and unauthorized collaboration, access, or modifying of computer programs are considered serious breaches of academic conduct.  The Oakland University policy on academic conduct will be strictly followed with no exceptions.  See the university catalog under Academic Policies and Procedures for more information.

Because you will also be designing public documents, you should become familiar with policies for fairuse and copyright as well. Your work in this class must conform to these policies at every step in the drafting process.

Add/Drops

The university add/drop policy will be explicitly followed.  It is the student’s responsibility to be aware of the university deadline dates for dropping the course.

Grading

Project I (total of 20%)

Group project (article, video, website, digital story, etc) 15%

Individual analysis 5%

Project II (total of 40%)

Individual Researched Analysis 15 % and collage 5%

Annotated Bibliography 10%

Analytical Cover letter 5%

Library Particpation 5%

Moodle and In-class Participation 20%

Short Projects (2-3 of these) 10%

Paper Assignment Analysis (your analysis of a paper assignment from another class) 10%

Course Description: Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

Most of the writers in this class grew up under two dark clouds in our country's history: Columbine and the attack on the World Trade Center. These two frightening events have shaped the culture you know, the very culture that helped to shape you into the person you are today. This semester we are going to take a step back from these events and examine the rhetoric of fear: what did we fear, what do we fear, what should we fear, and why do we fear. We're going to pay particular attention to what these fears say about our culture and how these fears have shaped our culture and ourselves.

We'll begin our examination by looking back 50-75 years to examine what our grandparents and great grandparents feared. We'll examine historical paranoias about teen violence, drug use, communism, and the A-Bomb. We'll do this by watching some classic B-movies (Teenage Crimewave, The Violent Years, The Narcotics Story, and Reefer Madness). We'll also look at how some fears shaped political policies and politicians, and how some of our ancestors' fears grew out of their constructions of gender, race, sexuality, and the "other."

Finally, we'll figure out what we fear now and examine the rhetoric of those contemporary fears: what are we really afraid of, what do these fears make us do or agree to do, who constructs these fears, what do we gain from them, what do we lose, and what should we really fear. We'll do this by examining some contemporary flims (Bowling for Columbine and The Village), reading and viewing online documents, and reading our textbook, The Culture of Fear.

Major Course Projects

I learn better by doing things, by really engaging with new material, and by playing and having fun in the process. I tried to design this course to be active and fun in the hope that this is the way you learn as well. This semester you'll create a number of different projects branching out of a variety of different inquiries you make into the rhetoric of fear.

Project I--"Teenagesrs and A-Bombs and Drugs, oh my!"

Group Project: for this project you will work with a small group of classmates to investigate one of this culture's fears from the past (at least 20 years ago). You will use the Internet as your primary source of research, and you will examine this fear as it was portrayed in at least two of the following sites: mainstream media (TV, magazine, and newsprint primarily), entertainment (movies), educational materials, and propaganda (posters, etc). Your group will then write a collaborative project and develop a short paper that will accurately present your findings to a group of interested and educated people outside of our classroom. Links to possible topics here.

Group Presentation of research--each group will present their research projects (websites, digital stories, videos, podcasts, etc) to the class.

Individual analysis of your group's topic (2-3 pages)--each individual will write a critical and researched analysis of their group's topic, explaining the way the fear was represented to the general public, explaining the historical context for that fear, examining what that fear was meant to teach the public, and analyzing what that fear really represented.

Project II--"Terror and Crime and Y2K, oh my!"

Individual research and development of an article, wiki, documentary, or website.

Annotated Bibliography

Individual analysis of topic (3-5 pages)

Paper Assignment Analysis

For this assignment you will analyze a paper assignment another professor has given you this semester to determine what that professor is looking for; what s/he values; what kinds of goals s/he has for your writing; and what academic style, kinds of research, tone, and level of correctness s/he is looking for.

 

These course materials
are licensed by Lori Ostergaard under a
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.