21W.016 | Fall 2016 | Undergraduate

Writing and Rhetoric: Designing Meaning

Readings

SES # TOPICS READINGS
1 Entering the Conversation No assigned readings
2 Rhetorical Situations

Bitzer, Lloyd. “The Myth of the Rhetorical Situation.” (PDF) In Philosophy and Rhetoric Vol. 1 (1968). 1-14.

Consigny, Scott. “Rhetoric and Its Situations.” (PDF) In Philosophy and Rhetoric Vol 7, No 3 (1974). 175-186.

3 Rhetorical Situations cont. Obama, Senator Barack. “A More Perfect Union.” In The Black Scholar 38, no. 1 (2008): 17-23.
4 Rhetorical Reading Selzer, Jack. “Rhetorical Analysis: Understanding How Texts Persuade Readers.” In What Writing Does and How It Does It: An Introduction to Analyzing Texts and Texual Practices. Edited by Charles Bazerman and Paul Prior. Routledge, 2003. ISBN: 9780805838060.
5 Rhetorical Reading cont. Fahnestock, Jeanne and Marie Secor. “The Stases in Scientific and Literary Argument.” In Written Communication 5, no. 4 (1988): 427-443.
6 Discourse

Lukin, Annabelle, David Butt, and Christian Matthiessen. “Reporting War: Grammar as ‘Covert Operation’.” Pacific Journalism Review, Vol. 10, No. 1, April (2004): 58-74.

Gee, James Paul. “Social Languages, Conversations, and Intertextuality.” In An Introduction to Discourse Analysis: Theory and Method. 2nd edition. Routledge, 2005. ISBN: 9780415328616. [Preview with Google Books]

7 Discourse cont. No assigned readings
8 Revision Strategies No assigned readings
9 Revision Strategies cont. Sommers, Nancy. “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers.” (PDF) In The Norton Book of Composition Studies. Edited by Susan Miller. W. W. Norton & Company, 2009. ISBN: 9780393931358.
10 Speeches

Clinton, Hillary Rodham. “Remarks to the UN 4th World Conference on Women Plenary Session.” American Rhetoric 5 (1995).

Chisholm, Shirley Anita St. Hill. “For the Equal Rights Amendment.” American Rhetoric Retrieved December 27 (2006).

Watch:

Kennedy, John F. “Inaugural Address.” January 20, 1961. Miller Center.

11 Argument Structure Toulmin, Stephen. “The Layout of Arguments.” In Professing the New Rhetorics: A Sourcebook." Pearson, 1993. ISBN: 9780130143174.
12 Argument Structure cont. Walton, Douglas. “Argumentation Schemes.” In Fundamentals of Critical Argumentation (Critical Reasoning and Argumentation)." Cambridge University Press, 2005. ISBN: 9780521530200. [Preview with Google Books]
13 Debate Strategies Schiappa, Edward and John P. Nordin. Argumentation: Keeping Faith with Reason. Pearson, 2013. ISBN: 9780205327447.
14 Debate Strategies cont. Debate 101: 10 Steps to Successful Debating (PDF). Courtesy of Edward Schiappa and used with permission.
15 Arrangement No assigned readings
16 Arrangement cont. No assigned readings
17 Style Williams, Joseph M. and Joseph Bizup. Style: Lessins in Clarity and Grace. 12th edition. Pearson, 2016. ISBN: 9780134080413.
18 Style cont. No assigned readings
19 Visual Rhetoric

Kress, Gunther. “Reading Images: Multimodality, Representation and New Media.” Expert Forum for Knowledge Presentation.

Wysocki, Anne Frances. “The Multiple Media of Texts: How Onscreen and Paper Texts Incorporate Words, Images, and Other Media.” In What Writing Does and How It Does It: An Introduction to Analyzing Texts and Texual Practices. Edited by Charles Bazerman and Paul Prior. Routledge, 2003. ISBN: 9780805838060.

20 Visual Rhetoric cont. No assigned readings
21 Structure No assigned readings
22 Visual Design

Burke, Kenneth. “Identification.” In A Rhetoric of Motives. Revised edition. University of California Press, 1969. ISBN: 9780520015463. [Preview with Google Books]

Geary, James. “Metaphor and the Brain: Bright Sneezes and Loud Sunlight.” In I Is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How it Shapes the Way We See the World. Reprint edition. Harper Perennial, 2012. ISBN: 9780061710292.

The Logic of Persuasion: Identifying, Critiquing, and Developing Appeals to Logos (PDF)

23 Visual Design cont.

Slides on how to design an image for the homepage:

Designing Meaning: What is the meaning of MIT? (PDF)

24 Delivery No assigned readings
25 Delivery cont. No assigned readings
26 Last Words No assigned readings
27 Last Words cont. No assigned readings

Course Info

Instructor
As Taught In
Fall 2016
Learning Resource Types
Written Assignments with Examples