Follow the following guidelines from the Harvard University Writing Center for your writing assignments:
- Overview of the Academic Essay
- Essay Structure
- Developing a Thesis
- Beginning the Academic Essay
- Outlining
- Counterargument
- Summary
- How to Write a Comparative Analysis
- Conclusions
- Revising the Draft
Assignment 1 (PDF)
This project is completed individually.
Paper Due: Ses #2
Length: 300-500 words
Assignment 2 (PDF)
This project is completed individually.
Paper Due: Ses #6
Length: 300-500 words
Major Paper 1 (PDF)
This project is completed in groups of 2-3.
Paper Due: 1 week after Ses #8
Length: 1500-2000, ~6-8 double-spaced pages.
Major Paper 2 (PDF)
This project is completed individually.
Paper Due: 2 weeks after Ses #8
Length: 1250-1750, ~5-7 double-spaced pages.
Major Paper 3 (PDF)
This project is completed individually.
Proposal Due: 3 weeks after Ses #8
Paper Draft Due: 4 weeks after Ses #8
Oral Presentations: Ses #9-12
Final Draft: Ses #16
Length: 2000-2500 words. ~8-10 double spaced pages
Oral Presentations
The purpose of the oral presentation is help you with your public speaking abilities and help you learn how to tailor a presentation to certain time constraints and still meet audience expectations. An eight-minute oral presentation is actually a rather short presentation, especially when you have to present the audience with background information, your major assertion, evidence, refutation of counterarguments, and summation.
Oral Assignments
Three-minute Oral Argument: Ses #4-8
Beginning the third week of class, two students will begin each class with a three-minute speech on a topic that, like the order of speakers, will be randomly assigned. This assignment will be ungraded.
Argumentative Proposal Individual Oral Presentations: Ses #9-12
As part of Major Paper 3, you will give a formal eight-minute presentation with visual aids. You will also answer questions for four minutes.
Lincoln-Douglas Debates: Ses #14-17
At the end of term, teams of two of three students will debate four topics determined by the class and the instructor.
Portfolio and Portfolio Review
This project is completed individually.
Due at your final conference Ses #22.
Length: 250-500 words (1-2 pages double-spaced)
At the end of the semester, you will assemble all your materials from this course into a portfolio. Assemble your notes, and papers into an organized folio of your work (please put in some folder and make sure the pages are not loose). Reviewing those materials, what can you say about how your understanding of rhetoric has changed over the semester? What questions about rhetoric do you have now? How can rhetoric (if at all) contribute to a better understanding of science? What does it miss? What else would you like to know or study? I also welcome observations about how your own ability to do rhetorical analyses had changed over the semester. You are also welcome to talk about how the class activities and/or projects contributed to that understanding. At your final conference, we will discuss your portfolio and your observations about the class.
