NOTE: The calendar is our game plan for the semester, but the dates and assignments are subject to change depending on our needs as a class. Check here often for updates and modifications. You’ll get plenty of notice when I adapt the anticipated schedule.

WEEK 16: Mandatory Semester Conference Meetings

Remember, you all have signed up for an hour-long conference with me, and I will meet with you at that time in my office. Please do not miss your appointment. There is no wiggle room in my calendar this week, so failure to appear at your self-selected time means you forfeit our meeting as well as my feedback on your semester project. Failure to appear for your self-selected conference will result in deduction from your final research project grade.

Friday, May 3 — Course Evaluation Day

Because I will be in an all-day workshop with high school teachers, Dr. Rist has kindly agreed to drop off the course evaluations on Friday. Please be present to provide your feedback on the content of this course. I ask that you remember the evaluations are about the course content—specifically the writing assignments as well as sequence of readings we completed. The department likes to know what methods and activities are helping you learn.

FINAL EXAM: Monday, May 6 from 11:15 – 1:15 PM

Your Self-Assessment Letter + Revised Semester Project are due at the end of our Final Exam time. You are not required to meet in the classroom, as I will be working in the Writing Center (a scheduling issue I was unable to prevent). Before 1:15 pm, you need to either (a) bring me a hard copy of your letter and a hard copy of your revised semester project or (b) upload both documents to your private 4341 folder. Please remember that I also want copies of your secondary sources and primary research materials. This information can be submitted online via GDocs, if possible; if you have paper copies, I prefer you bring me those materials. As you assemble this material, please know that I often use this work to make up for missing assignments, depending on the quantity and quality of the documentation.

While I would like to see you one final time this semester, I understand if it is easier to simply upload the work from the comfort of your home. Please, again, remember that the deadline for uploading your materials or submitting them to me is 1:15 pm on Monday.

WEEK 15: Consultations & Project Work Time

For those who submitted their accountability and progress report as explained in the calendar below, you can expect an email from me this weekend, addressing any notes, concerns, or ideas I have about the information you provided in the email or in the update completed in class on Wednesday. When I redistribute class time for you to work on projects in my class, I like to know what you are doing with your time, which is why failure to provide me with an accountability and progress report will result in deduction from your final research project grade.

Monday, April 22 — Consultation Times

I will be available in our regular classroom for consultations today. All you need to do, if you want help, is show up and ask questions. Otherwise, I will assume you are working on your project.

Wednesday, April 24 — Consultation Times

I will be available in our regular classroom for consultations today. All you need to do, if you want help, is show up and ask questions. Otherwise, I will assume you are working on your project.

Friday, April 26 — One-on-One Required Conference Meetings

Beginning this week, and running through Thursday, May 2, I will be meeting with each of you individually to review and discuss your final research project. This means that at 10:00 am, I will not be in our regular classroom. I will, however, be in my office should you need to pop by and ask a question. During the conference, we’ll read through the project, noting places for revision. We will also talk, during these meetings, about the final self-assessment letter, which you will submit along with your final research project at 11:15 am on May 6 (during our final exam time). You should review the description and evaluation criteria of the self-assessment prior to our conference.

Before 8:00 am on Sunday (April 28, 2013), you need to email me (at ilamc@stedwards.edu) your accountability and progress report. Please remember to embed your answers in the email, as I’m old and cranky about downloading files on my home computer. This week, you should have more substantive progress to report, and below are items you should address. Please use the numbers provided. Failure to provide me with an accountability and progress report will result in deduction from your final research project grade.

Research Project Progress

Let’s start with something fun. Tell me a little about what you’ve learned in the last two weeks about your research project that you didn’t know. These don’t need to be revolutionary, game-changing ideas. Your project should be intellectually and/or personally interesting; I simply want to know what’s been intriguing for you, especially if that information will not be making an appearance in your final draft.
How is your target audience working for the draft? That is, are the form and purpose making sense for what you hoped to achieve? How are you keeping that audience in mind, and has the focus been liberating or constraining?
Describe the current state of your draft. How are you using your secondary sources? your primary sources? Give me a sense of how the project is working as a whole.
What are the big picture items that you know you want to discuss at your conference? Do you remember when we are meeting? What time do you show on your calendar? Do you remember where to meet me?

WEEK 14: Annotated Bibliography Due, Data Coding

Monday, April 15 — Annotated Bib Workday

Monday is a working day for you. This is time to complete your annotated bibliographies under the revised deadlines.

HOMEWORK, or what you need to complete before Wednesday.

Your final Annotated Bibliography is due to your GDocs folder by 10:00 am on Wednesday.
If you haven’t already signed up for your one-on-one conference, you should do that sooner rather than later, especially if you have a cramped schedule. The sign-up sheet is available via GDocs / 4341 folder.
We are meeting in our classroom at 10:00 am on Wednesday. Don’t be late.

WEDNESDAY, April 17 — Research Project Prep

We’ll discuss your Research Memos and data coding sheets as well as the accountability email requirements. There will also be a sign-up sheet for consultations during the writing week next week.

FRIDAY, April 19 — Research Day, Accountability Report #1 Due

I will be available in our regular classroom for consultations today. All you need to do, if you want help, is show up and ask questions. Otherwise, I will assume you are working on your project.

Before 8:00 am tomorrow (April 20, 2013), you need to email me (at ilamc@stedwards.edu) your accountability and progress report. This week, many of you may have only little pieces of information to report, but, below is a list of items you should address. Please use the numbers provided. Failure to provide me with an accountability and progress report will result in deduction from your final research project grade.

Research Project Progress

Who is your target audience? A general academic audience will only work if you’re targeting a particular undergraduate research journal, such as Young Scholars in Writing. As an ENGW major, you know that audience is key in establishing your purpose, so give me specifics about who you are addressing.
Thinking about your target audience, what is the working purpose for your current project? What do you hope to accomplish with your research?
Thinking about your audience and purpose, what is your current plan for a form? What will the project “look” like? What will be its controlling features?
Where are you in the writing/drafting stage?
Have you begun incorporating and synthesizing resources into a literature review? See the evaluation criteria: “How successfully does the paper provide a focused yet comprehensive “conversation” on the writer’s research question?”

Research Progress

Are you happy with your primary sources? Explain how they are helping you answer your question.
Are you keeping a running research log, or do you have another method for tracking your reading and thinking over the next few weeks? Are you incorporating materials and/or ideas from Blakeslee? Explain.
What are other deadlines you are facing that may create problems for you?

How much should you write? You should include enough detail for me to know how you’ve redistributed the time you were not in class and what you plan to work on with next week’s research time. You are not being judged on the sophistication of your answers. Running stream of consciousness is fine, so long as you answer the questions.

Everyone is required to submit this accountability email, even if you and I meet and discussed your work on Friday.

Want some extra credit points? This Friday, the Symposium on Undergraduate Research and Creative Expression (SOURCE) will be taking place on campus. Here is a link to the program schedule. If you would like to earn up to 25 extra points, identify presentations related to our course topics. (Here’s a hint: Kellie Salome is presenting on her 4341 research project.) After listening to the presentation, write up a couple of paragraphs explaining to me what you hear as the connections between the presentation and our class discussion. I’d also like some discussion about the scope of the project and how hearing the presentation does or doesn’t change something for you. For full credit, all the information must be uploaded to your private GDoc folder by 7:59 am on Monday, April 22. Please use the file name ExtraCredit.

WEEK 13: Narratives and Love and The End

Monday, April 8 — Narrative Paradigms

I hope that today’s in-class discussion about how Candace Spigelman uses the narrative paradigm to challenge evidence in academic arguments opened up some new in-roads for your individual research projects. The ideas of narrative fidelity and narrative probability may change the way you think about the stories you tell yourself (and others).

HOMEWORK: or, What you need to complete before Wednesday

If you are missing Trading 8s and/or want to “make up” a lower grade, the Leader posts for Fisher should be completed by 8:00 am Tuesday. Followers, you’ll have until class time on Wednesday.
Read Jim Corder’s “Argument as Emergence, Rhetoric as Love” (PNR 412).
Again, if you are missing a Trading 8s, or making up a low grade, here is the discussion question I’d like you to integrate into your post for T8:14: Imagine a writing course that taught students to argue as Corder speculates in Section 9 (pp. 424-28) of this piece. How could such a pedagogy be implemented? Should it?
Leaders, your posts for Corder will be due at 8:00 am on Thursday. Followers, you’ll have until 10:00 am on Friday to respond to Corder posts.

Wednesday, April 10 — Corder + Love = Happiness

Here’s our focus for today’s discussion: Corder’s piece often does not conform to what we usually imagine as the “academic essay” genre. This could be true of most of his writing. To what extent did Corder’s choices about the form of his piece influence your adherence, or non-adherence, to the substantive claims he’s trying to have you accept?

HOMEWORK, or What you need to complete before Friday

Read Richard Ohmann’s “In Lieu of a New Rhetoric” (PNR 298-306).
Leaders, your responses to Ohmann for the T8:15 are due by 5:00 pm on Friday (because we are not meeting face to face this day). Followers, you’ll have until 10:00 am on Monday.

Friday, April 12 — Ohmann

As a reminder, we aren’t meeting in our classroom today. I have a presentation to make for the TLTR committee. You have one final reading assignment (above), and one final T8 assignment (if you need to “make up” some work).

HOMEWORK, or What you need to complete for Monday

Midnight on Monday is the deadline for submitting “late” T8 assignments. All this work should be in your private 4341 folder if you want partial credit for that work.
Monday will be a work day. You can use our class time to work on your Annotated Bibliography assignment, which, as the announcement in Blackboard noted, is due before class on Wednesday.
We’ll be back in class on Wednesday, talking about coding and moving forward with your research projects.
If you haven’t already signed up for your one-on-one conference, you should do that sooner rather than later, especially if you have a cramped schedule. The sign-up sheet is available via GDocs / 4341 folder.

WEEK 12: Data Analysis

Wednesday, April 3 — Data Analysis Discussion

I hope that today’s in-class activity gave you some ideas about how you’ll begin coding and organizing the data you’re collecting for your semester project. Regardless of your data collection method—primary or secondary—you need to have a plan in place for dealing with that data, and those documents will be submitted as part of your final project. They are essential to your success with the research paper. In a perfect world, you may even begin charting the conversations of those sources that you’re reading for the annotated bibliography; I require my first-year students to write a synthesis essay, which acts as the literature review, but you’re not required to complete this step. I do hope, however, that you’ll have a plan in place for organizing the collective conversation around your question. After all, your project will need to make the academic move of encapsulating the key arguments for the readings you complete, so don’t skimp on this step.

HOMEWORK: or, What you need to complete before Friday, April 5

Using the data set I provided in class, complete a coding sheet for either the A side or the B side. Code the data using the sheet you’ve developed.
Modify the sheet you’ve developed for your own research project. Change the categories and labels to account for the patterns you anticipate finding in your data. You are not required to enter the data at this time; however, we’ll be discussing your approach and your data on Friday.

Friday, April 5 — Research Memo #1

Today, you shared your data coding sheets with your small groups, and after determining what did and didn’t work about your approaches, you workshopped the data collection sheets you created so that we could begin talking about how you were able to adapt your own working sheets for your individual projects. I then asked for an in-class draft of your first Research Memo. Remember, these memos should not only consider what you’ve learned from your sources up to a given point (primary and secondary), but they should summarize those findings. They are written to an outside audience, so you cannot assume I understand every nuance, but they are meant to be casual and questioning. There is not place for certainty in the research memo.

HOMEWORK: or, What you need to complete before Friday, April 5

Before 8:00 am on Monday, your Research Memo #1, which was drafted and submitted to me at the end of class, is due. In this polished version, I need you to address a couple of different issues:

(1) If your proposal was not approved or approved with a contingency, what is your plan for resolving this issue? When will the revisions be in your course folder? What remaining information do you need from me?

(2) Where are you in terms of data collection? If you’re conducting human subjects research (surveys and/or interviews), when will you distribute and/or collect that information? Please give me specific dates. What is your self-imposed final deadline for that information?

(3) Describe where you are in terms of reading your secondary sources and drafting your Annotated Bibliography.

(4) Describe your current plan for final submission; that is, walk me through your audience, purpose, and form for the final project.

Read Fisher’s “Narration as a Human Communication Paradigm” (PNR 374-396).
For T8:13 (which should be completed as needed by you), we’re going to do some Peter Elbow dabbling. For the “Believing Game,” discuss the major beliefs and values that weave the “stories” you’ve chosen to create and re-create in your life so far. How does reflecting on your beliefs and values within the “narrative paradigm” rather than the “rational world paradigm” affect your understanding of those beliefs and values? If you’d rather play the “Doubting Game,” generate a list of three major limitations, exceptions, or counterexamples to Fisher’s “narrative paradigm.” Describe each of these in detail.

WEEK 11: Research Proposals Due

Monday, March 25 — Research Proposal Conferences (Sorin Hall 117)

Please see the sign-up sheet in GDocs to make and/or confirm your appointment with me. No class meeting today; this is time for you to work on your proposals. Please remember to use the Primary Research folder in GDocs (for help with interview and survey questions as well as drafting of consent documents).

HOMEWORK: or, What you need to complete before Wednesday, March 27

Read 1 Blakeslee, Planning Qualitative Research in GDocs / 4341 / Research Proposals.
Finalize your Research Proposal. Please use the template provided in the Research Proposals folder in Google Docs. Please make sure that all the elements are in place, including primary research instruments (questions, surveys, etc.) and consent materials.
Bring one (1) complete copy of your proposal to class on Wednesday. I will be traveling for the holiday and without internet over the weekend. If you fail to bring me a copy, it will delay my response to your work.

Wednesday, March 27 — Research Proposals Due

Today, we’ll discuss the ethical implications of our research and verify that we’re doing everything possible to handle our primary and secondary sources with care. We’ll also review some steps for making sure you get the synthesis portion of the final submission “just right.”

HOMEWORK, or What you need to complete before Wednesday, April 3

Read 2 Blakeslee, Analyzing Data in GDocs / 4341 / Research Proposals.
Come ready to finalize and refine your proposals. What does this mean? By the time you come back to class, I want you to have applied Blakeslee’s ideas to your own primary research plan. No, you will not have any real data to look at, but you will have a sense of what you think you’ll do to analyze those materials. That’s the written plan I’d like you to have drafted before class time. We’ll spend the day discussing which analysis approach makes the most sense for your project, and, working in groups, you’ll refine and, if necessary, develop new instruments to guide your data collection and synthesis writing.

Are you a senior? Have you completed the NSSE survey? With a low response rate and small pool of eligible students, you shouldn’t miss out on the chance to be entered in a raffle to win one of four cash prizes of $50 and a grand prize of $300. If you don’t need the money, you can always donate it to the ENGW department. If you’ve lost the email, here’s a link to get the request to participate resent: https://www.nssesurvey.org/includes/loginLookup.cfm. All you need to do is add in your email address.

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION: Thursday, April 4 is the last day to withdraw from any of your classes. If you have missed more than three (3) of our class meetings, you should review my absence policy. I would also encourage you to make an appointment to talk with me if you are missing assignments; the Trading 8s grades are all caught up online. You can review your grade in Blackboard, and the grading scale for our class is available here. A number of you are missing a significant number of Trading 8s. I would encourage you to “run the numbers” over the break and negotiate with me for late submissions and partial credit.

WEEK 10: Audience

Monday, March 18 — Perelman

Today, we began talking about Perelman’s (and O-T’s) contrast between demonstration and argumentation. Perelman seems to think that distinction is important. According to him, why is it so important? What’s the big deal?

HOMEWORK: or, What you need to complete before Wednesday’s class meeting

We’ll have one more discussion of P/O-T on Wednesday. This time our focus will be on audience.
Followers, your T8:12 responses will be do by the beginning of class.

REMINDER: Revisions of the Short Paper are due next Wednesday, March 27 at 5:00 pm. You may revise your project if you earned less that 86%. Please see the General Course Policies page for information about revising. The process is fairly simple: schedule a face-to-face meeting with me to discuss the project and my feedback. During that meeting, we’ll agree on a revision plan, which you’ll submit next week.

Wednesday, March 20 — Perelman, continued

Universal versus Practical Audiences

HOMEWORK: or, What you need to complete before Friday’s class meeting

Your proposal for your Research Project is due next Wednesday before Easter Break, and we’ll be meeting one-on-one to discuss your plan. These meetings, which will take place in my office in Sorin Hall, will go better if you’ve attempted to scratch out the template provided in GDocs. If you don’t have an idea or direction, come anyway, and we’ll do our best to sort out the ideas and get you going.

The sign-up sheet for meetings is also available via GDocs. Just sign-up for the time that’s most convenient for you. Failure to appear, however, will be treated as a full absence.

Thursday, March 21 — Research Proposal Conferences (Sorin Hall 117)

Please see the sign-up sheet in GDocs to make and/or confirm your appointment with me.

Friday, March 22 — Research Proposal Conferences (Sorin Hall 117)

WEEK 8: Using Language

Monday, March 4 — Burke

Today, we used Burke’s definition to understand rhetorical events, genres, or acts. We also considered what it means to be symbol-using animals.

HOMEWORK: or, What you need to complete before Wednesday’s class meeting

Followers, your T8:9 posts for Burke are due before class on Wednesday.
Read Weaver’s “The Cultural Role of Rhetoric” (75-89).
In advance of class discussion, make a list of the kinds of questions you could ask of rhetorical acts if you accepted as true that “language is always preaching” (shaping attitudes about values)?
Leaders, your T8:10 for Weaver posts are due after class on Wednesday but before 8:00 pm on Thursday.

Wednesday, March 6 — Weaver

HOMEWORK: or, What you need to complete before Friday’s class meeting

Followers, your T8:10 for Weaver posts are due after class on Friday but before 8:00 pm on Sunday (in other words, please post before you bolt for Spring Break).
Review the guidelines for your Research Proposal.
Review Burke. Review Weaver.
In lieu of a Trading 8s 11, everyone will respond to the following. Bring a hard copy of your response to class on Friday.

Compare (illuminate similarities) and contrast (illuminate differences) between Burke’s “Definition of Man” and Weaver’s “Cultural Role of Rhetoric.” What are their central concerns (i.e. why bother to write?), how do they support their claims, where do they overlap, and where do they diverge? If it helps you, please treat this as a graph or a chart. Feel free to use columns or visual aids.

Friday, March 8 — Burke + Weaver, Research Proposal

HOMEWORK: or, What you need to complete before Monday’s class (03/18/13)

Read Perelman’s “The New Rhetoric” (PNR 145-77: skim 145-48 and 173-77; read other pages closely).
Leaders, your posts for T8:12 will be due before class on the Monday after Spring Break. As best you can, explain Perelman’s contrast between demonstration and argumentation as clearly as you can. Perelman seems to think that distinction is important. According to him, why is it so important? What’s the big deal?

WEEK 7: ”New” RHETORIC (?)

Monday, February 25 — Ede & Lunsford, continued

Today, we will think about the implications of Ede & Lunsford’s work for our own study of “new” rhetorics. Using these quotes, let’s consider there overarching goal with the piece and the implications for understanding “new” rhetoric in light of the “gospel” truth we talked about on Friday.

“…their shared concept of man as a language-using animal who unites reason and emotion in discourse with another” (405).
“…the view of rhetoric as a techne or dynamic methodology through which rhetor and audience, a self and an other, may jointly have access to knowledge” (405).
“…in both periods rhetoric has the potential to clarify and inform activities in numerous related fields” (407).
“We suggest that a much more accurate way to describe Aristotle’s concept of the goal of rhetoric is as an interactive means of discovering meaning through language” (404). “But such a reunion demands that we attempt to reinstate rhetoric at or near the center of our curriculum, as the art of using language in the creation—and sharing—of knowledge and belief” (408).

HOMEWORK: What you need to complete before Wednesday’s class meeting

Read Ehninger’s “On Systems of Rhetoric” (319-330). Also available via SEU databases.
Leaders, your posts for T8:7 are due before class time.
Here are some questions to guide your reading and to prepare for our discussion:

(1) Based on your reading of Ehninger’s whole article, do you agree with his claim in the last sentence of the conclusion: “Perhaps the central lesson to be learned….”?

(2) Are rhetorics becoming ever “more penetrating and more fruitful?” How would we judge that?

(3) If Ehninger is right, how could you use his ideas to shape a research question about “systems of rhetoric”?

Wednesday, February 27 — Systems of Rhetoric & Ehninger

HOMEWORK: or, What you need to complete before Friday’s class meeting

Followers, your T8:7 will be due before class time.
Read “Introduction: A Gathering of Rhetorics” (in 4341 folder in GDrive).
Read the Research Proposal assignment.
In lieu of T8:8, everyone should prepare their answers to these questions. Please bring a hard copy to class on Friday.

(1) Write your own definition for women’s rhetoric(s).

(2) Using your own cultural resources, test your definition against an example of women’s rhetorics. Be sure to bring a copy and/or describe the original piece of rhetoric in detail.

Friday, March 1 — Women’s Rhetoric(s), Proposal Discussion

HOMEWORK: or, What you need to complete before Monday’s class meeting

Read Burke’s “Definition of Man” (40-62). Below is an activity that should guide the Leader and Follower posts. We’ll use this idea to guide class discussion.

Take one clause of Burke’s definition. Write a brief list of the kinds of rhetorical events, genres, or acts that that one clause might be useful to illuminate.

Leaders, your T8:9 posts are due before class on Monday.

WEEK 6: SHORT PAPER, MODERN RHETORICAL THEORY

Monday, February 18 — Short-Paper Workshop

Today, in class, we’re going to share your drafts-in-progress and provide you with some reader feedback.

HOMEWORK: What you need to complete before Wednesday’s class meeting

I know you’ve been working hard, and in lieu of a class meeting on Wednesday, you have until 11:59 pm to submit your Short Paper to your private Google Docs folder. I will be in my office during our class time if you have last-minute questions. Please review the Formatting guidelines, and if you have questions, ask.
If you still haven’t logged in your responses, please take a few minutes and complete our Week 5 Barometer. This short survey asks you questions about what has been happening in class, and it allows you and I to reflect on what is and is not helping you learn. Your answers will remain anonymous, so please be honest and constructive in describing what you would and would not like to change about our class thus far.

Wednesday, February 20 — Short Paper Due — Writing Day

REMEMBER, we are not meeting in our classroom, but I am in my office if you need a consultation. Your Short Paper is due to your private 4341 folder in Google Docs no later than 11:59 pm tonight. Yes, I do check the time stamps.

HOMEWORK: or, What you need to complete before Friday’s class meeting

Read Lunsford & Ede, “On Distinctions between Classical and Modern Rhetoric” (PNR 397-411). As you read, pay attention to the four major similarities outlined by Ede & Lunsford, so that we can begin our discussion on Friday with the distinctions within those similarities. It will make more sense after you read.
Leaders, drafts of your posts for T8:6 are due at the beginning of class on Friday.

Friday, February 22 — Ede & Lunsford Discussion

We used the ideas of persuasion and identification to begin our conversation into what makes New Rhetoric “new” in the first place. We’ll continue this conversation on Monday.

HOMEWORK: or, What you need to complete before Monday

Review the Research Proposal assignment sheet.
Review Ede & Lunsford.
Followers, your responses to Leaders’ T8:6 posts will be due at the beginning of class on Monday.

NOTE: If you are looking for information from the first five weeks of the course, you can access that calendar here.