Rhetor's Notebook Post #5: Logical Proof

Pick an op-ed piece by a regular New York Times columnist that interests you. For this post, you’ll analyze how the writer reasons through his or her argument.

First, examine the use of enthymeme in this article. In a sentence or two, state the piece’s conclusion (put another way, summarize its main argument). Then identify the major and minor premises that lead to the conclusion. What ideas or assumptions does the conclusion depend on for it to be persuasive? As you reconstruct the piece’s enthymeme, explain the relationship between the premises and the conclusion and discuss how effective you think the writer’s reasoning is.

Last, describe this piece’s use of an example, analogy, maxim or sign. Identify at least one instance of one of these strategies that the writer uses in his or her piece. Explain how it enhances or diminishes the writer’s main argument.

Please post your response as a comment to this post before class meets on Monday.

The common topics and AP courses

Now that we’ve discussed the New York Times video op-ed “Advanced Pressure,” I’d like you to identify your position on this issue. What do you think about AP courses and exams? Is there a problem with them as the video suggests? Are they good or bad for students or for their education? Is it possible to change this system or is it more practical to maintain the status quo? Once you identify your position, then choose one of the common topics (conjecture, degree, or possibility) and use this topic to sketch out all the possible lines of argument you could pursue to help you support your position about AP exam and courses. Post your response here as a comment, and we will discuss a few of these together as a class.

Rhetor's Notebook Post #4: The Common Topics

After reading the chapter in Ancient Rhetorics about the common topics and the commonplaces, pick an editorial or op-ed piece from the New York Times that interests you and that you think uses one of the common topics as the basis for its argument. As you write your blog post for Wednesday, please summarize the article first, making sure you clearly state the main claim of the piece and describe briefly how the writer supports his or her claim. Then, identify which common topic(s) you see the writer framing their argument around and explain how the writer engages with this topic. That is, imagine you’re playing a game of rhetorical jeopardy. You have the answer in front of you, and your job is to explain what the question is that the piece responds to.

Using kairos to respond to Paul Krugman

Respond to Krugman’s article and foreground kairos in your response. That is, draft a letter to the editor of the New York Times that makes your own argument about this issue, but draws specifically on or acknowledges the rhetorical situation as a way to strengthen your own point. Post your response here as a comment to this post before you leave class today.

Rhetor's Notebook #3: Kairos and the Rhetorical Situation

Read through the letters to the editor from the New York Times from the past few days. Pick one that interests you and read it carefully. Then, find the original article that prompted this letter and read it, too.

Write a substantial paragraph and summarize the original article and the letter responding to it. What is the article’s main argument? (Or, if it is a news article, what are the main issues that it reports on?) What does the letter say in response to this article?

Once you summarize the article and the letter, explain the rhetorical situation for the letter writer. What prompted the letter writer to respond to the original piece, and how does he or she frame the letter as a response to it? What audience(s) does the letter writer address (implicitly or explicitly)? What constraints (ideas, beliefs, values) does the writer face in making his or her argument?

Please post your response as a comment to this post. Aim for 250-350 words.

Reflecting on your writing and revision process

As you turn the final draft of your literacy event narrative in today, please reflect on your writing and revision process. How did your narrative evolve from your first draft to your final submission? What feedback from your peers did you find helpful and respond to? What writing exercises or class discussion helped you think about this assignment differently? As you revised, what specific changes did you make as a writer? Ultimately, what did you learn from this assignment about yourself, your writing, or your beliefs or attitudes about literacy?

Generating tension

Pick a possible situation that you might use for your literacy event narrative. Make a list of all the problems, challenges, or issues that you associate with this situation. Pick two or three that are most interesting to you. In a few sentences describe the tension. Give us more context. What’s the conflict? How were these tensions resolved? What was significant about this resolution?

Identifying the most significant scene in today's reading

To start class today, please get into groups of three. First, read your letter aloud to your peers. Then discuss what you think is significant in each one. What did your peers respond to or find significant that you did not? What did you learn from their reflections?

Next, as a group, identify the most important scene in Dorothy Allison's text, the scene that you think most vividly represents the point of her writing. Generate a paragraph that briefly describes the scene and then explains your choice to the rest of class. What are your reasons for why this scene best illustrates the main argument of this text?

Rhetor’s Notebook Post #2: Your Letter about Dorothy Allison

Once you finish reading this text, reflect on what it was like to read it. Create your post as a letter to a friend who doesn’t go to school at DU or a family member, telling them what it was like to read this book. Where were you when you read it? What else was going on around you? What did you think or feel as you read? What did you discover as a reader that might surprise someone back home or who knew you before you came to college? Make sure and discuss one or two specific examples from the text as you narrate how reading her book affected you. Your letter should be 250-350 words long.

Please post your letter as a comment to this post before class meets on Monday, January 11.

Remember: This blog is a public space, so even though you might write to someone you’re very close to or write about issues that might be personal, make sure you’re comfortable having other people (that is, me, your classmates, and possibly folks out in the blogosphere) read what you write.

Narrative Exercise

Take a few minutes and generate one paragraph that vividly narrates one of these events:

Eating breakfast this morning
Returning to campus after winter break
Waking up on New Year’s Day

When you're done, please post your paragraph here as a comment. As a class, we'll read through a few of these together and use them to generate a clearer sense of how to write vivid narratives.

Dorothy Allison's Purpose and Persuasive Argument

To begin class today, I’d like you to respond to this quote from Dorothy Allison’s Two or Three Things I Know for Sure:

I’m a storyteller. I’ll work to make you believe me. Throw in some real stuff, change a few details, add the certainty of outrage. I know the use of fiction in a world of hard truth, the way fiction can be a harder piece of truth. The story of what happened, or what did not happen but should have—that story can become a curtain drawn shut, a piece of insulation, a disguise, a razor, a tool that changes every time it is used and sometimes becomes something other than we intended.

The story becomes the thing needed. (3)

What do you think Allison means in this passage? How would you describe her purpose in telling her story? What is she trying to persuade us, her readers, to believe? What does she want to convince us about storytelling? About her family? About herself? (Or about any other issue you think the text addresses?)

Reminder about where to post your comments

Hi, Everyone,

I just wanted to clarify where you should post your comments to these first few informal assignments. Rather than posting them as an individual post, go ahead and post them as a comment to the original prompt. This will help us keep our posts a little more organized (and easier to read). If you have questions, let me know or bring them to class this afternoon. For those of you who posted individually, I cut and paste them into comments, so they're still here, just moved around a bit. Thanks to all of you who have already responded. I look forward to reading what you've had to say so far.

Responding to Dorothy Allison’s Two or Three Things I Know for Sure

As you read and prepare for the next two class meetings, take note of the passages from this text that you find especially engaging, provocative, or even offensive or alienating. Underline or mark them as a reminder of what captured your attention. Sketch out brief notes, as well, about what you were thinking as you read. Use these notes to help you generate your responses to the prompts below.

Before class begins on Wednesday, January 6, please identify a passage from the first half of Two or Three Things I Know for Sure that uses vivid narration. In a paragraph, summarize the passage. At what point in the story does it take place? What happens in it? In a second paragraph, explain how Dorothy Allison narrates this section of the text. What does she do as a writer to engage the reader? What kind of language does she use? How would you characterize her technique as a writer? Why is this passage an effective or interesting example of narration? Incorporate key quotations to help you illustrate your explanation.

Welcome to WRIT 1122-53

Welcome to WRIT 1122! I’m looking forward to getting to know each of you as students and writers in the next ten weeks. To start us off, I’d like you to use your first post to our course blog to introduce yourself to the rest of our class.

In your post, tell us a little more about who you are. What’s unique or interesting about where you’re from, your family, the high school you attended, your first quarter at DU, or your dreams for your future? (Or anything else about you that you think might interest the rest of us.)

Reflect a bit, too, about what kind of writer you are. What do you like to write? What are your strengths as a writer? What do you think makes writing “good”? How would you define the word rhetoric? (Have you ever studied rhetoric? If so, what did you learn about it?) Last, please conclude your introduction by telling us what you hope to learn about writing from this course and what you're looking for as a writer or as a student.

Please post your response as a comment to this post. I look forward to reading more about all of you.