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Brief Rationale for ENG 3060:
English 3060 builds upon the knowledge and skillset learned in 3050. We will spend minimal time reviewing these matters, but move relatively quickly into extensive, collaborative written and oral work. Our focus is less on the mechanics of composing within this register (grammar, sentence structure, arrangement, etc.) and more on both the rhetorical process of technical and professional composition, including the production of compelling and persuasive presentations of written work. The course will combine instruction and workshops in order to provide 'hands on' experience in improving both our understanding of technical communication and our skill sets-- including researching, writing/composing, speaking, presenting, and designing presentation media. We will primarily use rhetorical approaches to our projects, but will also include several "zen" approaches aimed at assisting us with both delivery and designing media for our presentations.
Brief Rationale for this version of 1020:
A focus on Problem Based LearningIn the will simultaneously develops both problem solving strategies and disciplinary knowledge and skills by placing students in the active role of problem solvers confronted with an ill-structured problem that mirrors real-world problems (1). The approach is not new, as it is rooted as it is in Socratic Method and the hands-on problem-solving advocated by John Dewey, but its applications are versatile and PBL is now common in traditional academic and workplace settings. It is an approach that will become familiar to many students entering medical, engineering, and design fields.
In writing classes, problem-based learning results when students work cooperatively in groups to solve real world problems –problems of rhetoric and communication. Practically speaking, PBL places students at the center of the course/assignment, so that instead of the instructor setting the specifics of a problem to be solved the student must do so; while the instructor both lectures and collaborates to suggests further aspects of a problem, or challenges the students to find aspects of solutions. Most of our large writing assignments can be considered problems to be solved. A traditional teacher-centered assignment might begin with a lecture, call for memorization and understanding of principles, then ask a structured question (or pose a problem) for which a particular response is expected and evaluated. Our assignments are largely student-centered assignments, offering real-life situations (or “rhetorical exigencies”), asking students to characterize the content and context that determine a problem to be solved, to find ways to solve it, and to reflect on the process. This approach would not preclude some lecture or discussion and certainly requires (in composition especially) that the pragmatic process of composition (how to write compellingly and persuasively), and the mechanics of composing (grammar, sentence structure, arrangement, etc.) are dealt with as crucial to the problem solving process involved in our researching and writing. (Thanks to the essay on PBL by: Lisa Beckelhimer, Ronald Hundemer, Judith Sharp, William Zipfel)
Brief Rationale from the common GTA syllabus:
English 1020 is a course focused on training students in the practical aspects of academic writing, and on introducing them to the discipline of rhetoric, the centuries-old study of the arts of persuasion. More specifically, our class will take up the above objectives on three levels: we will engage the critical and theoretical aspects of persuasion (the limits of and boundaries between fact and persuasion), the pragmatic process of composition (how to write compellingly and persuasively), and the mechanics of composing (grammar, sentence structure, arrangement, etc.). We will read an extensive list of texts stretching from the fourth century B.C.E. to contemporary times, and participants will produce numerous short written responses to these readings in addition to multiple drafts of larger compositions. The bulk of your final grades will be based on your execution of six projects, evenly divided between critical works (advertising, rhetorical, and cultural analyses) and work arranged around the traditional rhetorical stases (definition, evaluation, proposal arguments). Five of these projects will be posted online to our course wiki and you are encouraged to take advantage of the possibilities of online publication (hyperlinks, image embedment, etc.). Your final project will be composed on a separate online presence of your own design. If you wish, you will have many opportunities to collaborate with your classmates.