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Turning Class Distractions into Productive Composing Spaces
This digital poster focuses on the first assignment in the EWM major's "Rhetoric" course. Most of our EWM students enroll in this course after the introductory "Writing and Editing in Print on Online;" consequently, the first week of the course focuses on reviewing major rhetorical concepts/key terms and connecting them to epistemic notions of rhetorical theory.
The course begins by exploring the different epistemological views of the ancient Greek rhetoricians Gorgias, Plato, and Aristotle. After reading historical, biographical, and theoretical background information from our textbook (Smith's "Rhetoric and Human Consciousness"), students then turn to primary texts from the Greek writers (from Bizzell and Herzberg's "The Rhetorical Tradition").
Below you can find links that explore the project students are assigned after this introductory unit of the course.
Assignment Prompt
Click on the title above to view a (downloadable) .pdf of the assignment prompt.
This first assignment asks students to focus on the rhetorical and epistemological views of Gorgias, Plato, and Aristotle. Student are prompted to provide historical and biographical background information for each rhetorician and then work to explicate (and put in dialogue) their various views on language, rhetoric, reality, and truth. They are encouraged to create "nontraditional" texts that appeal to an audience of their peers and enact the digital and socially networked goals of FSU's Editing, Writing, and Media major.
In-Class Activity:
In order to honor the goals/outcomes of the EWM major and assist students in thinking "outside the traditional text box" this first activity prompts students to bring the ancient Greek rhetoricians into the 21st century. In small groups, students research and outline the genre conventions of internet memes and then created one meme for Gorgia, Plato, and Aristotle. You can view examples on our course blog with the links below:
Examples of Gorgias/Sophistic Memes
Journal Prompt:
(click here to view prompt on course blog)
This journal assignment asks students to think specifically about their projects. It prompts them to brainstorm a small list of potential projects, media, and technologies they could use. Following the completion of this journal, students gather in small groups in class to flesh out these invention ideas. They are asked to take turns explaining their top two potential ideas and working with their group members to consider potential possibilities, problems, and affordances of the media and technology being used.
Click on the title above to view a (downloadable) .pdf of the workshopping prompt
Click on the title above to view a (downloadable) .pdf of the workshopping prompt
Again, aligning with EWM goals/outcomes, this project works toward helping students gain a (meta)awareness of their composing processes and rhetorical choices. Consequently, two weeks after the assignment is introduced, students gather in small groups and use the workshop prompt provided above to assit one another in their composing processes. This workshop is then used as a backdrop to help the class as whole create a collaborative rubric for assessment of the project. This rubric is then remediated into the process memo provided above in order to enable students to demonstrate their own (meta)awareness of their process and rhetorical composing choices.