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English 436: The Rhetorical Tradition

Spring 2000
MWF 1:30 - 2:20
Kuykendall 313
John Zuern
Office: Kuykendall 219
Office Phone: 956-3019
zuern@hawaii.edu
Office Hours: M 12:00 - 1:30, W 2:30 - 4:00
and by appointment
Objectives
Policy
Materials
   Required Texts
   Media on Reserve
   World Wide Web
Assignments
Reading Schedule

MAILE

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Objectives

In this class we will examine classic texts from the rhetorical tradition alongside contemporary examples of rhetoric ranging from recent scholarship in composition studies to presidents1 speeches and corporate web sites. Our aim will be to reflect on how language has been and continues to be employed to entertain, to instruct, to persuade, and to manipulate. You will receive a firm grounding in the history of rhetoric and will engage some of the philosophical questions that arise from the study of rhetoric: how can we speak and write convincingly? what are the ethical demands on speakers and writers? what is the relationship between rhetoric and truth? in what ways can language be political? in what ways can it be violent? A background in rhetoric, and an understanding of its philosophical foundations as well as its practical applications, will be highly valuable to a wide range of students, especially those entering fields such as teaching, literary criticism, professional writing, publishing, politics, and law.

Policy

Assignments
Follow the links for descriptions of the format for each assignment.
You will be required to submit four written précis in response to your readings for class (20%). Each of you will give a ten-minute (maximum) in-class presentation (20%) which you must also submit to me in written form. You will also write a five-page rhetorical analysis of material that you choose yourself (20%) and a ten-page research paper (30%). You are also expected to make at least one contribution each week to the online class discussion (10%).

You will submit a draft of your research paper to me and to the members of your research group. You will be graded only on the revised version of this draft.

Grading
Written assignments, including drafts, are to be turned in at the beginning of the class period on the due date. Grades for late assignments, including drafts, will be lowered by one letter grade for every day after the due date. I will give incompletes only in emergencies.

Attendance
Regular attendance is mandatory and will be recorded. Absences due to illness or a family emergency will be excused as long as you provide adequate documentation, such as a note from the Student Health Center. Your grade for the class will be reduced by one letter grade for every unexcused absence after three (3). More than six (6) absences, excused or unexcused, will be considered grounds for a failing grade in the course. You are expected to arrive on time. If you come in after roll has been called, you must report to me at the end of class to ensure that your presence has been recorded.

Please speak with me immediately if any circumstances arise that make it difficult for you to attend class or to complete assignments on time. It is often possible to work out solutions to such problems, but you are responsible for keeping me informed about your situation. Don1t wait until the end of the semester, when we will have few alternatives.

Scholastic Dishonesty
The University of Hawai‘i regulations strictly forbid plagiarism and collusion. In this class, all material turned in for a grade must be your own original work. Submitting someone else1s writing as your own, arranging for someone else to do your writing for you, or purchasing papers will earn you a failing grade for the assignment and may result in a failing grade for the course. Please read the department1s statement on plagiarism and ask about any issues that you do not understand.

Materials

All participants must have an active email account.

Required Texts

Bizzell, Patricia and Bruce Herzberg. The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present.
Boston: Bedford, 1990.

A course packet (available at Professional Image in Puck's Alley)

Media on Reserve
Haynes, Todd. Safe (videorecording)
Reiner, Rob. A Few Good Men (videorecording)

World Wide Web

We will be adding to a list of online resources as the semester goes on. The following will be assigned.

Lincoln, Abraham, Gettysburg Address
19 November 1863

King, Martin Luther, Jr., I Have a Dream
Address at March on Washington, 28 August 1963

Morisson, Toni , Noble Lecture
December 7, 1993

Kennedy, John F. , Inaugural Address
20 January 1961

Clinton, William J. , Second Inaugural Address
20 January 1997

Brent, Doug , Rhetorics of the Web:Implications for Teachers of Literacy
Kairos: A Journal for Teachers of Writing in Webbed Environments
Vol .2 No. 1 Spring 1997

Reading Schedule

All reading must be completed by the date for which it is assigned. Please also read the relevant introductory material in Bizzell and Herzberg.
M January 10 introduction to the course: what is rhetoric? what is a tradition?
W January 12 Bizzell and Herzberg, "General Introduction" (1 - 15)

Abraham Lincoln Gettysburg Address
19 November 1863

Martin Luther King, Jr. I Have a Dream
Address at March on Washington, 28 August 1963

F January 14 Bizzell and Herzberg, "Introduction: Classical Rhetoric" (19 - 37)

Gorgias, "Encomium of Helen" (40 - 42)

Isocrates, "Against the Sophists" 46 - 49)

M January 17 holiday: Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
W January 19 Plato, Gorgias (61-82;
to the line "Yes, what else, indeed, are we to say, Socrates?")
F January 21 Plato, Gorgias (82-112)
M January 24 Plato, Phaedrus (113 - 122; to the line "Speak then without fear.")
W January 26 Plato, Phaedrus (122 - 143)
F January 28 Weaver, "The Phaedrus and the Nature of Rhetoric" (1054 - 1065)
M January 31 Aristotle, Rhetoric, Book I (151 - 160)
W February 2 Aristotle, Rhetoric, Book II (179 - 194; from the line "The use of persuasive speech is to lead to decisions.")
F February 4 Ovid, Metamophosis, "Ajax and Ulysses and the Arms of Achilles" (packet)
M February 7 Cicero, Of Oratory, Book I, Sections I - XXIII (200 - 215)
W February 9 Cicero, Of Oratory, Book I, Sections XXIV - LXII (215 - 232)
F February 11 Quintillian, Institutes of Oratory, Book XII, Introduction - Chapter XI (346 - 362)

Reiner, A Few Good Men (video on reserve)

M February 14 Bizzell and Herzberg, "Introduction: Medieval Rhetoric" (367 - 380)

Augustine, Concerning the Teacher, Chapters I - VII (packet)

W February 16 Augustine, Concerning the Teacher, Chapters VIII - XIV (packet)
F February 18 Boethius, "An Overview of the Structure of Rhetoric" (425 - 428)

Anonymous, "The Principles of Letter Writing" (431 - 438)

Chaucer, "Retraction" (packet)

M February 21 holiday: Presidents Day
W February 23 Bizzell and Herzberg, "Introduction: Renaissance Rhetoric" (463 - 482)

de Pisan, The Treasure of the City of Ladies (488 - 493)

Cereta, "Letter to Augustinius Aemilius, Curse against the Ornamentation of Women"

and "Letter to Bibulus Sempronius, Defense of the Liberal Education of Women" (495 - 498)

F February 25 Bacon, The Advancement of Learning (625 - 633) and Novum Organum (631 - 633)
M February 28 Erasumus, Copia: Foundations of the Abundant Style, Book I (502 - 524)
W March 1 Bizzell and Herzberg, "Introduction: Enlightenment Rhetoric"
F March 3 Vico, On the Study Methods of Our Time (714 - 727)
M March 6 Campbell, The Philosophy of Rhetoric, Chapter IV (753 - 755); Chapters VII - IX (771 - 787)
W March 8 Blair, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, Lecture I (798 - 802); Lecture XXV (818 - 822); Lecture XXXII (822 - 827)
F March 10 Whatley, Elements of Rhetoric, Introduction, Parts 1 - 3 (831 - 836)

Bain, English Composition and Rhetoric (874 - 877)

Hill, The Principles of Rhetoric (881 - 884)

M March 13 Nietzsche, On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense (888 - 896)
W March 15 Bizzell and Herzberg, "Introduction: Twentieth Century Rhetoric" (899 - 921)
F March 17 Perelman, The New Rhetoric: A Theory of Practical Reasoning (1077 - 1089; to "The Structure of Argument")
M March 20 Perelman, The New Rhetoric: A Theory of Practical Reasoning (1089 - 1103)
W March 22 Toulmin, The Uses of Argument (1106 - 1122)
F March 24 review of rhetoric and logic

DUE: rhetorical analysis

March 27 - 31 Spring Break
M April 3 Burke, Language as Symbolic Action (1034 - 1041)
W April 5 Austin, How to Do Things with Words (packet)

Morisson, Noble Lecture
December 7, 1993

F April 7 Butler, "On Linguistic Vulnerability" (packet)
M April 10 Barthes, "Toys," "Plastic," "Myth Today" (packet)

DUE: draft of research paper

W April 12 Foucault, The Order of Discourse (1154 - 1164) Haynes, Safe(video on reserve)
F April 14 Gates, "The Signifying Monkey and the Language of Signifyin(g): Rhetorical Difference and the Orders of Meaning" (1185 - 1223)
M April 17 Kennedy, Comparative Rhetoric (packet)
W April 19 Treaty of Annexation (packet) Lili`uokalani, "Official Protest to the Treaty," "The Treaty Analyzed," "Hawaiian Autonomy" (packet)
F April 21 holiday: Good Friday
M April 24 Kennedy, Inaugural Address
20 January 1961

Trask, "Neocolonialism and Indigenous Structures"
Karasjokka, Norway, August 1990 (packet)

Clinton, Second Inaugural Address
20 January 1997

W April 26 Fell, "Women's Speaking Justified, Proved, and Allowed by the Scriptures" (677 -685)

Cixous and Clément, A Woman Mistress (1245 - 1251)

F April 28 Brent, Rhetorics of the Web:Implications for Teachers of Literacy
Kairos: A Journal for Teachers of Writing in Webbed Environments
Vol .2 No. 1 Spring 1997
M May 1 Berlin, "Contemporary Composition: The Major Pedagogical Theories" (packet)
W May 3 wrap-up
DUE: final research paper

MAILE Resources

Starting on January 31, I will expect each of you to submit at least one posting every week to the discussion section of our class site in the Manoa Advanced Interactive Learning Environment. When you get to the MAILE home page, scroll down the list of classes until you find ENG 436: The Rhetorical Tradition and click on that link.

To access our MAILE site, you will need either your UHUNIX login name and password, or you will need to create a login and password on the login page of the MAILE site. Follow the login instructions and email me if you have trouble accessing the site.

Take some time to explore the site and get used to its features. Most of the information on the site is duplicated on the class web page, which also contains course policies.

Syllabus in PDF Format

This syllabus is also available as a PDF file which can be easily printed from your computer. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader 3.0 to view and print this file.

Download this syllabus as a PDF file.