WRTG 1150-059: First-Year Writing and Rhetoric — Spring 2010

Dr. Rebecca DicksonOffice: Environmental Design 1B76

MW, 4:30-5:45, Clare 211Office hours: T&Th,3:00-5:00

Phone: 303/735-4908 and by appointment

Mailbox: Env. DesignRoom 1B62E-mail:

OVERVIEW

In this class we will work on improving your writing, critical thinking, and research skills; we will also focus on developing your rhetorical knowledge. We will consider the choices speakers and writers make while building on your ability to compose clear, mechanically sound essays that cogently analyze and/or argue an issue. Our theme of interest for the semester is the myriad and complex problem of sustainability. The New York Times will serve as our central text through which we’ll familiarize ourselves with current national and international concerns, especially those pertaining to sustainability. We’ll also explore and assess various presentations, written and video, about sustainability.

To develop a firmer grounding in rhetoric, we will read and discuss articles, chapters, and Web sites on rhetoric: its definitions, purposes, and possibilities. We’ll also analyzethe rhetorical approaches in various articles on sustainability and in The New York Times. And we will identify and developyour rhetorical strategies as you write your papers.Along with this, you will be asked to reflect on your own writing and our readings and class work. You will write four papers for a grade, including a research paper,with multiple drafts of each essay; I will also ask you to do journal writings and other short writing assignments. You’ll also do a short presentation on an aspect of basic writing conventions. To build on your research skills, you will do an online tutorial and an annotated bibliography. You’ll also regularly do reading quizzes and worksheets on basic writing conventions.

We’ll do all of the above in order to achieve the following goals:

  • Write with fluency and develop a practical and reflective understanding of writing and communication processes
  • Develop rhetorical knowledge; make informed choices as you consider the needs of your audience as they intersect with your purpose in a given communication
  • Become a proficient and able reader
  • Develop your focusing and critical thinking skills
  • Develop research practices that will help you throughout college, your career, and your personal life
  • Understand and apply conventions of standard language use (grammar, syntax, etc.) as you compose, revise, and edit

These six course goals express the Program for Writing and Rhetoric’s commitment to preparing you for the kinds of reading and writing you will perform in your other classes and in your career. They also fulfill the course criteria required of all state institutions by the Colorado Commission on Higher Education, the governing body that helps shape policies for college education in Colorado. This class meets MAPS requirement for English and is approved for the Arts and Sciences core curriculum: written communication.

COURSE TEXTS

1) Knowing Words 2009-2010, Erik Ellis and Lonni Pearce, editors, 6th edition—REQUIRED

2)The New York Times—REQUIRED

3) Bullock, Goggin, & Weinberg, The Norton Field Guide to Writing with Readings and Handbook—REQUIRED

4) A bound notebook, which will serve as your journal—REQUIRED

5) “Silva Rhetoricae” Web site (humanities.byu.edu/rhetoric/Silva.htm)

6) Online/DVDs: The Story of Stuff, Food, Inc., and The Eleventh Hour(I will provide these)

7) Reserve readings available at our CULearn Website

WORKAND GRADING BREAKDOWN:

summary-response paper10 (Part 1, 3 pts; Part 2, 7 pts)

persuasive research paper (food inquiry project)25

annotated bibliography 5

letter, editorial, or video based on research or extracurricular event12

analytical narrative: ethicalquandary or family history15

10-Minutes to a Perfect Paper presentation 3

RIOT online research tutorial and participation in library seminar10 (averaged)

sundry work: reading quizzes, worksheets, and journal10 (averaged)

peer critiques, group work, and general participation 5

attendance, including extracurricular event and RIOT tutorial 5 (see policy below)

TOTAL POINTS POSSIBLE: 100 points

GENERAL POLICIES

Attendance:If you don’t attend class regularly, you won’t get much from the course and you’ll likely get a disappointing grade. You also are a contributor to the class—your colleagues and I benefit from your presence.So I have an attendance policy: Each absence after 3 ABSENCES will drop your attendance score. If you miss 6 times, you will receive a zero for attendance. If you miss 7 times or more, you will receive a zero for your participation score as well (meaning you will lose 10 points). Late arrival to class 3 times will constitute one absence. If you are absent, you are responsible for finding out what you missed.

DRAFTING PROCESS AND WORKSHOP FORMAT

In this class we will often be working collectively on your papers. You must give me at least two versions of an essay in order for you to receive a grade on that paper. Please keep all drafts of your papers with my comments on them; you or I may want to refer back to them. Every paper you hand in to me should be typed, double-spaced, and, if necessary, stapled. Please double-side your essays to save paper. And no title pages, please—reduce your paper use whenever possible.

A writing workshop refers to a group approach to drafting a piece of writing. A group reads a given piece of writing, in our case, a prose essay, and considers what elements are working and what elements need attention.Workshop participants also look at stylistic concerns, grammatical and punctuation matters, and more. One of our most important tasks: We will look at your purpose in writing and its relationship to your audience. On each of the four papers that you’ll write for a grade in the class, you’ll receive feedback from me on what you’ve written. You’ll also receive peer reviews on every paper, that is, feedback from your colleagues. In this way, we’ll learn from each other, as writers and as readers.

ON PAPERS TURNED IN FOR A GRADE

I reserve the right not to accept late papers that have no documented reason for being late. If I do accept your late paper that has no documented reason for being late, your grade will drop one full letter for each CU class day it is overdue. You will receive a grade only on the final draft of each paper.

CU POLICIES

Learning Disabilities:If you qualify for accommodations because of a disability, please submit to me a letter from Disability Services in a timely manner (during the first two weeks of the course, if possible) so that your needs can be addressed. Disability Services determines accommodations based on documented disabilities. Contact: 303-492-8671, Willard 322, and If you have a temporary medical condition or injury, see guidelines at

Disability Services' letters for students with disabilities indicate legally mandated reasonable accommodations. The syllabus statements and answers to Frequently Asked Questions can be found at

Religious Holidays

Campus policy regarding religious observances requires that faculty makeevery effort to deal reasonably and fairly with all students who, because ofreligious obligations, have conflicts with scheduled exams, assignments orrequired attendance. I am happy to comply with this policy. Please let me know if you will miss class because of a religious observance and we will adjust your due dates for quizzes and essays accordingly. See full details at

Classroom Behavior

Students and faculty each have responsibility for maintaining an appropriatelearning environment. Those who fail to adhere to such behavioral standardsmay be subject to discipline. Professional courtesy and sensitivity areespecially important with respect to individuals and topics dealing withdifferences of race, culture, religion, politics, sexual orientation,gender, gender variance, and nationalities.

Because the various electronic gadgets that most of us regularly use can be very distracting, please leave your cell phones, pagers, laptops, and other devices with flashing images and disruptive noises stowed in your bag and turned off from the moment class begins until it ends. If you do occasionally use your laptop in class (for taking notes or looking up something for the class), please do not check out your email or non-class related Web sites. And again, please keep your cell phones stowed at all times. Even a quick glance at your latest text message or email account is rude and disruptive. We are a small class and little actions like that will be noticed by many and thus could derail the flow of class activities.

See policies at and at

Discrimination and Harassment

The University of Colorado at Boulder policy on Discrimination andHarassment, the University of Colorado policy on Sexual Harassment and theUniversity of Colorado policy on Amorous Relationships apply to allstudents, staff and faculty. Any student, staff or faculty member whobelieves s/he has been the subject of sexual harassment or discrimination orharassment based upon race, color, national origin, sex, age, disability,creed, religion, sexual orientation, or veteran status should contact theOffice of Discrimination and Harassment (ODH) at 303-492-2127 or the Officeof Judicial Affairs at 303-492-5550. Information about the ODH, the abovereferenced policies and the campus resources available to assist individualsregarding discrimination or harassment can be obtained at

Academic Honesty and CU’s Honor Code

All students of the University of Colorado at Boulder are responsible forknowing and adhering to the academic integrity policy of this institution.Violations of this policy may include cheating, plagiarism, aid of academicdishonesty, fabrication, lying, bribery, and threatening behavior. Allincidents of academic misconduct shall be reported to the Honor Code Council(; 303/735-2273). Students who are found to be inviolation of the academic integrity policy will be subject to both academicsanctions from the faculty member and non-academic sanctions (including butnot limited to university probation, suspension, or expulsion). Otherinformation on the Honor Code can be found at at

The policy for cheating and plagiarism in this course: If I discover that you have plagiarized any part of a paper, you will receive an F for that paper. If 50 percent or more of a paper is plagiarized (e.g., an essay downloaded from the Web or if somebody else writes half or more of your paper for you, for pay or for free), you will flunk the course. I use online plagiarism search engines to detect cheating, and I will report all cheaters, whether they flunk the course or not, to CU’s Honor Code Council. We will discuss cheating and plagiarism in class. If you miss any of these discussions, please see me.

NORLIN LIBRARY SEMINAR AND RIOT TUTORIALS

The Program for Writing and Rhetoric partners with Norlin Library to help teach research skills to first-year writing students. The RIOT online tutorials will help you learn to distinguish good sources from undependable ones and how to cite properly. They will also give you a sense of what college research looks like and requires. You are required to do the RIOT online tutorials and to attend the research seminar at Norlin Library on 8 March. If you do not attend the seminar, two absences will be entered in your course records.Note that not doing the tutorialswill also undermine your grade: the RIOT online quizzes are worth 10 percent of your final grade.All RIOT quizzes must be finished by7 March.

PRESENTATION: TEN MINUTES TO A PERFECT PAPER

By now, most of you have a firm grasp of writing conventions: you know what a sentence requires to make sense, what punctuation goes where, etc. Inevitably, though, many of us might have a gap in our understanding of writing conventions: We fully understand commas and apostrophes, but what’s the difference between a colon and semi-colon? When to use one or the other and why? Each of you will do a presentation as part of a two- or three-person team this semester in which you review for your colleagues the basics of some aspect of grammar and punctuation. The presentation is worth 3points (of 100). You will sign up for this presentation early in the semester. As a part of your presentation, the class will take a short quiz on the given punctuation or grammar concern—your presentation should prepare your colleagues for the quiz.

PLEASE NOTE

I may ask you to read other articles or to do worksheets, writings, or quizzes that are not listed above; I may also ask you to buy a magazine or newspaper not listed in the class texts. Reading quiz dates will be announced in class and quizzes will be given at the beginning of class—you cannot take them at another time without an awfully good excuse.

MORE INFORMATION ON THE COURSE

Why are you required to take WRTG 1150?

To receive a degree at the University of Colorado at Boulder, you are required to take a first-year writing and critical thinking course; most students on CU-Boulder campus must take two writing courses before they may graduate. But why? You took writing in high school, right? Because the Colorado State Legislature, the Colorado Commission on Higher Education, the CU Board of Regents, and CU faculty know how vital communication and critical thinking courses are to succeeding in college and in the workplace. This is a core course, meaning it works on core skills without which you cannot function effectively in the work world. More specifically, a course on writing and rhetoric teaches analysis and argumentation, which are vital skills for a citizen and employee to have. The class also will improve your writing and communication skills, which are important skill setsin getting a job and being able to ascend the hierarchical ladder once you land that job.Strong communicationand analytical skills are vital to succeeding in any endeavor, including law, medical, graduate, and business school.

Another reason to take this course: Language is wonderful, the greatest gift we humans have given ourselves. Exploring and analyzing the way writing and communication work can be highly satisfying and habit-forming.

This class will require you to read often; this is also part of the requirements for this core course. As we’ll learn in the first weeks of the course, reading is a keystone habit. It isn’t just something to do when you’ve nothing else to do; as a recent NEA study proves, a habitual reader performs better on exams of all sorts (including in mathematics), understands concepts more readily, avoids brain-deteriorating diseases, and MAKES MORE MONEY ONCE IN THE WORK FORCE. As you can see, there is good reason for you to become a person who can’t go a day without reading something—you will have a more rewarding life if you do. I’ll do everything I can to make you into a reader if you aren’t one already.

Never dismiss the power of writing—it is formidable. Consider how the following texts have changed the world: the Old Testament and the New Testament, the Koran, the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution—and, of course, Karl Marx’s The Communist Manifesto, Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf, and Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail”

An introduction to rhetoric

“Rhetoric” and terms such as “rhetorical situation” can sound sophisticated and daunting to developing writers. But here’s the truth about rhetoric: You’re already fairly familiar with it. So what’s the definition of rhetoric? There’s no single answer to this. It is a rich word with many facets and a 2500-year history of use and abuse. For our purposes, we’ll define rhetoric as Gideon Burton does on his Web site “Silva Rhetoricae”: “Rhetoric is the study of effective speaking and writing. And the art of persuasion. And many other things.”

“What” and “How” and the Study of Rhetoric:To get at a better understanding of what we mean by rhetoric, consider the elections of 2008. This example will perhaps reveal to you that you already know something about rhetoric. Elections are very much about persuasion, thus the rhetorical strategies of the candidates are highly important. Let’s consider the strategies of the two presidential candidates. Regardless of whom you voted for, you likely know that John McCain frequently used the term, “my friends.” You don’t need to be told that this was McCain’s effort to connect with his audience—he was trying to convey that every voter out there had a friend in John McCain. This was a rhetorical strategy.

The presidential debates were about content, yes; the ideas and policies themselves that the candidates presented were the what of their rhetoric. But we all know that a candidate can have the greatest ideas in the world and not get anywhere politically. That’s because the method of delivering ideas and is often just as important as the ideas themselves—the how matters. During the high-stakes presidential debates, Barack Obama remained cool and poised while on stage. Many viewers felt that John McCain did not. Even though McCain had much more political experience than Obama, voters went for the new guy—in great part because of how he delivered his message. Barack Obama’s rhetorical strategydid much to help him become the president of the United States.