WRTG 1150 First-Year Writing and Rhetoric
Instructor Contact:
Instructor: Jamal Khlifat
Email: jamal.khlifat@colorado.edu
About the Course:
WRTG 1150 is designed to provide students with some rhetorical communication skills, as well as critical-thinking skills. These skills address, but not limited to, rhetorical summary, rhetorical analysis, and rhetorical synthesis. The focus of the course is different types of genres grounded in rhetorical argumentation: personal argumentation, evaluative argumentation, reflective argumentation, and argumentative research. Through a set of readings that address these types of genres and their unique characteristics and through practicing and mimicking these types of genres, students will be able to hone their rhetorical skills in these domains and become better writers. The course also focuses on the global level of the writing process (clarity, cohesion, concision, precision, and revision) and the formal level of the writing process (grammar, punctuation, and writing conventions). Students will be able to learn these skills through a set of readings that address these notions, as well as through practicing them via peer-reviewing and providing feedback to their classmates on these skills.
Objectives:
By the end of the course, you should be able to:
- develop and enhance your rhetorical knowledge skills through reading, examining, analyzing, and writing a variety of Toulmin-style and Rogerian-style academic arguments. These arguments will ground themselves in the notions of rhetorical strategy and rhetorical situation. These arguments will address the relationship between the context, the claim, the claimant, and the audience. You will also make use of the notions of rhetorical appeals such as kairos, ethos, logos, and pathos while attending to sound argumentation through the use of a valid reason, an effective analysis, and a strong warrant;
- develop a good understanding of rhetoric as a process, not a product, through the use of continuing drafting, ongoing revising, constant editing of your own writings, and meticulous peer-reviewing of others’;
- compose different projects of various length tackling different types of genres;
- attend to the norms and the conventions of academic writing through adhering to the global- level skills of the writing process, as well as the formal-level ones; and
- make inquiries and structure arguments concerning a variety of academic topics.
Required Texts:
Lunsford, Andrea, John Ruszkiewicz, and Keith Walters. Everything’s an
Argument with Readings. 6th ed. Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2013.
This book presents rhetorical strategies and conventions that students will use for each major assignment.
University of Colorado Program for Writing and Rhetoric. Knowing Words: A Guide to First-Year Writing and Rhetoric, 16th (Fall 2019/ Spring 2020). Fountainhead Press, 2019.
Grading (out of n points):
Course Assignments and Grade Values
| -Weekly Reading Journals: 10 Reading Journals: Each Worth 4% | 40% |
| (250-400 words; 1-1.5 pages) | |
| – Weekly Discussion Posts: 10 Discussion Forum Posts: Each Worth 1% | 10% |
| (150-250 words; 1 page) | |
| -Essay #1: Research Project re: Educational Goals and Values | |
| #1A (1000-1250 words; 3-4 pages) | 10% |
| #1B Annotated Bibliography | 10% |
| (10 academic sources; 2000 words total; 7-8 pages) | |
| #1C Research Paper | 20% |
| (2000-2500 words total; 7-9 pages) | |
| – Reflection Presentation | 5% |
| (1000-1200 words; or equivalent of 10 minutes) | |
| – Online RIOT Tutorials/Modules: 5 Modules: Each Worth 1% | 5% |
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Total Percentage: 100%