English 15
MWF 1:25-2:15
Wagner 115A
Instructor: Morris Collins
Office: 53 N. Burrowes (cubicle N)
Office Hours: T: 10-12, F: 2:30-3:30
Office Phone: 865-1552
Email: mac515@psu.edu
Poems for 2slash1?
Reading for 2slash8slash06?
Reading for 2slash17?
English 15 Overview
This is a class in rhetorical writing, which is to say that ultimately it is a study in thinking. We will approach rhetorical composition with this axiom as a starting point: to write well is to think well. In that effort you will learn to become comfortable with all the tools that rhetoric has to offer: Narrative, definitional argument, argument by analogy, evaluative argument, causal argument, proposal arguments, and tropes?.
In addition to understanding these rhetorical tools you will be asked to write with structural and intellectual facility, that is to say you will become comfortable writing in….
The
- Agents and Actions: Is there an Agent and an Action in every sentence? ( Proper Use of Active and Passive Voice)
- Old Information to New: Does each sentence move from old information to new? (Information Flow)
- Do you argue for a consistent thesis? (Enthymeme)
- Does the argument consider, develop and respond to counter-arguments? (Responding to Audience, Inhabiting a Persona?)
- Have you worked with an editor to revise spelling, grammar, medium and format? (Process)
You can view a rhetorical argument in written form as a building: the writing itself (syntax, grammar, clarity, etc.) is the foundation, the rhetorical argument is everything else (bricks, mortar, tapestries etc). Remember: no matter how fine the bricks, a building without a foundation collapses. (One million points extra-credit for anyone who can figure out what the picture below has to do with this paragraph).
To this end, we will work on building these skills in class and through assignments. Also you can refer to the Basics? page for helpful resources.
Although we will study many “rules” and “fundamentals” in this class, unlike in for instance, a math class, we are not ultimately interested in using these skills to derive answers so much as we hope to explore the ways we understand, interpret, and glean meaning from a “text.” For although a text comes with some inherent meanings we each approach it—whether in reading or writing—from our own interpretive context. What I ask, then, is that you recognize that the act of writing—and reading even—is one, ultimately, of autobiography.
Good writing is not only a matter of making a forceful argument, though. It is, above all, an object example of reading and interpretation—understanding context, nuance, and ambiguity. Perhaps now more than ever in our electronic age of mutable borders (social, political, geographical) and unsteady geo-political future it is important to accept that the world is not built on certainties and that as writers and readers—as members of a society in the largest sense—it is our obligation to face this as responsible, independent thinkers.