Just as in English 150, you may develop your own syllabus and course materials to meet the course objectives. The sequence of major assignments illustrated in the chart on page 35 provides a skeletal course outline that you can adapt to your own pedagogical approaches. Each major assignment builds on the skills of the previous assignment. By scaffolding assignments in this way (visit the CyBox Downloads section of the site to download scaffolding forms), students first concentrate on summarizing ideas and analyzing and evaluating rhetorical features of readings. Then students focus on argument and persuasion by extracting principles, ideas, and information from the readings, which they can then apply to their own assignments. In addition to baseline activities, in-class compositions, revisions, and final exams, the following major assignments help students develop their skills systematically:
Summary. At the outset of the course, students learn how to extract main ideas from a text and recast them in their own words. For students who have taken English 150, this skill may be a review; otherwise, it may be new material. Oral presentations (individual or group) and posters offer summary opportunities in other modes.
Rhetorical Analyses. After learning to summarize, students analyze visual and textual artifacts rhetorically by examining how an author adapts substance, organization, style, and delivery to a particular audience and purpose (context). For example, some students might focus their analysis on organizational features (arrangement of ideas, cueing devices, transitions), while other students might focus on expression (tone, level of formality, word choice, sentences). Students can begin by analyzing a single text; they can continue by comparing and contrasting rhetorical strategies of two or more essays, then evaluating the rhetorical effectiveness of one or more texts. Rhetorical analysis can also be visual, applied to commercials, brochures, posters, etc. You may conduct visual analysis as a class activity rather than a major assignment, but all students must write a textual rhetorical analysis.
Rhetoric is “a mode of altering reality, not by the direct application of energy to objects, but by the creation of discourse which changes reality through the mediation of thought and action.”
— Lloyd Bitzer
Research and Documentation. As students develop their own arguments, they also learn how to integrate sources into their assignments to support their ideas. They learn basic research methods, paraphrasing techniques, and standard documentation forms. This longer project (1,200 to 1,500 words) may require gathering information from both primary and secondary sources. Furthermore, students should show that they can present multiple sides of an argument–not just a pro-con essay. Students can use the information from their essay to give an individual presentation.
ISUComm ePortfolio. Treat the ISUComm ePortfolio as a structure for integrating all course assignments rather than as an individual assignment or one that begins late in the semester and culminates the course. It offers a special opportunity for students to reflect on the role of communication in their lives, both inside and outside academe, and to project their future growth as communicators. The ISUComm ePortfolio is key to students taking responsibility for their own long-term learning. As teachers of upper-level courses become more accustomed to ISUComm ePortfolios, they will be increasingly interested in seeing them and building on them. Disciplinary portfolios are required for many majors, so students will definitely need portfolio-design skills. Students who have taken English 150 will have an ISUComm ePortfolio base to build on, though they likely will want to rethink and redesign their portfolio structure as well as update artifacts and add new commentaries and goal statements. Since English 250 emphasizes the integration of the WOVE modes, the ISUComm ePortfolio is particularly appropriate, as it offers students an opportunity to demonstrate their work from all four modes.