Rhetoric & Composition 2: Public Sphere Literacy
Unit Three: Civic Literacy (Weeks 7-11)

Literacy & Rhetoric Goals: Students will

• Define terms related to Civil Literacy

• Define and identify differences between argument and persuasion

• Define a social issue as a rhetorical problem i.e., a problem that can beaddressed
• Identify a rhetorical audience i.e., social institutions and/or people who have power to change things
• Analyze a social problem in term of a rhetorical audience

• Analyze causes & consequences related to a social problem

• Analyze a social problem in terms of solutions: action, change in attitude, and/or understanding
• Identify and employ discourse conventions (i.e., ideas, genres & sentence style) of public documents (e.g., letters to the editor and creative non-fiction essays)
• Identify how genre and sentence style informs textual ethos in public documents

• Identify and employ elements of persuasive writing and speaking

• Work collaboratively with a group

• Define a social issue as a rhetorical problem

• State purpose and thesis

• Address audience effectively

• Given purpose and audience, effectively employ genre conventions of public documents
• Given purpose and audience, effectively employ classical persuasion strategies

• Given purpose and audience, effectively employ particular details as evidence

• Given purpose, audience and genre, organize their texts effectively in terms of the whole and in terms of individual paragraphs
• Given purpose, audience and genre, employ effective sentence style

• Construct an effective public ethos

• Effectively introduce and conclude texts

• Employ citation practices appropriate for public documents

• Employ oral presentations (OPs) for inventio/revision of their final written projects

• Adapt final written project into a 5-minute summary for a listening audience

• Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence (1776)

• Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions (1848)

• Frederick Douglass, The Meaning of the Fourth of July to the Negro (1858 )

• Ida B. Wells, The Law of Lynching (1900)

• Jackie Robinson, Letter to the President (1958)

• Clergymen's letter to Martin Luther King (1963)

• Martin Luther King, Letter from Birmingham Jail (1963)

• Lorna Dee Cervantes, Poem for the Young White Man Who Asked Me How I, An Intelligent, Well-Read Person Could Believe in the War Between the Races (1981)
• Amina Wadud, Gender, Culture and Religion: An Islamic Perspective (1990)

• David Cowles, The Price of Smoking (1999 My Turn)

• Carolyn Turk, A Woman Can Learn Anything a Man Can (2004 My Turn) Web resources:

• American Friends Service Committee: http:www.afsc.org

• Amnesty International: http://www.amnesty.org/

• Human Rights Watch: http://www.hrw.org/about/

Suggested Writings:

Short Writing 1: Pick one social issue & tell about your involvement with it (1p)

Short Writing 2: Write letter to the editor on your issue (identify media outlet) (1p.)

Short Writing 3: Profile My Turn audience's values/beliefs about your topic (1?)

Paper 3: Write creative non-fiction essay for Newsweek's My Turn column (5 pp.)

Suggested Oral Presentations:

Presentation 1: Read SW #1 to small group

Presentation 2: Present SW #2 letter info to class (10 people, 2 minutes each)

Presentation 3: Present briefing of final paper to class (5 people, 5 minutes each)

Unit Grade: 25% of final course grade

The unit grade will be awarded to the final essay; however , short writings must be completed on due dates AND turned in with Portfolio Three; likewise, oral reports must be performed. Otherwise, students may lose 1/4 percentage point for each SW or oral report not completed on time or not included in the unit portfolio (cf. Course Policy Statement).