Rhetoric & Composition 1: Academic Literacy

Unit One: Exposition (Weeks 1-3)

Inquiry Theme: Explaining Literacy via Literacy Narratives

 

Literacy & Rhetoric Goals: Students will

• Define and employ terms discourse , discourse communities , discourse  

      conventions as well as exposition and ( academic ) literacy

• Explain how discourse communities (e.g., home, church, friends, work, media,

     nation) and their associated discourse conventions inform students' identities

     and the identities of others.

• Recognize academic disciplines (e.g., English, business, engineering,) as

     discourse communities

• Define and identify expository tactics: definition, classification,

     compare/contrast, cause/effect

• Define and employ categorical thinking about cultural categories (e.g., age,

     gender, class, race, political affiliation, religion, region, nationality, historical

     moment, etc.)

• Demonstrate ability to recognize cultural categories within personal narratives

• Employ writing as a process of discovery, revision, and communication

• Employ collaborative writing strategies

Writing Goals: Students will

• Compose short writings* that work toward longer essays

• Compose an academic thesis-support expository essay

• Address class and teacher as audiences who are part of a common

     conversation about literacy

• Employ a college student ethos

• Demonstrate effective ways to introduce and conclude academic essays

• Employ a thesis statement to state purpose and organize essay

• Organize essay effectively, given the purpose and audience

• Use general-to-particular ¶ development in body paragraphs

• Employ as main points students' own ideas

• Employ as evidence: details from readings, from other students' writings,

     and/or from students' own observation/experience/reasoning

• Employ tactics of exposition

• Employ effective stylistic strategies

• Employ academic citation practices

Suggested Readings:             

• Sherman Alexie, "The Joy of Reading: Superman and Me"

• Frederick Douglas, “Learning to Read and Write”

• Langston Hughes, “Theme for English B”

• Malcom X, “A Homemade Education”

• Min-zhan Lu, “From Silence to Words: Writing as Struggle”

• Richard Rodriguez, “Aria: A Memoir of Bilingual Childhood”

• Mike Rose, “I Just Want to Be Average”

• Scott Turow, "Why Did I Bother?"

Suggested Writings:             

Short Writing 1:*  Explain how 3 cultural categories inform (help define) 1

                                author'seducation (1¶)

Short Writing 2:  Write a personal literacy narrative (open form, 1 p; 3 copies)

Short Writing 3:  C/C one idea in 2 literacy narratives (1 ¶)

Paper 1:            [Assigned Paper Topic] Write an academic thesis-support essay

                        (4 pp), explaining how students negotiate academic literacy,

                        based on 3 readings and your own thinking/experiences.

 

Suggested Unit Grade: 20% 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 One. Otherwise students may lose 1/4 percentage point for each SW not completed on time or included in their portfolio. Peer review points are awarded separately.

*[Note: Short writings are intended to help students draft their ideas and see that revision means thinking through an issue—in this case, literacy—in different ways, not merely changing a few words after peer review day.]

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