UCCS Writing Program
Dr. D. Dew
Department of English
Office: Columbine 1041
Phone: 262-4040, plus voice mail
Office Hours: M/W 4:45-5:30
By appointment
ddew@mail.uccs.edu
Ethnic Studies 401: Special Topics
English 486/586: Special Topics in Rhetoric and Writing
Multicultural American Rhetorics
English 486/586 offers students an in-depth study of the theoretical and practical accomplishments of writers and rhetors across diverse historical contexts. Multicultural American Rhetorics brings the rhetorical theories of minority American writers into productive dialogue with those theories that have historically enjoyed dominance within the Western rhetorical tradition. The course explores the rhetorical nature of writing, and employs rhetorical theory for the analysis of argumentative texts written and publicly delivered by multicultural American writers.
Course Goals:
Required Texts:
Cooper, Anna Julia. A Voice from the South. New York: Oxford UP, 1988.
Royster, Jackie Jones, ed. Southern Horrors and Other Writings: The Anti-Lynching
Campaign of Ida B. Wells. New York: Bedford/ST. Martin’s 1997.
Logan, Shirley Wilson, ed. With Pen and Voice: A Critical Anthology of
Nineteenth-Century African-American Women. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1995.
Carson, Clayborne, et al, eds. A Call to Conscience: The Landmark Speeches of Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Vanderworth, W. C., Compiler. Indian Oratory: Famous Speeches by Noted American
Chieftains.
Supplemental readings distributed throughout the course including rhetorical criticism, theory and published speeches.
Recommended Texts (Rhetorical Criticism):
Logan, Shirley Wilson. We Are Coming: The Persuasive Writing of 19th-century African-
American Women. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1999.
Miller, Keith. Voice of Deliverance: The Language of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Its
Sources. New York: Free Press, 1992.
Additional Materials;
One paper folder with brads for academic journals. Please type your journals and bind them within the paper folder. Label each journal with title, author and journal #. Recommended: Three-ring binder for supplemental readings (1” is sufficient).
Academic Journals **** 20%
Mid-term Exam ** 10%
Final Exam *** 15%
Paper #1 *** 15%
Paper #2 *** 15%
Attendance ** 10%
Discussion/Preparation *** 15%
Totals: 20 weights 100%
Papers: Your two papers for the course are linked in important ways. For your first paper, you will analyze rhetorical elements within a text of your own choosing. Your second paper asks for a deeper analysis of the same text, an analysis that incorporates research into the rhetorical situation (historical data) along with rhetorical criticism published in any of the overlapping fields of Communication Studies, Ethnic Studies, Literary Studies and Rhetoric and Composition Studies. Your first paper asks for a close, analytical reading of the text employing the theoretical elements we use in class. Your second paper deepens your analysis as you incorporate outside research in your reading of the specific text. Your first essay will be 4-5 pages in length; the second will be about 8 pages, the length of a typical conference paper.
Attendance/Late Work:
Attendance is required and expected. Your commitment to the course directly impacts your learning. If you need to be absent, call me before class, during office hours or leave me a voice mail. If you miss class, you are still responsible for keeping up with your work. Exchange phone numbers with a classmate, so you have additional contacts. You earn one hundred percentage points for attending class. These are yours from the start. For each absence, you lose five, whether the absence is legitimate or not. You can lose ten points, two absences, and still keep an A on your attendance. An absence does not automatically qualify you to turn in late work. Late work may be accepted if you contact me to negotiate an alternative date before the due date passes. Late exam or project submissions are subject to a 10% deduction automatically unless negotiated in advance. Late journals are subject to a 2-point deduction starting with the 3rd late submission. This late-submit guideline applies to everyone equally from the start.
Accommodations:
Students who have paper work on file with the Disabilities Office, CH 104, # 3354,and thus have needs that may prevent them from fully demonstrating their abilities should contact me ASAP, so we can discuss reasonable accommodations necessary to ensure their success in this course.
Key Words and Concepts: This course includes a critical analysis of the following concepts:
Rhetorical Concepts
Ethnic Rhetoric Concepts
We will move chronologically through the schedule and perhaps take an extra day as warranted to do justice to the readings and our analysis. The sequence will remain constant, but the pace is subject to community constraints.
August 20 Introduction to the Course
Rhetoric as Techne.
22 Crowley “Ancient Rhetorics and Modern Students.”
Bitzer “The Rhetorical Situation.”
AJ #1 due
27 Foss “The Nature of Rhetorical Criticism.”
Nichols “Kenneth Burke and the ‘New Rhetoric.’”
29 Maria Stewart, PV (With Pen and Voice) 1-16; WAC (We Are Coming). 23-43
AJ #2
Sept. 5 Sojourner Truth, PV 17-29
Kohrs Campbell “Style and Content in the Rhetoric of Early Afro-American Feminists.” “Sojourner Truth.”
Haraway “Ecce Homo, Ain’t (Ar’n’t) I a Woman, and Inappropriate/d Others: The Human in a Post-Humanist Landscape.”
AJ #3
10 Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, PV 30-46; WAC. 44-69
AJ #4
12 Anna Julia Cooper, PV 47-74; VFS “Part First”: WAC. 98-126
AJ #5
17 Anna Julia Cooper, VFS “Part Second” WAC. 98-126
Carby “‘On the Threshold of Woman’s Era:’ Lynching, Empire, and
Sexuality in Black Feminist Theory.”
AJ #6
19 Ida. B. Wells, WAC 70-97. ; SHOW “Part One.”
AJ #7
24 Ida B. Wells, PV 75-99; SHOW “Part Two.”
AJ #8
26 Fannie Barrier Williams, PV 100-119; WAC 98-126.
AJ #9
October 1 Victoria Earle Matthews, PV 120-158; WAC 127-51.
AJ #10
3 Mid-term Review
8 Frederick Douglass
Molefi Kete Asante “Rhetoric of Resistance.”
AJ #11
AJ #12
15 Frederick Douglass
AJ #13
17 Frederick Douglass
AJ #14
22 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Miller, Selections from Voice of Deliverance
AJ #15
24 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
AJ #16
29 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
AJ #17
30 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
AJ #18
November 5 Catch-up and Review Discussion
7 Writing Assignment #2 Workshop
12 Native American Rhetorics. Indian Oratory Introduction-98.
Lyons “Rhetorical Sovereignty: What Do American Indians Want from Writing?”
AJ #19
14 Native American Rhetorics. Indian Oratory 99-180.
Womack “Reading the Oral tradition for Nationalist Themes: Beyond Ethnography.”
AJ #20
19 Native American Rhetorics. Indian Oratory 183-284.
Lyons “A Captivity Narrative: Indians, Mixbloods, and ‘White Academe.’”
Bizzell “Response ‘Mixblood’ Rhetorics and the Concept of ‘Outburst.’”
Powell “Blood and Scholarship: One Mixed-Blood’s Story.”
AJ# 21
26 Writing Workshop
28 Writing Conference
December
3 Review for Final
5 Evaluations