Assignment Grade Breakdown
| Assignment | Points |
|---|---|
| Weekly Pop Quizzes | 10 |
| Weekly Comments | 5 |
| Summary of “Against Health” | 5 |
| Rhetorical Analysis Essay | 10 |
| Midterm: “Against Health?” | 10 |
| Synthesis Essay | 15 |
| Final Project: “Rhetoric Around Health” | |
| Show and Tell / Proposal | 5 |
| Annotated Bibliography | 5 |
| First Draft | 5 |
| Final Draft / Revision | 20 |
| Final: “Healthy Rhetoric?” | 10 |
Assignment Descriptions
Weekly Pop Quizzes
Pop Quizzes are short (1-4 question) quizzes on weekly readings. Each quiz is worth 1 point. Quizzes will not be formally scheduled. Rather, they will pop up at the beginning of class on Monday or Wednesday approximately once a week. Missed Weekly Quizzes cannot be made up.Weekly Comments
Weekly comments are posts on the class discussion forum. In order to receive credit, posts must be submitted no later than 12:00 noon on the day of our class meeting, must be relevant to the readings due for that class period, and must further an intellectual conversation by providing original observations, sharing a relevant resource, or engaging with another class member’s comment. Posts are worth 0.5 points each. You can only receive credit for one post per week.Summary of “Why ‘Against Health’”
Write an essay (550-650 words) summarizing the article “Why ‘Against Health’” by Jonathan Metzl. Your summary should be written for an audience who has not read Metzl’s article and must provide all the information that your audience needs to understand the article, including contextual information, the author’s main argument, and his supporting claims.The major purpose of your summary is to answer the question, What is this article’s argument? To be successful, however, your summary should also answer the following questions: Who is the article’s author? Why did he write this article? To whom is he speaking? How is the article organized? How is this article related to its publication venue?
Your summary should NOT engage or evaluate Metzl’s argument. That is, it should not state whether you agree or disagree with Metzl or whether his argument is right or wrong.
To receive a passing grade, your summary must use proper MLA-style formatting and citation, include your name, and be submitted on paper by the beginning of our class meeting, Wednesday, Jan 25. (If you joined our class late, please contact the instructor to make up this assignment.)
Rhetorical Analysis Essay
Write an essay (900-1200 words) analyzing the rhetoric used in a text assigned for class reading. Like the above assignment, this essay must summarize the argument in the text you are analyzing. However, this essay must also describe the rhetoric in the text. This means that in addition to answering the questions listed above (in the Summary of “Why ‘Against Health’” Assignment) your Analysis must answer the question, How does the text make its argument persuasive? To accomplish this successfully, your analysis should answer most of the following questions: How does the text appeal to its specific audience? What appeals to pathos does the text employ and why? What rhetorical figures does the text use and why? How does the text use logic to lead the audience to specific conclusions? What ethos does the text or author establish and why? How does the organization or arrangement enhance the argument? How does this text anticipate and rebut objections or counterarguments? How does the text’s use of language or style enhance its argument? Why is or why isn’t this text likely to be persuasive for its intended audience?To receive a passing grade, your summary must use proper MLA-style formatting and citation, include your name, and be submitted on paper by the beginning of our class meeting and as a blog post by the end of the day your reading is assigned. (Due date is different for each student.)
Midterm: “Against Health?”
You have one class period to write an essay responding to the assigned article, “Why ‘Against Health.’” Your essay must take a position in relation to Metzl’s position and must make a convincing argument using the rhetorical strategies you have learned and using at least 3 assigned readings. Your essay could potentially- agree with Metzl’s position and extend it using the 3 sources as further evidence;
- complicate Metzl’s position (that is, begin by agreeing with Metzl’s position but modify it to make it more complex) and introduce the 3 sources as new evidence which your more complex position accounts for;
- take issue with Metzl’s position or one of his claims, develop an alternative position or claim, and show how your alternative is supported by evidence in the 3 sources, while Metzl’s is not.
For this in-class writing assignment, you may use the 4 sources (Metzl’s article and the other 3 sources you choose) for reference. You are welcome to prepare outside of class, but the midterm you submit must be written inside of class during the allotted time period. To receive a passing grade, your midterm must include the required sources, cite them properly, and include your name and class information. You have 1 hour, 15 minutes to write the midterm during the class period on Wednesday, March 7.
Synthesis Essay
Write a 4-page essay (900-1200 words) which puts 3 sources into conversation and describes the relationship between these sources. Your synthesis must briefly summarize the position of each source and must explain and illustrate how they are related, rhetorically speaking. In the end, your purpose is to explain the relationship between different positions, including how and why they agree and disagree. To successfully complete the assignment, your essay should answer the following questions: What are the points of stasis among the sources? What rhetorical strategies do the sources have in common? How are the sources’ different intended audiences reflected in their different rhetorical choices? What differences are there in the way the sources define or employ major terms, phrases, or concepts? How are the sources’ different rhetorical situations and historical contexts reflected in their different arguments? Which argument(s) is/are more persuasive for their intended audience and why?Your essay must include at least 3 sources of your choosing. You could potentially choose sources that are related by topic, by historical period, by genre, by audience, or by any other way. Your sources should come from our required reading, or from your research for the final project, or both. You are required to include EITHER at least 2 sources from our required reading OR at least 2 sources from your research for the final project. (If you include 2 or more sources from our required reading, at least 1 must be from after Spring Break.) In order to receive a passing grade, your essay must include the required sources, cite them properly, and be submitted on paper by the beginning of the class period on Monday, April 9.
Final Project: “Rhetoric Around Health”
Your final project contains 4 different stages: a proposal, an annotated bibliography, a first draft, and a final draft. These stages will keep your work on schedule and improve the quality of your final product. Each stage is described below.Show and Tell / Proposal
Choose an object, event, or text that will anchor your final project. The purpose of the project is to examine arguments made about the object, event, or text, so you must choose something that people have thought about, written about, and talked about. Some examples of viable objects, events, or texts are the drug Cialis, the Purity Ball, or the film Outbreak.
Write a proposal (200-300 words) describing what your final project will examine, what it might accomplish, and why this is important. This is a difficult rhetorical situation, because you are describing something that you have not yet done, but this kind of situation comes up whenever you have to pitch a project—academic, creative, or profitable. Do your best to make an informed conjecture about the scope and purpose of your project. It is ok if your proposal includes some questions and some unknowns. The purpose of this proposal is to generate audience interest in your work and to give yourself a plan to begin making progress towards the final project.
To receive a passing grade, your proposal must use proper MLA-style formatting and citation, include your name, and be submitted on paper by the beginning of our class meeting on Monday, March 19.
Be prepared to give a brief (1-2 minutes) “show and tell” presentation for the class in which you share the object, event, or text on which you are focusing on and tell the class why you think the rhetoric around that object, event, or text is important to examine.Annotated Bibliography
Create an annotated bibliography with at least five sources you anticipate using for your project. Each source should provide background information on or make an argument about your object or event. An Annotated Bibliography is basically a Works Cited list with a description, or annotation, after each entry. The annotation should briefly describe the source and its author, summarize its argument, and explain why this source is relevant top your project.
To receive a passing grade, your Annotated Bibliography must use proper MLA-style citation, include your name, and be submitted on paper by the beginning of our class meeting on Monday, April 2.First Draft
Write an essay (1200-1500 words) that makes an argument about your object or event. Your essay must explain what the object or event is and, as in the Synthesis Essay, synthesizes the arguments that have been made about it and describe the rhetoric that has been used to discuss it. Furthermore, your essay must take a position within this conversation and must make an argument about the object or event. In the end, your purpose is to tell the reader what other people have thought and argued about the object/event, and to convince the reader to consider what you think about it. To write a successful essay, you should answer the following questions before you begin writing: What is your argument about the object or event? Which other writers agree with you? Which other writers disagree with you? How will your incorporate their objections and counterarguments, and rebut them to show that your position is stronger? Who is your intended audience for this essay? What rhetorical strategies will be effective for that audience? What organization or arrangement will enhance your argument?
To receive a passing grade, your essay must use proper MLA-style formatting and citation, include your name, and be submitted on paper, and as email attachment sent to your instructor, by the beginning of our class meeting on Monday, April 23.
In place of a mandatory first draft, you will complete a mandatory worksheet in class on Monday, April 23 designed to help you plan your final essay. Come prepared with your sources, a sense of what you will argue, and ideas about the purpose of your essay and your intended audience.Final Draft / Revision
Incorporate instructor feedback to revise your essay (1200-1500 words). Your revision must significantly expand, improve, rewrite, or reformulate your first draft. For this assignment you will receive two grades, one on the quality of your final essay (10 points) and one on the quality of your revisions (10 points).
To receive a passing grade, your final essay must use proper MLA-style formatting and citation, include your name, and be submitted, along with the original draft with instructor feedback, as an email attachment sent to the instructor by 5:00 pm on Friday, May 11.
Your final essay (1200-1500 words) must make a persuasive argument about your object or event and must incorporate at least 5 sources from your research. This essay will tell the audience what other people have thought and written about the object/event, and convince the audience to consider what you think about it. Your essay should be persuasive and should use the rhetorical strategies and appeals we have learned. It should also provide enough background information so that your reader can understand the conversation and follow your argument. It must engage some of your sources by either agreeing with them, arguing against them, or making an argument about them.
To receive a passing grade, your final essay must use proper MLA-style formatting and citation, include your name, date and class info; include the required sources; and be submitted as an email attachment sent to the instructor by 5:00 pm on Friday, May 11.
