Syllabus for Rhetoric 10, Fall 2008

What Is Compelling? The Rhetoric of Argument

5-6.30pm, Tuesdays and Thursdays, 106 Stanley

Course Blog, http://arguere.blogspot.com

Instructor, Dale Carrico: dalec@berkeley.edu
TAs, Emily Carpenter, Eryk Morales-Franceschini

Attend/Participate: 15%; Workshops: 15%; Mid-Term: 35%; Final 35% (Provisionally & Approximately.)

A Provisional Schedule of Meetings

August

Week One
August 28
Course Introduction
SKILL SET: An argument is a claim supported by reasons and/or evidence.

September

Week Two
September 2
SKILL SET: Ethos, Pathos, Logos

September 4
Euripides, Hecuba

Week Three
September 9
SKILL SET: Four Habits of Argumentative Writing: 1 Formulate a Strong Thesis, 2 Define Terms, 3 Substantiate/Contextualize, 4 Anticipate Objections; Audience/Intention

September 11
Kant, "Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose"

Week Four
September 16
SKILL SET: Intentions -- Interrogation, Conviction, Persuasion, Reconciliation

September 18
Martin Luther King, Jr., "Letter from the Birmingham Jail"

Week Five
September 23
SKILL SET: Audiences -- Sympathetic, Unsympathetic, Apathetic; Rogerian Rhetoric

September 25
SKILL SET: The Toulmin Schema

Week Six
September 30
Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence

October

October 2
SKILL SET: Literal/Figurative Language; Figures, Tropes, Schemes; Four Master Tropes

Week Seven
October 7
SKILL SET: Syllogisms, Enthymemes, Formal Fallacies

October 9
SKILL SET: Syllogisms, Enthymemes, Formal Fallacies

Week Eight
October 14
SKILL SET: Informal Fallacies

October 16
SKILL SET: Informal Fallacies

Week Nine
October 21
Mid-Term Examination, Part One

October 23
Mid-Term Examination, Part Two

Week Ten
October 28
Screening and Discussing the Film, "A History of Violence"

October 30
Screening and Discussing the Film, "A History of Violence"

November

Week Eleven
November 4
Art Spiegelman, Maus

November 6
Art Spiegelman, Maus

Week Twelve
November 11
Holiday

November 13
Hannah Arendt, On Violence

Week Thirteen
November 18
Michel Foucault, from Discipline and Punish

November 20
Frantz Fanon, from The Wretched of the Earth

Week Fourteen
November 25
Octavia Butler, Kindred

November 27
Holiday

December

Week Fifteen
December 2
Mike Davis, from Planet of Slums

December 4
Judith Butler, from Undoing Gender and Precarious Life

Week Sixteen
December 9
Concluding Remarks

Friday, December 12, Hand in Take-Home Examination by Noon