Fall 2013 Rhetoric 102 Course Descriptions

All Rhetoric 102 sections are designed primarily to teach students to use language clearly and effectively in order to analyze texts, to argue logically, and to use research methods and materials, and all sections require that students write a minimum of 7500 words in essays, including two research papers. However, professors use a variety of readings and thematic focuses to accomplish these goals. We offer below course descriptions to the various sections of Rhetoric 102 available this semester so as to give students extra information as they choose a section in which to enroll. Students are not in any way obliged to remain with their Rhetoric 101 professor; instead they should select a section of Rhetoric 102 that piques their interest. All sections of Rhetoric 102 are limited to a fourteen-student maximum enrollment.

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RHETORIC 102 01            TR 10:00 - 11:20 AM               PROF. ROBBINS
RHETORIC 102 02            TR  12:30 - 1:50 PM                PROF. ROBBINS
RHETORIC 102 04            TR  2:00  -  3:20 PM                PROF. ROBBINS

This course, like all Rhetoric courses, is based on a faculty resolution that states, "All Hampden-Sydney graduates will write competently."  This statement implies that students will know how to research topics and present their ideas and the evidence that they have gathered. Because fiction can offer insights into our society, we will use a collection of short fiction from contemporary writers to find topics for research. There are six short research papers required on a variety of topics, and a longer one at the end of the semester.  All the papers show that the student constructed clear arguments and gathered evidence to support them.

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RHETORIC 102 03            MWF 9:30 - 10:20 AM            STAFF

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RHETORIC 102 05            TR 2:00 - 3:20 PM                PROF. BOOKER
RHETORIC 102 06            TR 12:30 - 1:50 PM                PROF. BOOKER

Representations of the American Indian
Stories, movies, art, TV, essays, sport, and music have given us plentiful and powerful images of American Indians-as individuals and as bands and tribes, in grassroots political and cultural movements, as keepers of tradition and as agents for change. They are both subjects reflecting on self and objects of a non-Native gaze. As we adopt the course's focus on researching, drafting, revising, and editing essays, we'll examine various representations and narratives of historic and contemporary American Indians and the issues with which they are involved.

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RHETORIC 102 07                MWF 9:30 - 10:20 AM        PROF. KALE

Life Writing
This course will explore the field of life writing (including both biography and autobiography).  We will begin with the personal narrative essay, and, as you grow more comfortable with your own writerly persona and voice, we will move on to a more challenging assignment: writing about the life of another and contextualizing that life within a specific historical moment.  Your final project will be a hybrid essay that blurs the lines of biography and memoir, research paper and personal narrative, scholarship and creative nonfiction. 
 
The course will introduce you to advanced research strategies: locating, evaluating, employing, and documenting sources.  In addition to the required papers and reading assignments, this course includes a rigorous research component.  Be prepared not only to pursue online and library sources, but to do out-of-class field work and archival research as well. 

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RHETORIC 102 08            MWF 10:30 - 11:20 AM            STAFF