MON, AUG 21:
Welcome to Comp, course outline / goals
What is theory? Who uses it? Why do we need it?
See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKDkg-ebbc0
Describe a moment in life when you had to justify your choices based on a theory you have.
View Adam Banks’s “Funk, Flight, and Freedom,” CCCC opening address 2015
Transcript can be found at https://dradambanks.wordpress.com/2015/03/27/more-funk-flight-and-freedom-some-rough-text/
How does Banks differ from most theorists we might imagine?
The blog: why we have it, how to use it, and this…
HW: Read intro material and Murray’s “Writing as Process, Not Product” 1-6 and Emig’s “Writing as a Mode of Learning” 7-15 / read “How to Read Like a Writer” (find on Google) / create WordPress account with the URL user name firstnamelastinitialcomptheory and write short blog post on each reading.Below are the requirements for blogs, which are due before class begins.
Please complete these steps for every reading. Each entry=75-100 words.
Summarize the piece you’ve read, and include the author’s thesis statement in this summary. Please address the author by last name when doing so.
Name at least two scholars the author is citing and how the author is using them. THIS SECTION IS OPTIONAL FOR 4060 students.
Make a connection to your own experience, either to a past classroom, a pop culture narrative, or your life outside of the academy.
Mention 1 question that you still have about the material. What ideas were unclear? How did an argument agree/disagree with your world view? How can we apply this theory to practice?
MON, AUG 28:
Download app of WordPress to smart phones if you haven’t done so
How to “read like a writer” in comp theory–why it matters
Discussion of readings by Emig and Murray
HW: read and blog on Nancy Sommers’s “Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers” 43-54 , introduction (pgs 1-5) to Deborah Brandt’s The Rise of Writing free online at amazon.com.
Grad students read entire Brandt intro online at amazon.com. This includes pgs 1-15.
All students begin work on podcast assignment.
Handout here: Podcast Assignment Fall 2017HowardTheories in Composition
MON, SEP 4: LABOR DAY HOLIDAY
MON, SEP 11: IRMA-GERD (class cancelled)
First, we need Avril Lavigne:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-L_x88POBo&feature=share
Second, please respond to two students’ blogs this week since we don’t meet in person.
Third, read ONLY the first 2 pages of this article: elbow-believing-doubting-1973
Finally, read “Dancing with Don” by Williams: http://enculturation.net/dancing-with-don
HW: read intro material and Flower and Hayes’s “A Cognitive Process Theory of Teaching Writing” pp251-278; blog about Flower and Hayes;
finish podcast and transcript (email or Skype me with questions!)
MON, SEP 18:
Present podcasts to class: listen in pairs to other student podcasts and take notes on what you think was most effective in their arguments
Unit 2: Cognitive Movement in Writing Studies
Review Flower and Hayes’s article and discuss the cognitive trend
HW: all students read and blog Andrea Lunsford’s “Cognitive Development and the Basic Writer” pp279-290, undergraduates read beginning and blog about Bizzell article pp367-375/ Grad students should blog and read all of Bizzell’s article pp367-389
MON, SEP 25:
New writing assignment: LETTER of JUSTIFICATION
Unit 2 continued: the cognitive trend in writing studies
Begin the “social turn” and discuss implications, pp393-394
HW: blog and read Bruffee ‘s”Collaborative Learning and the Conversation of Mankind” 395-414 and Trimbur’s “Consensus and Difference” 441-451 (we’ll finish the rest of the piece in class)/start your letter assignment
MON, OCT 2: (date on syllabus document is wrong–letter not due until next week)
Sign up to lead the class post-midterm: rule of 3, 3, 3: bring 3 passages from the reading, 3 key terms, and 3 questions to discuss with the class on your day of leading.
Social turn continued: Bruffee and Trimbur
Abnormal discourse? (Davis, Vitanza)
Brainstorming public discourse strategies for the letter
HW: blog and read Bartholomae’s “Inventing the University” 523-550 / finish letter
MON, OCT 9: Class leader–Clay
Letters due at 11:59pm tonight–email it to me at khowar20@aum.edu
Discuss Bartholomae, finish social turn (not really)
responses-to-Bartholomae-and-Elbow–the ultimate process vs. social smackdown
Discuss midterm exam
HW: finish reading Elbow and Barth dialogue if you have not done so; make sure blogs are up to date and all notes are ready for test next week, read over major passages, themes, notes from class discussion and your homework readings
MON, OCT 16
Class will not meet. You’ll receive an exam via email at 5pm. Undergraduates submit their copies by midnight, graduates by 5pm next day (24 hours in total)
HW: read and blog about Elizabeth Flynn’s “Composing as a Woman”581-593 and Royster’s “When the First Voice You Hear Is Not Your Own” 555-566
MON, OCT 23: Class leader–Amy
Begin unit on “Voice, Voices, and Other Voices” (an extension of the social turn)
Discuss Flynn and Royster
HW: blog / read Min Zhan Lu’s “Professing Multiculturalism: The Politics of Style in the Contact Zone” pp467-484; blog/read Villanueva’s “Memoria is a Friend of Ours” 567-578
MON, OCT 30: Class leader–Brandon
New project: Teaser Trailer Project Fall 17 (due Nov 27, no later than 5pm)
Discuss Lu and Villanueva
Final exam requirement for this course discussed (6-7 pages, create/invent your own theory based on previous “episodes” in comp history)
HW: new unit on visual and virtual comp–read and blog about Selfe and Selfe’s “The Politics and of the Interface” 739-760 and Diana George’s “From Analysis to Design” 765-786 /download and skim assignment sheet on teaser trailer posted above
MON, NOV 6: Class leader–Tommi Jo
Visual and virtual compositions / teaser trailer assignment/ examples of teaser genre
Discuss Selfe and Selfe and George
Examples of digital and visual composing: register for free wevideo account, view examples
HW: read and blog about Ridolfo and DeVoss’s “Composing for Recomposition” digital text to be read at this link (please read all sections of the article listed at top) http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/13.2/topoi/ridolfo_devoss/intro.html and Yancey’s “Composition in a New Key” 791-820 /begin working on projects
Reminder: Please make sure that blogs are completed before class starts.
MON, NOV 13: Class leader–Christi
Discuss Ridolfo and DeVoss, Yancey, review teaser trailer requirements
Future(s) of digital composing and the material turn
Final details about teaser trailer project due this month
Handout for exam: FINAL EXAM FOR THEORIES IN COMP HOWARD
HW: read and blog about Rivers’s work on geocomposition (file CCC0674Geocomp) and article on campus plumber (Placing the Academy- Essays on Landscape Work and Identity , pages 65 – 82/ create teaser trailer
MON, NOV 27:
Discuss Rivers and plumber article /materiality
Share teaser trailers (BRING POPCORN AND DRINKS)
Discuss final exam assignment
HW: create your exam document to turn in by December 7 (must be no later–grades are due immediately after)
FYI: ACETA proposals due Dec 8–Troy, AL conference–all grad students encouraged to submit!
Conference on the Sympathetic Imagination 2018 (1)
DEC 4-7: FINAL EXAMS
YOUR FINAL IS SCHEDULED FOR THE 4TH. However, you will not report to class that day. You’ll work on your theory document instead (due on the 7th)
If you would like help with an ACETA proposal, I’m happy to meet with you in my office on the 7th or 8th!
