syllabus
calendar
blackboard
student.email resources

last.updated 8.15.07

 


Teacher-for-a-Day (PhD)

Purpose

To give you the opportunity to practice setting up and prompting a seminar discussion. Also this exercise allows us to focus the conversation from the position where you connect with these texts.


Instructions–Choosing a day

After the first class you will be asked to select three days that you would be willing to help prompt and lead discussion. Use the "Weeks" column to identify your choices. The instructor will make a concerted effort to match you up with one of the three choices you have made. Failure to submit choices gives the instructor permission to choose a week for you.

Weeks Topic (Readings) Presenter
3a Scottish Common Sense Realists (Blair) Matt Oliver
3b Scottish Common Sense Realists (Whately & Horner) Daniel Cutshaw
4 Scottish Common Sense Realists Beth Price
5 Early Composition Pedagogy Heather Lettner-Rust
6 Responses to Harvard Miriam Dufer
9 Return to the Classics Laura Bowles
10 Textbook Rhetorics Mimi Leonard
11 Postmodern Rhetorics Tiffini Bryant
12a Institutional Rhetoric (Foucault, Althussar) Erin Pastore
12b Institutional Rhetoric (Porter et al, Bousquet, Crowley) Cynthia Pengilly
13 Race and Ethnicity Elif Gular
14 Gender Jennifer Odom
15 Digital & Visual Rhetoric Leslie Norris

Instructions–Writing

On this day you have two responsibilities:

  1. Develop a list of at least five discussion questions that we can use to guide the discussion. Your questions should...
    • address all of the readings you are assigned for that week
    • be open-ended questions that can prompt an exchange of ideas
    • not be comprehension questions; you may instead choose to compose questions that ask for clarification of a concept (you do not have to approach these questions as an absolute expert) or develop questions about the philosophical, ideological, and/or pedagogical foundations or applications of the topic discussed
  2. Identify and present the arguments and main points of support for each reading. You will have the first ten minutes of class after announcements to present this material as a means of establishing a foundation for discussing these readings

If you feel uncertain about anything you read for your assigned week, contact the instructor with specific questions.


Criteria

Logistics:

  • at least five questions submitted to the instructor by 5pm on the Sunday prior to the scheduled class
  • ten minute maximum presentation in class
  • 50 points

In addition to the general evaluation criteria, the instructor will be looking for evidence of...

  • an informed understanding of what you have read and the ability to articulate this understanding to your peers
  • a sense of audience–do you help your audience understand what they have read? have you posed questions that stimulate your peer's interest?
  • an ability to engage in a meta-discourse about rhetorical theory and the teaching of writing by asking interesting questions
  • timely submission of questions and preparation for presentation