University of Waterloo
Department of English Language & Literature
ENGL 492 : Topics in the History and Theory of Rhetoric
Spring 2021
Online Course
Instructor Information
Instructor: Dr. Ashley Rose Mehlenbacher
Office: Virtual office for Spring 2021
Office Phone: +1 519 888 4567 x49135
Office Hours: Thursday afternoons 1:30pm-3:30pm, by appointment
Email: ashley.mehlenbacher@uwaterloo.ca
Territorial Acknowledgement
The University of Waterloo acknowledges that much of our work takes place on the traditional territory of the Neutral, Anishinaabeg and Haudenosaunee peoples. Our main campus is situated on the Haldimand Tract, the land promised to the Six Nations that includes six miles on each side of the Grand River.
Course Description
Sociologist Ulrich Beck theorized what he called “risk society” to describe how modern societies respond to hazards and distribute risk. Rhetoricians, especially in subfields or specialized areas of rhetoric, including rhetorics of science, technology, and medicine, have taken up this idea of risk society to investigate the ways that risks are rhetorically constituted. In this course, we will look at the idea of risk society, risk, and attendant rhetorical concepts to understand how risks are defined, managed, and responded to by those at risk.
Course Goals and Learning Outcomes
Upon completion of this course, students should be able to:
-
Describe in rhetorical-theoretical terms “risk,” “risk society,” and “world risk society”;
-
Explain some key distinctions between different forms of risk and the staging of risk through rhetorical appeals;
-
Articulate ethical concerns and provide a basic account of ethical theories concerning risk, especially as related to inequitable distribution and attendant injustices; and,
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Analyze a case study using rhetorical concepts where risk is a key theoretical concern.
Required Text
-
Beck, Ulrich. 2007. World at Risk. Cambridge: Polity, 2009. Ebook: CA$17.99 at W Store; see also library reserves.
Readings Available on LEARN
-
See LEARN for additional reading requirements.
Course Requirements and Assessment
In this course all of your assignments build toward your final project. Please review all of the assignments/assessments for the course before you begin.
|
Assessment |
Date of Evaluation (if known) |
Weighting |
|---|---|---|
|
Proposal review |
Post and comment between June 7th–11th, 2021 |
10% |
|
Proposal |
June 24th, 2021* |
20% |
|
Essay outline review |
July 5th–9th, 2021 |
10% |
|
Essay outline |
July 15th, 2021* |
20% |
|
Essay |
July 30th, 2021* |
40% |
|
Total |
100% |
*See course schedule for details on automatic extensions/deadline window. Discussions for peer review activities must be posted within the open window because you are interacting with peers.
Assessment 1: Proposal Review
This assignment is a peer review activity in LEARN discussions.
The first assignment has two parts.
The first assignment will be to 1) post a rough draft of your project proposal (see “Assessment 2”) to LEARN for feedback from your colleagues in the course and 2) to provide two colleagues with feedback on their proposals.
For the purposes of the draft, please follow the outline detailed below in “Assessment 2,” and, importantly, be sure that you include at least a statement of topic, a question, and a list of 2-3 books or articles you believe may be helpful.
In addition to posting your own proposal, please respond to two other colleagues. Please try to find someone who has not yet had feedback so we make sure everyone has some constructive advice. When posting, please be constructive, offer advice to help narrow a topic, to help find resources and readings on the topic, etc. Most often, projects are too large in scope, so do try to focus on narrowing rather than expanding projects when you provide advice. Aim for 1-2 substantive paragraphs, but not less than one lengthy substantive paragraph and 2 recommended reading/resources.
In addition to your two responses, you can certainly leave brief notes about readings you may know of that could be helpful to others. The goal, with this assignment, is to provide a space for discussion and exploration of our projects.
Once you have received feedback, please use this to revise prior to submitting your assignment in LEARN.
Assessment 2: Proposal
Proposals for your essay are meant to help you focus the scope of your project and allow for a dialogue with Prof. Mehlenbacher. The more detailed and focused your proposal, the better we will be able to develop a plan for your project. To that end, your proposal should include some key features in a brief 1 page (single spaced, 12pt font):
- a statement of topic, a question you want to answer,
- a statement of why you want to answer that question,
- and a list of about 5 scholarly books and articles you think might be helpful; you may also supplement with additional sources that are not peer-reviewed.
You will develop a project of about 2,000 words (or equivalent) for this course. Before beginning the project, however, you will write a proposal outlining your topic and plan. As you are now upper-division students, the expectations for your work are higher and in this course you must produce a high quality project. However, you likely still need some help determining the best way to frame that project and find resources to support your efforts. By first drafting a proposal, we will have the chance to refine your topic, questions, and sources for your project.
The exact nature of your project is rather open to your interests. We will work together, in class, to develop your project over the first several weeks. You may complete a traditional research paper. Or you may develop a kind of portfolio project to showcase your own expertise as you turn toward your future cultivation of expertise through your first job, graduate or professional programs, etc. Whatever option you choose, we will work together to develop clear expectations for your final project, and the steps needed to get you going.
You should consult John Swales’ "Create a Research Space Model" as you prepare your proposal. See: https://www.umass.edu/writingcenter/creating-research-space
In your proposal, you should first outline the topic/issue that you want to study. When you outline a topic you are refining the scope of your project. Then you should identify a gap or problem that you wish to address. Your niche should be sufficiently well defined that you will be able to address it in a short 2,000 word essay or equivalent project. Finally, you will outline how you plan to “occupy the niche,” again borrowing from Swales, in your research essay.
In your proposal you must also identify some of the scholarly references you might use to support your arguments. You do not need to have read the articles in full at this stage, but rather have read some of their introductions and findings to determine if they are potentially helpful to your efforts. You should identify more resources than you will use for the final project as they may prove to be less central to your argument than your initial assessment suggests.
You should also provide a timeline detailing how you plan to complete your work. Work backwards from the final deadline to include your research efforts (how much time will it take you to read an article), your plan for outlining the draft, your first draft, and when you will complete edits.
Assessment 3: Essay Outline Review
This assignment is a peer review activity in LEARN discussions.
This assignment has two parts.
The first assignment will be to 1) post a rough draft of your essay outline (see “Assessment 4”) to LEARN for feedback from your colleagues in the course and 2) to provide two colleagues with feedback on their outlines.
For the purposes of the draft, please follow the directions detailed below in “Assessment 4,” and, importantly, be sure to consult the example outline that has been posted to the Resources section of LEARN.
In addition to posting your own outline, please respond to two other colleagues. Please try to find someone who has not yet had feedback so we make sure everyone has some constructive advice. When posting, please be constructive, offer advice to help structure the essay overall, to help arrange resources and readings, to help identify where examples would be useful, and to help clarify any connections that do not seem to be clear, etc. Aim for 1-2 substantive paragraphs, but not less than one lengthy substative paragraph.
In addition to your two responses, you can certainly leave brief notes that may be helpful to others. The goal, with this assignment, is to provide a space to refine the structure of our essays and arguments as we move toward writing the full drafts.
Once you have received feedback, please use this to revise prior to submitting your assignment in LEARN.
Assessment 4: Essay Outline
Your essay outline should be a detailed roadmap of your paper (single spaced, 12pt font). The goal of this assignment is to help you craft a plan for writing out your ideas and, with the feedback from your peers, shape your arguments further. Your outline should be detailed, written in full sentences, and be roughly two pages long. Examples have been provided in the resources section of LEARN.
In your outline you will include the overall structure for your essay, a paragraph-by-paragraph breakdown of what you will include, and within those paragraph breakdowns, further details on what will be included in each. For each paragraph, it is helpful to think about what the argument of the paragraph is and what the relationship of that specific argument is to the overall argument or position taken in your essay. Then, consider what points you want to make in that paragraph, and what evidence or examples you are going to provide.
Please also include your current bibliography.
Assignment 5: Essay
Your essay project is the largest percentage of your grade and your efforts should reflect that weighting. Your project proposal, which you will have completed earlier in the term, is your opportunity to refine your argument and outline your project before you begin writing.
Your projects will take various forms. You should choose an issue or topic you wish to examine through the lens of rhetoric and risk. You may choose from the different areas of scholarship we are studying throughout the term, but you will need to draw from additional scholarship, which you will have identified in your proposal.
It is important that your essay clearly identifies the area of rhetorical scholarship in which you wish to situate your research. You will also need to make an argument for the importance of the topic you have chosen and, crucially, why rhetoric is a useful framework to explore that topic and matters of risk. Your essay should be sufficiently narrow in scope that you have space to provide a detailed analysis of your topic and draw some conclusions about the topic/issue using rhetorical theory.
You may use any citation style (e.g., APA, MLA, Chicago, etc.), but please do provide full citational information and consistently format based on the style you have chosen so it is easy for readers to identify and find the sources you are using. Single spaced, 12pt font, 2000 words, excluding bibliography.
Course Outline
Please see LEARN for readings in addition to Beck.
|
Week |
Date |
Topic |
Readings/Assignments Due/Holidays |
|---|---|---|---|
|
1 |
May 10-14 |
Risk, rhetoric, and theory: An introduction |
Fan; see LEARN |
|
2 |
May 17-21 |
Risk Society |
Beck, ch. 1 |
|
3 |
May 24-28 |
Risk Society |
Beck, ch. 2 |
|
4 |
May 31-June 4 |
Expertise, Experts, and Ethos |
Mehlenbacher; see LEARN |
|
5 |
June 7 - 11 |
Ethics, Risk, and Apocalyptic Rhetoric |
Wasserman; see LEARN |
|
6 |
June 14 - 18 |
Project Consultations |
See LEARN for details. |
|
7 |
June 21 - 25 |
Environmental Justice |
Sackey; see LEARN |
|
8 |
June 28 - July 2 |
Pause |
No readings. Built-in pause for you to catch up, acknowledging the pandemic situation. |
|
9 |
July 5 - 9 |
World Risk |
Beck, ch. 3 |
|
10 |
July 12 - 16 |
World Risk |
|
|
11 |
July 19 - 23 |
Risk and Rhetorical Action |
Endres & DuPont; see LEARN. |
|
12 |
July 26 – last day of classes |
Course conclusion |
No readings; continue to work on essay drafts. Meetings with Prof. M. |
Late Work
Deadlines in this course are within windows with built-in flexibility.
Attendance Policy
Online, asynchronous course.
Academic Integrity
In order to maintain a culture of academic integrity, members of the University of Waterloo are expected to promote honesty, trust, fairness, respect and responsibility. Check the Office of Academic Integrity webpage for more information.
Discipline
A student is expected to know what constitutes academic integrity, to avoid committing academic offences, and to take responsibility for their actions. Check the Office of Academic Integrity for more information. A student who is unsure whether an action constitutes an offence, or who needs help in learning how to avoid offences (e.g., plagiarism, cheating) or about “rules” for group work/collaboration should seek guidance from the course professor, academic advisor, or the Undergraduate Associate Dean. When misconduct has been found to have occurred, disciplinary penalties will be imposed under Policy 71 – Student Discipline. For information on categories of offenses and types of penalties, students should refer to Policy 71 - Student Discipline. For typical penalties check Guidelines for the Assessment of Penalties.
Grievance
A student who believes that a decision affecting some aspect of his/her university life has been unfair or unreasonable may have grounds for initiating a grievance. Read Policy 70 - Student Petitions and Grievances, Section 4. When in doubt, please be certain to contact the department’s administrative assistant who will provide further assistance.
Appeals
A decision made or penalty imposed under Policy 70 - Student Petitions and Grievances (other than a petition) or Policy 71 - Student Discipline may be appealed if there is a ground. A student who believes they have a ground for an appeal should refer to Policy 72 - Student Appeals.
Note for Students with Disabilities
The AccessAbility Services office, located on the first floor of the Needles Hall extension (NH 1401), collaborates with all academic departments to arrange appropriate accommodations for students with disabilities without compromising the academic integrity of the curriculum. If you require academic accommodations to lessen the impact of your disability, please register with the AS office at the beginning of each academic term.