English 484
Winter 2008

Professor Alisse Portnoy
Email Address: alisse@umich.edu
Office Information: 3236 Angell Hall, 763-4279
Office Hours: Mondays 2:30 - 3:30
and by appointment Monday and Wednesday afternoons

The nineteenth-century United States woman’s rights movement is an ideal case study for this sort of inquiry. Most nineteenth-century women living in the United States had little or no access to political leaders, nor to higher education or the wages they earned, nor were they allowed to sign contracts or own property in the United States. But despite these rigid constraints and tremendous opposition, over a span of eight decades women generated massive social and political changes in this country. How? By using virtually the only tool available to them: language. This semester, we'll consider a question central to rhetorical criticism: how do people use language to define, reform, and even revolutionize politics and society?

This class focuses on rhetorical theory and criticism, rather than a history of the rhetorical tradition. As rhetorical critics, we will apply rhetorical theory to specific texts, and we will develop an understanding of and a facility with rhetorical issues such as the functions and scope of rhetoric, rhetorical situations, methods of appeal, exigence, objects of agreement, concepts of audience, patterns of arrangement, figures of speech and other elements of style. We also will imagine language as a means by which power dynamics are created, deployed, sustained, altered, and redeployed.

As we apply rhetorical theory—in other words, when we act as rhetorical critics—we’ll concern ourselves with the analysis, comparison, and evaluation of texts. These activities parallel higher-order thinking skills (rather than basic skills such as recall), so many people see rhetorical theory and criticism as a way to facilitate, enhance, or even produce critical thinking. Therefore, another objective of this class is that you will learn, practice, and strengthen critical thinking skills central to your life within and beyond the classroom.

Karlyn Kohrs Campbell introduced many people to the United States woman’s rights movement by making significant texts available for study in a 1989 collection called Man Cannot Speak For Her: Key Texts of the Early Feminists, Volume 2. Since Campbell published this collection, other texts have been “recovered” for study—but this collection remains the fundamental starting place for movement scholars. Since you will be a movement scholar this semester, it’s a good place for us to start, too.

Campbell, a professor at the University of Minnesota, includes black and white women in her collection. However, since Man Cannot Speak For Her was published, some scholars have worked diligently to recover more texts produced by African Americans. One scholar and professor at the University of Maryland, Shirley Wilson Logan, published some of these texts in a 1995 collection called With Pen and Voice: A Critical Anthology of Nineteenth-Century African-American Women. We’ll use this collection, too, and we’ll talk about the rhetorical implications of a separate anthology for what some scholars call “marginalized voices.” Both of these anthologies also will prompt us to ask some important questions related to textual criticism: Whose editing counts, especially in recovery work? What is an “authoritative” text?

We’ll also read a popular and inspiring history of the movement, Eleanor Flexner and Ellen Fitzpatrick’s Century of Struggle: The Woman's Rights Movement in the United States. Flexner completed the first edition in 1959, and it became a germinal text of the 20th-century U.S. women’s liberation movement. Because the book remains one of the best historical introductions to the movement, it has been reprinted several times. The most recent edition includes new material contributed by Ellen Fitzpatrick, hence their collaborative authorship.

Finally, there are two references you might consider using during the semester. One is Sharon Crowley and Deborah Hawhee’s Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students. I usually use this book as a textbook in my upper-level writing course, but it has great information about much of the rhetorical theory we’ll talk about in class. It may be a useful supplement to the material I present in class. So, too, may be Gerard Hauser’s Introduction to Rhetorical Theory, a more traditional but also useful guide to rhetorical theory.

The required books for this course are available at Shaman Drum Bookshop (313 South State Street, 662-7407). Additionally, the required books and also the references are on reserve at University Reserves. Since I ask people to refer directly to the texts during discussion, please bring the assigned readings to class so that you easily and quickly can point your classmates and me to the passage(s) under consideration.

The Schedule of Assignments includes readings, audio and visual files accessible online, four in-class exercises, a web or BlueStream assignment, and two papers.

Readings
I expect you to read all of the texts on the syllabus carefully and come to class ready to talk about your reactions to them. I recommend that you read with a pen in your hand, so you can jot notes or ideas in the margins of your book. I use a color such as blue or red to contrast with the black ink publishers use—that way, I can find my notes easily by paging through the text. Stay away from highlighters: they encourage passive reading, particularly since they cause you simply to mark a passage without writing a note or a thought. I also outline speeches on a separate sheet of paper, especially listing passages which deal with key themes of the movement or passages that seem to have particular significance in the text itself. Imagine how that kind of active reading will help you when you want to make a point in class, on your in-class exercises, or in your papers. What other kinds of active reading strategies work for you? 

Audio and Visual Files on BlueStream
Throughout the semester, background and other information will be available on audio and visual files at BlueStream. These files will be announced via email and in class, and they are integral, not supplemental, to our course materials this semester.

Participation
In other classes, have you found that your participation increases how much you learn? Research on teaching and learning demonstrates that—regardless of your learning style—activities such as discussions and ungraded, short writing exercises significantly increase learning. Thus, class participation will be informally but clearly reflected in your in-class exercises and papers since these activities will benefit from the clarity of thought and expression and the exchange of ideas which class discussions provoke. Participation also will be formally reflected in your overall grade for the course.

I expect you to come to each session on time and prepared, with reading and writing assignments completed. I also expect you to be attentive and responsive to other members of this class—your colleagues. This classroom must be one of mutual respect and open exchange. The University’s Statement of Student Rights and Responsibilities explains that the University of Michigan “is dedicated to supporting and maintaining its scholarly community. As its central purpose, this community promotes intellectual inquiry through vigorous discourse. Values which undergird this purpose include civility, dignity, diversity, education, equality, freedom, honesty, and safety.” If you have any questions, please talk with me, review this code online, or call the Office of Student Conflict Resolution at 936-6308.

Website or BlueStream Assignment
You may choose between a Website or  BlueStream assignment this semester. For the Web assignment, you have the opportunity to put together a page on a person or event that is part of our course this semester. For the BlueStream assignment, you may add an annotated asset (audio or visual file) to our course’s BlueStream library. The latest day to submit either the Web or the BlueStream assignment is April 9. You must receive approval from me on your topic by March 12. I recommend that you request approval before then, though, as the earlier you receive approval the more likely the topic of your choice will be available to you.

In-Class Exercises
There will be four in-class exercises during the semester. These exercises may include sections in which you will be asked to define rhetorical terms, identify and briefly comment on the significance of passages from speeches we’ve read, and comment on points of rhetorical, historical, and ideological significance to the movement. We will talk more about these exercises in class.

Papers
During the semester we’ll work on writing rhetorical criticism, and you’ll write two papers to that end. The process includes some in-class talking, planning, and writing, and we will discuss these papers further in class. I am happy—enthusiastic, even!—to talk with during the writing process, and I also would be pleased to look at a draft or at portions of a draft with you during office hours or by appointment. I also encourage you to use the Sweetland Writing Center for our class assignments. Papers are due at the start of class on the day listed in the schedule of assignments. If a paper is submitted between the start of class and 9:00 pm on that day, the grade you have earned will drop 1/3 of a letter grade. After that, a paper drops a full letter grade for every day it is late. Even if your paper is so late that you cannot earn a passing grade on it, in order to pass this class you must submit both papers such that they would have earned a minimum grade of “D” if submitted on time.

With Me: The most efficient way to get in touch with me outside of class time and office hours is email. During the semester, I check my email every weekday—more frequently than I check my campus mailbox for notes. I have an answering machine on my office phone, but I check that only on days when our class meets. Email is by far the best option. I will use email to contact class members in case class is canceled because of snow or some other emergency, or if I want to pass on information about the course.

With Your Classmates: Your classmates are an integral part of your English 484 experience. I recommend that you introduce yourself to people in this class (you will have opportunities to do so early in the semester), and that you exchange email addresses with several classmates so that you can form study groups, find out what you missed in case of an absence, etc.

I recommend that you visit the Sweetland Writing Center when you write papers for this and other University of Michigan courses. It is a great resource, or rather a composite of great resources. If you are interested in finding out more about their services, including Online Writing and Learning, Writing Workshops, and Peer Tutoring, visit the Sweetland at 1139 Angell Hall, call 764-0429, or check out their website.

Academic dishonesty, including plagiarizing, cheating, doubly submitting papers or portions of papers, aiding and abetting dishonesty, and fabricating material, will not be tolerated. Carefully review the Department of English Language and Literature’s policy on plagiarism. If you have any questions about “what counts,” see me .

Commercial Notetaking
The collection, recounting, promulgation, or selling of materials based on this course, including its website, lectures, exercises, assignments, handouts, or other activities and materials is prohibited.

Changes in the Policies and Schedule of Assignments
These course policies and the schedule of assignments are subject to change. If you are absent, it is your responsibility to find out about such changes.