ENGL 151-06, Basic Writing, Spring 1999

Abstract

The central project of this course, traditionally, is to teach students to write more effectively, to identify and mimic rhetorical strategies employed by the Great Orators, and to imbibe what academics have termed “the best of what has been thought and said.” In some senses, this is the objective of this course as well. Yet, rather than just analyze rhetorical formulae and hone our syllogisms, students in this course will be asked to invade the enthymeme at the heart of such traditional curriculum and inquire into the various implications of cultural work (or, WIRC), from epistles, eulogies, polemics, treatises, manifestos and satires to artistic representations to dramatic scripts to cinematic spectacles. Students will be asked to collectively interpret these culture texts in light of a central theme: Representations of Power, and in light of the diverse critical perspectives employed by cultural critics. Working through a series of critical arguments, the course asks students to develop crucial skills in critical thinking and persuasive interpretation by allowing them to engage in the foundational ideologies, central concepts, and current debates that comprise our own roles in the teatrum mundi.