Dear RHET 1010 Faculty,
This site has been converted from a course site to a general repository of materials from the pilot. Please feel free to copy and adapt materials for your own course giving acknowledgement to the creator of the materials. (ex. Adapted 2022 from HElMinyawi 2021). I want to direct you also to the Professional Development site which has readings that frame our theory and practice: Please click on this link to go to the site.
Course information
Instructor: Michelle Henry
Class Time: UW 10-11:15
Campus location:
Office: Waleed P081, inside the main RHET Department office
Telephone: 2-615-2067
Office Hours: 11:15-12:45 UW, or by appointment
Conference Hours: TBA
Zoom https://aucegypt.zoom.us/j/2707124337
Course Site: https://sites.google.com/aucegypt.edu/rhetoricandcomposition/home
Prerequisite: Taken concurrently with CORE 1010
Turnitin.com:
Class ID #: 31248892
Enrollment Key: rhetoric (all in lowercase letters))
Note regarding instructor contact: The instructor will respond to all questions via email usually within 48 hours. Students should use their official AUC email for communication. Please refer regularly to the course site and look for weekly announcements sent to your AUC email to keep up to date with class tasks.
Course Description
RHET 1010 is designed to help first year students improve their analytical and argumentative skills. This involves reading texts analytically and critically within various disciplines, considering the rhetorical situations in which they are working, organizing, and supporting ideas to make a convincing argument while maintaining their voice as writers. The course also provides training in the use and integration of sources, library and online research and fosters a more discriminating attitude to academically acceptable sources. Ultimately, the course provides opportunities for students to develop effective and coherent communication skills.
In “Creative Expressions of Resistance,” students will be introduced to creative expression in the form of Fiction, Film, Art, and Music and consider how these four genres express instances of human resistance to political and social injustice. In the course, students will explore contexts such as Palestine, Egypt, Jamaica, and the US, among others in which artists have resorted to creative means to voice their discontent. The big questions that we will discuss include the initial question of the relation between power and resistance, violent versus non-violent means of resistance, as well as the many forms that this non-violent (creative) resistance takes.
Learning Outcomes
To fulfill the requirements of RHET 1010, by the end of the course, one should be able to demonstrate the ability to:
Recognize, interpret, and analyze (through class discussions and in writing) the strategies employed by selected writers and speakers in various rhetorical modes of communication.
Construct, by applying various critical thinking skills, (a) analysis that demonstrates recognition of a writer’s or speaker’s reasons or assumptions, and (b) position papers that assert and support a thesis, argue a position, and address and refute counter positions.
Engage in the writing process, including drafting, revising, and considering feedback while working on assignments.
Research and integrate relevant sources into one’s writing as a part of developing ideas and substantiating claims.
Acknowledge others’ intellectual contributions by citing and documenting secondary sources.
Knowledge Outcomes: Students will have:
a. An overview of how artists in the visual and literary arts have responded
to oppression
b. An understanding of the cultural, political, and historical contexts for
various expressions of resistance
c. An approach to defining one’s own identity as a global citizen and one’s
responsibility to responding to injustice
d. A way to approach literature and the visual arts: conventions, genres, and
basic terms used in the analysis of literary, film, and visual arts.
The Class
This course is designed as an inquiry-based learning writing course to complement and practice the critical reading and thinking work performed in the CORE 1010 class. Based on students’ individual questions and interests about the subject, they will explore three major inquiries through the writing process (from invention to final editing).
While there will be instruction about the writing strategies and process, the course will be structured primarily as an interactive writing workshop: students write at home and in class, share their writing in groups with their peers and instructors in class, and revise their work based on meaningful engagement with feedback. The assignments are scaffolded so that each week, students will perform smaller writing tasks leading up to the production of longer and more in-depth pieces of writing. Students will also have the opportunity to work one-on-one with the instructor to review these larger pieces of work for critical reflection and further revision.
I have been a Senior Instructor in the Rhetoric and Composition Department at AUC since 2005. Prior to my arrival in Egypt, I taught in the English Department at the University of South Florida. While my first love is teaching, I also work in administrative roles, previously as the Director of the Writing Center and currently as the Chair of the Department. My research interests are composition pedagogy, student resilience, and faculty development through mentorship.