RHET 1010

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.

Course Theme

For centuries, visionaries have sought to create what they think is the ideal society where moral virtues, justice and beauty prevails. From Plato’s Republic, to Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, classical and popular literature is rife with examples of imagined utopias that promise harmony and happiness for their citizens... but with a catch! Ironically, as they transform into more rigorous systems to ensure their success, these imagined utopias often turn into their very opposite: dystopias.

Even as we aspire to create the perfect world, we find that our visions collide with or contain within them the seeds of corruption: totalitarian nightmares, environmental disasters, hyper digitality and technological domination. Film, literature, and art reveal the double bind of this endeavor and our despair at overcoming our destructive and domineering selves.

Learning Outcomes

To fulfill the requirements of RHET 1010, by the end of the course, you should demonstrate ability to:

1. Recognize, interpret, and analyze through class discussions and in writing, the strategies employed by selected writers and speakers in various rhetorical modes of communication
2. Construct, by applying various critical thinking skills, (a) analyses that demonstrate recognition of a writer or speaker’s reasons or assumptions, and (b) position papers that assert and support a thesis, argue a position, address and refute counter positions.
3. Incorporate elements of the writing process, including drafting, revising, and incorporating feedback into assignments, and recognize the necessity of process to a student’s success as a writer
4. Research and incorporate relevant sources into their writing to develop ideas and substantiate claims.
5. Acknowledge others’ intellectual contributions by citing and documenting secondary sources.