1

Wesley Turner
312 Syllabus

Course Description and Goals

We owe a lot to the ancient Greeks: Not only did they invent the Olympics, but they also
developed rhetoric, the art of persuasion. The purpose of this course is to study and use
the principles of Greco-Roman rhetoric to further our personal, professional, and political
goals through persuasive writing. In this course you will practice using emotions,
character, and good reasoning as you seek to convince different audiences in different
situations to adopt your point of view, or to at least consider it.
By the end of the semester, you should be able to
Understand, analyze, and respond to different rhetorical situations with your own
constraints, contingencies, exigencies, timing, history, and audience.
Deliberately use principles of classical rhetoric including invention, pathos,
ethos, reasoned argument, proofs, evidence, commonplaces, style, document
design, and oral delivery.
Revise your writing thoroughly and effectively, using the skills mentioned in the
last two points.
Use library and internet research to support an argument while acknowledging,
addressing, and/or refuting opposing viewpoints.
Respond collaboratively with responsible rhetoric to a timely public problem that
needs to be addressed with group public discourse (i.e., good reasons, thorough
research, collaborative action, collective performance).

Major Assignments
I will post assignment sheets for all major writing tasks on Blackboard. Heres a sneak
peek at the three major ones:
Persuasive Letters: For our first assignment, you will write two persuasive letters: a
cover letter or personal statement to a business or institution, and a letter or email in
response to an article you have accessed online. You will also write an analysis of the
rhetorical strategies you used in the letters.
Researched Argument: In the second half of the semester you will enter a scholarly
debate surrounding a contemporary issue (parental leave, Black Lives Matter, ect.)
We will do research as a class and then create academic arguments regarding these
issues.
Group Proposal and Presentation: For the last assignment, you will divide into
groups of 3 or 4 and prepare a written proposal directed at a decision-making body of

2
your choice (more on this later). You will then prepare an oral presentation based on
your written proposal that you will deliver to the class for the final.
I ask that you turn in each of these assignments as a portfolio in a pocket folder with all
previous drafts on the left, including any drafts I may have responded to, and the final
draft on the right. You will also include a one-page reflective statement that includes the
title of the paper, your audience(s)both invoked and addressedwhat you think you
did well, what youd change if you had more time, and at least three things youve
corrected or worked on based on my and others feedback or your own assessment.
In addition to these major projects, you may have minor writing assignments, like
response papers, both in and out of class. Some of these writing tasks you will turn in for
points and some you will keep as exercises for the major essays. During the semester you
will have two minor assignments that will be more important than the others: an
argument field analysis, and an annotated bibliography. We will talk more about these
assignments as we approach the due dates.

Course Policies, Procedures, and Exhortations

This syllabus functions as a contract that lays out some of my expectations. If by the end
of our first day you decide to keep this syllabus, I will assume you have committed to this
class, body and soul. That means you have agreed to attend class, on time, every day we
meet. For my part, I commit to come prepared each day with activities, discussions, and
supporting materials that will help you achieve class, personal, professional, and public
goals. Lets commit to tell each other if were not living up to our commitments.
Below youll find classroom policies, procedures, and exhortations that will be binding
for us this term:
Attendance: Since we will do in-class writing and some workshopping, your
attendance is essential for your success. If you have two unexcused absences, I
reserve the right to reduce your grade by 10% for each absence afterward. If you need
to miss class, please tell me in advance and then contact a classmate to see what
youve missed. If you are absent on the day a paper is due, please arrange to get the
paper to me on time or earlier or I will consider it late and your score will be reduced
by 10% each day it is late. A skipped out-of-class conference with me counts as an
absence. Please come to class on time. I plan to go like gangbusters as soon as I hear
the bell.
Class Conduct and Discussions: Please treat me and the other students with charity
and respect; together we constitute a new public with public problems and shared
interests. I believe the best learning takes place in environments free of hostility,
contempt, or ridicule. However, I hope we will have sincere and earnest
disagreements and debates about the issues we discuss in classafter all, this is a

3
class on argumentation. To encourage participation, I often call on students without
warning to comment on our reading assignments, so please be prepared for that.
I do not believe that I should always (or even usually) control class discussion. We
should all be prepared to talk about readings and engage in rigorous deliberation and
inquiry. Please consider this class an open forum in which all issues can be discussed
and negotiated. A caveat about the reading: We will be reading texts in class that
argue for a certain political perspective. These texts do not necessarily represent my
views on the subject. I encourage you to keep an open, generous, and critical (as in
rhetorical) attitude about the texts we read.
Computer Lab Conduct: Every Friday during the term we will be meeting in room
4057 JKB in the computer lab where each student will have his or her own computer.
This is a very cool opportunity for us, but it also poses some challenges. We simply
cannot get our work done if youre on Facebook or espn.com (as wonderful as those
sites may be). Please stay focused on the days work. And dont forget to bring your
thumb drive to class.
Grades: You cannot receive a passing grade for the course unless you turn in all
three of the major writing assignments. Trust me: anyone who attends class, turns
in all assignments, visits me in my office, listens attentively and takes notes during
class instruction, and works hard will receive far better than merely a passing grade.
In my experience, the only students who fail my class are the ones who just stop
coming. If you have a concern about a grade you receive on a paper, please take the
paper home, read my comments carefully, and come visit me after 24 hours.
I understand the stress you all feel about grades; it hasnt been that long since I was a
student like yourselves. However, I would encourage you to have a little perspective:
An A grade represents outstanding work, and because writing is hard (lets admit it
now!), few students receive As in this class. But plenty of hard-working students will
receive Bs and high Bs, and I dont think thats anything to be disappointed about.
Reading Quizzes: You will have at least 6 pop-quizzes on the Ancient Rhetorics
readings. (Ill drop your lowest score.) Please have at least one 3 x 5 note card
available on the days we read AR. Each quiz is worth 15 points. You cannot make up
a quiz unless you have a university-excused absence.
Workshops: Participating in class writing workshops will enhance your ability to read
and write critically and to both give and receive feedback. Workshops make the
writing experience a truly social exchange. Each student should volunteer to have his
or her work read by the class at least once this term. When we read student writing
posted on Blackboard, please print out the essays, read them carefully, and make
annotations and comments on the draft to return to the writer on workshop day.
Writing: All writing assignments you do outside class need to be professionally
designed, polished, and in an acceptable format for the situation. (Since this is a GE

4
course with many different majors, we will not spend time in class talking about
particular citation styles, like MLA or APA. You should have access to the style
guide for your discipline and follow its guidelines when designing arguments.) Your
final drafts should be double-checked for errors before you turn them in. For the three
major assignments, you will give me a pocket folder containing all previous drafts of
the paper, the final draft, your reflection, and other materials I may ask for. Writing
assignments are due at the beginning of class. Each day a major assignment is late,
your score will be reduced by 10%. I will not accept late minor assignments.
Because Spring Term requires us to do so much in so little time, we will do quite a bit
of in-class writing and peer review. On those days when we are not in the writing lab,
I encourage you to bring a laptop (if you have one) or other writing tools you feel
comfortable with.
Revision: We will spend time in class working on craft, style, and revision techniques
with drafts of your papers. I hope you can develop habits of revision that will stay
with you through your writing life. Revision may be the hardest part of writing
because we are often so hesitant to kill our darlings, as William Faulkner put it. Yet
we cannot develop as writers without the pain of revision.
In this spirit, I invite you to revise one of the first two major papers for which you
received a grade of B+ or lower. In order to get full credit for the revision, you must
do several things: (1) meet with me no later than one week after receiving the grade to
discuss strategies of revision; (2) revise the essay thoroughly, even beyond my
comments; (3) highlight everything you revised on the new draft; (4) Write a page
reflection about why the new draft is better, pointing to specific writing strategies on
specific pages; and (5) turn in the new draft with all previous drafts and my original
grade sheet. If you can do all this, then I will grade the revised paper as if youd
turned it in originally. (This means theoretically you could move a C paper up to an
A.) But note: I will not grade revisions without the previous draft and grade sheet.
Office hours, conferences, feedback: Please feel free to visit me in my office during
office hours. If you cannot make those hours, email me and well arrange a different
time. Please think of me as your writing tutor (even though I have to assign grades,
unfortunately). As crazy as it sounds, I actually enjoy meeting with students and
working on student writing. I also enjoy providing feedback on earlier drafts. If you
would like me to look at your work, please arrange to meet with me during office
hours or contact me via email if you want me to look at your writing online. (Please
give me at least 24 hours to respond.) I will also respond to the writing we read in
our workshops. Please come to your conference with two or three specific concerns
you want to work on.
Plagiarism: Please be honest with your work. We are a community of integrity.
When you use the ideas or writing of others for research, please use the right kind of
citation. Familiarize yourselves with the Honor Code, which I uphold:
http://honorcode.byu.edu/index.php?option=com_ezine&Itemid=4613

Disabilities Accommodations: If you have a disability, please consult the Disabilities

webpage and let me know how I can accommodate you this semester:
http://www.byu.edu/hr/employees/procedures/accommodations-persons-disabilities
Out-of-class help: BYU has excellent writing support that few students take
advantage of. If you feel you need more intensive help with your writing than I can
give you, please visit the Writing Center (4026 JKB) and make an appointment:
http://english.byu.edu/writingcenter/index2.html

Point Break-Down and Grading

Persuasive Letters
Researched Argument
Group Proposal
Final Presentation
Quizzes and Minor Assignments
Total points possible

250 pts
250
200
100
200
1000

950-1000
900-949
870-899
830-869
800-829
770-799

A
A
B+
B
B
C+

730-769
700-729
670-699
630-669
600-629
Below 600

C
C
D+
D
D
E