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Course Schedule

The following schedule offers a provisional plan for all work throughout the semester. We may revise it as needed. PDF readings are available for download in Canvas (under Files).

1.Week of Sept. 14-20
Mo.14 Invitations
Syllabus and schedule
Introductions
Lunsford, "The Nature of Composition Studies" (PDF Canvas-Files)
Derrida, selections from Of Hospitality (in class) (PDF Canvas-Files)
Burke, "Unending Conversation"/Parlor selection from The Philosophy of Literary Form (1941) (in class) (PDF Canvas-Files)
CIP Codes 23.1303 and 23.1304 for definitions
Brooke Notes setup and example

2.Week of Sept. 21-27
Mo.21 Disciplinary Footing
Guest: Doug Baker
Phelps, "The Domain of Composition" (PDF Canvas-Files)
Janice Lauer, "Composition Studies: Dappled Discipline" (PDF Canvas-Files)
Vealey and Rivers, "Dappled Discipline at Thirty: An Interview with Janice M. Lauer" (PDF Canvas-Files)
Adler-Kassner and Wardle, Intro to Naming What We Know
Matrix Setup

3.Week of Sept. 28-Oct. 4
Mo.28 Threshold Concepts
Guests: Cheryl Cassidy, Cathy Fleischer
Meyer and Land, "Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge" (PDF Canvas-Files)
Adler-Kassner, Majewski, and Koshnick, "The Value of Troublesome Knowledge: Transfer and Threshold Concepts in Writing and History"
Wilkinson, "The Problem with Threshold Concepts"
Adler-Kassner and Wardle, Naming What We Know (selections)

4.Week of Oct. 5-11
Mo.5 Library I
Guest: John Dunn
Johnson, "Skim and Plunge"
Sturgeon, "Brooklyn Author Recreates Borges' Library of Babel is Infinite Website"
Benjamin, "Unpacking My Library: A Talk about Book Collecting" (PDF Canvas-Files)
Borges, "The Library of Babel" (1941) (PDF Canvas-Files)
Popova, "Umberto Eco's Antilibrary: Why Unread Books Are More Valuable to Our Lives than Read Ones"
Zotero
Feedly
Rhetsy and Rhetsy: Under the Hood
Adler-Kassner and Wardle, Naming What We Know (selections)

Sa.10 WIDE-EMU Conference at Michigan State

5.Week of Oct. 12-18
Mo.12 Methods and Methodologies
Guest: Bernie Miller
Guest: Jen Clary-Lemon, U Winnipeg (via Skype), "Methods and Methodologies"
Clary-Lemon, "Archival Research Processes: A Case for Material Methods" (PDF Canvas-Files)
Bazerman, "The Problem of Writing Knowledge" (PDF Canvas-Files)
Mueller, "Grasping Rhetoric and Composition by Its Long Tail: What Graphs Can Tell Us about the Field's Changing Shape" (PDF Canvas-Files)
Creswell, Qualitative Inquiry & Research Design (TOC only)
Lauer and Asher, Composition Research: Empirical Designs (TOC only)
Phelps, "Outcomes Questions for CCR Students" (PDF Canvas-Files)
Keywords selections survey

6.Week of Oct. 19-25
Mo.19 Keywords
Guest: Steven Krause
Google Motion Chart - Keywords (in class)
Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, selections from "Introduction" (PDF Canvas-Files)
Heilker and Vandenberg, Keywords in Writing Studies, Introduction and Silence, Literacy, Identity, Discourse, and Community
Claire Lauer, "Contending with Terms: 'Multimodal' and 'Multimedia' in the Academic and Public Spheres" (PDF Canvas-Files)
Matrix Project Check-in (installment for response)

7.Week of Oct. 26-Nov. 1
Mo.26 Rhetoric
Guest: Ann Blakeslee
Herrick, "An Overview of Rhetoric," 1-30, (PDF Canvas-Files)
Watch Clemson Univ., "In Defense of Rhetoric"
Lanham, A Handlist of Rhetorical Terms ("The Divisions of Rhetoric," "The Terms by Type," and "Some Important Dates") (PDF Canvas-Files)
Heilker and Vandenberg, Keywords in Writing Studies, Other, Ecology, Queer, Civic/Public, Contact Zone

8.Week of Nov. 2-8
Mo.2 Library II: Journals
Guest: Steve Benninghoff
McNabb, "Making the Gesture: Graduate Student Submissions and the Expectations of Journal Referees," (PDF Canvas-Files)
Explore at least three journals listed on Writing@EMU: Links and Resources. Look into the journal's statement of purpose, editor and editorial board, frequency of publication, format (print, electronic, or both), style and formatting guidelines, and audience; Read one self-selected article and write Brooke Notes from a journal of your choosing.

9.Week of Nov. 9-15
Mo.9 Resources
Guest: Chalice Randazzo
Ridolfo, Rhet Map
Master's Degree Consortium of Writing Studies Specialists
Dunn and Mueller, "Report on the 2012 Survey of Programs" (PDF Canvas-Files)
Consortium of Doctoral Programs in Rhetoric and Composition

10.Week of Nov. 16-22
Mo.16 Matrix Half-drafts
WRTG500 Curriculum Survey (in class)

11.Week of Nov. 23-29
Mo.23
No class (WIDE-EMU instead)

12.Week of Nov. 30-Dec. 6
Mo.30 Threshold Concepts and Keywords Revisited

13.Week of Dec. 7-13
Mo.7 Matrix Presentations

14.Week of Dec. 14-20
Mo.14 To Be Continued...
Due: Portfolio


Contact Information

Derek N. Mueller, PhD
Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Writing
Director of Composition
Department of English
Virginia Tech
Office: 315 Shanks Hall
Spring 2020 Office Hours: T, 12-3
Phone: +1-734-985-0485
dmueller@vt.edu
http://derekmueller.net/rc/

"[I]n order to constitute the space of a habitable house and a home, you also need an opening, a door and windows, you have to give up a passage to the outside world [l'etranger]. There is no house or interior without a door or windows. The monad of home has to be hospitable in order to be ipse, itself at home, habitable at-home in the relation of the self to itself. But what has always been structured like this is nowadays multiplying both the home and the accessibility of home in proportions and modalities that are absolutely unprecedented" (61). Jacques Derrida, Of Hospitality

"I've said before that every craftsman searches for what's not there to practice his (sic) craft. A builder looks for the rotten hole where the roof caved in. A water-carrier picks the empty pot. A carpenter stops at the house with no door" (4). Rumi qtd. in Lynda Barry, Syllabus

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