COMMUNITY RHETORICS:
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COMMUNITY RHETORICS is offered through the Program in Writing & Rhetoric at Stanford University. The course is taught by Carolyn Ross. The primary text is Writing for Real: A Handbook for Writers in Community Service by Carolyn Ross and Ardel Thomas (Longman, 2003). What purposes does your writing serve? In this community-based class, we explore intersections of research and writing in academic settings and in public ones. Of your three major writing projects in this class, at least one will serve the needs of a local nonprofit agency, and your academic projects will relate directly and indirectly to your work in the community. Mary Louise Pratt's "Arts of the Contact Zone" and the essays and films of other analysts of culture and community will provide context as we examine particular differences and fundamental similarities among various communication styles and consider the sorts of exchanges of skills and knowledge that occur in the service-learning "contact zone." These readings serve as points of reference as, in the "Leap of Faith" essay, a contextual analysis, you consider your personal experience as a traveler in the contact zone. In the Community Writing Project, you will produce one or more documents for the community agency with which you work, adapting research and rhetorical strategy (from writing style to document design) to practical purposes, tailoring them to the specific needs and values of your reader. For your final project, you have the opportunity to conduct intensive primary and secondary research on a topic of special interest to you, related to your community work and our course theme, articulating a complex argument in a sophisticated research essay. During the quarter, you will also give two presentations, one a rhetorical analysis of one of the readings or films on our syllabus, the other on your community-based work. The immediate goal of the course is to provide you with opportunities to engage in purposeful writing in a variety of rhetorical settings; the ultimate goal is to enrich and enliven your experience of academic research and writing. |