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last.updated 8.15.07

 

Pedagogical Analysis

Purpose

To promote praxis, this assignment asks you to demonstrate your ability to apply rhetorical theory to your understanding of the teaching of writing. Also this assignment gives you practice at developing strategies that you need to understand the writing pedagogies and policies you encounter.


Instructions–Epistemological Process

Choose an artifact or experience related to the teaching of composition or professional writing (an acceptable alternative because scholars and instructors in this discipline often use a rhetorical foundation; other English Studies courses need to be approved by the instructor). Where an artifact can be a textbook, a syllabus (pedagogical syllabus, not policy syllabus), an assignment, a rubric, a pedagogical computer program, or any other tool that supports the teaching of writing, an experience can be the actual teaching of a class, a workshop, or any event in which the teaching of writing occurs.

You are encouraged to choose an artifact or experience related to the research you are doing for the Conference Paper, Roundtable, Article cycle of assignments. You are also encouraged to analyze artifacts and experiences that you did not produce; this will give you the opportunity to expand your understanding of how practitioners use rhetoric to inform their work.

Instructions–Writing

Compose a 1750-2500 word document that explains how rhetoric informs your chosen artifact or experience. Minimally, you will need to...

  • describe the artifact or experience
  • use scholarship from rhetorical studies and composition studies to explain the influences that informs the development of the artifact or experience
  • suggest possible revisions to the artifact or experience using scholarship from rhetorical studies and composition studies to justify your decisions. If ideas for revision do not immediately come to mind, consider how the artifact or experience could be adapted to a specific context

You are encouraged to add any other relevant material to these articulated parameters.


Criteria

Logistics:

In addition to the general evaluation criteria, the instructor will be looking for evidence of...

  • a sense of audience–do you help your audience understand both the artifact or experience you are analyzing, the scholarship you use to analyze the text, and the connections you are making between the two?
  • an informed understanding of rhetorical studies and composition studies. Does your inquiry demonstrate an understanding of the chosen artifact or experience and its relevance to these other two disciplines?
  • the ability to use rhetoric and composition scholarship to re-envision the artifact or experience
  • an argument about the artifact's or experience's rhetorical influence
  • an ability to engage in a meta-discourse about rhetorical theory and the teaching of writing
  • appropriate use of conventions, including MLA, APA, or an appropriate citation formatting