Courses and Teaching
Rhetorical Analysis
“Rhetorical analysis” and "rhetorical criticism" are concepts involving a wide variety of meanings and methods. Despite this wide range of meanings and methods, most rhetorical analysis seems to have two primary goals:
- to describe the a text’s discursive location and how that text works in it, and
- to describe a discursive location and how a text could work in it.
After the introductory week, the course is divided into three primary phases: classical/neoclassical analysis, the challenge of new media, and exteriority and ideology. During Phase I, students explore and practice several approaches to situating and analyzing texts and conversations—within the framework of the classical/neoclassical tradition. Students explore a brief history of situational heuristics from Aristotle to the present. Furthermore students explore how specific textual elements perform work within each text as a whole. They explore the roles of arrangement, argumentation, and style and their effects on persuasion and the broader conversation. During Phase II students explore and evaluate challenges to traditional situational and textual analyses that come from the advent of new media. Specifically they explore the impact of medium on argumentation and the effects of visual tropes and figures. Finally, during Phase III, students explore the cultural work performed by texts. They discuss, explore, and practice evaluating how texts and argumentation strategies articulate with broader cultural themes and ideologies.
Technical Communication
The technical communication course at Iowa State is a service course designed to teach science and applied science majors how how to communicate technical information more effectively. Much the same the goal of my tech comm course is to help prepare students to communicate that technical information not only to their technically-knowledgeable peers, but also to managers, clients, and coworkers who may not understand the ramifications of the technical data itself. This necessarily involves an appreciation of not only the technical information, but also the rhetorical situation and generic requirements, as well as, social, political, and ethical issues at work in technical communication. To these end, I have designed my course to help students study four primary areas:
- Rhetorical analysis and awareness
- Communication processes (including development, revision, and distribution)
- Written, oral, and visual information design
- Social, political, and ethical issues in science and applied sciences communication
To help students develop these areas, I have developed a fusion of the genre-based and case-based approach to technical communication education. Students practice technical communication through the development and deployment of six to seven technical genes and explore rhetorical, social, political, and ethical issues through three cases provided by me in addition to cases chosen by the students. Each of the cases I select help explore three overarching issues in science and applied science communication: 1)inter-discourse community communication, 2) science in public policy, and 3) science in activism.
Business Communication
Business Communication is designed to help facilitate students' entrance into the business world. The course's primary purpose is to help students develop the skills to communicate effectively in business and industry. During the course students practice communicating in a variety of traditional business genres and media. They work towards developing facility analyzing business communication and business communication contexts. Students practice responding to those contexts through deploying traditional business communication genres. Students practice creating documents with effective and ethical visual design and data displays. Additionally the course explores contemporary ethical issues in business communication such as the impacts of globalization and environmental regulation. At the completion of the course students should:
- Understand and apply rhetorical principles to business communication
- Understand and implement principles of effective document design in business communication
- Understand the influence of organizational settings on business communication
- Understand the conventions of selected business communication genres, and
- Understand the ways in which ethical issues influence research and application in their discipline.
First-Year Composition I and II
The purpose of First-Year Composition is to prepare students for communicating well within their academic courses, as well as for your future career. While most of the course will be devoted to writing, students also participate in small group discussions, interviewing others, analyzing and creating visual communication, and learning how to compose professional email correspondence. By the end of the course, students should be able to do the following:
- Written
- adapt writing to specific purposes and audiences
- use a variety of organizational strategies
- integrate a variety of informational sources into an essay
- develop strategies to revise writing
- avoid errors that distract or confuse the reader
- reflect upon the communication processes, strengths, goals, and growth
- Oral
- interview others, asking effective questions and listening actively
- be an effective team member in small groups as a contributor and as a listener
- give brief oral presentations, usually as a small group member
- Visual
- use typography effectively in creating headings and subheadings
- use the appropriate layout format for a brochure, fact sheet, or newsletter
- analyze visual communication, such as art-on-campus
- use visuals effectively (i.e. imported, scanned, or digital pictures)
- Electronic
- use appropriate format, voice, and language in a professional email such as correspondence with an instructor
- use word processing skills, including making attachments, tables, etc.