Orientation Week

RHET 1311.991 & 992 Comp I

Fall 2017

Always read the entire assignment document before beginning your work.
Our work will be presented by week, and dates for each week will shift at times
when there is a holiday or break. This week, orientation week, begins August 16
and closes August 20, 2017.

Weekly
Checklist

Reading & Resources & Projects & Reflective Critical

response Practice Portfolio Journals Discussions

Weekly checklists. I strongly suggest that you always begin

and end with the weekly checklist. Youll notice I post it here
Weekly as well as on the top of the each weeks content page in our
Checklist Bb classroom. Beginning with the checklist provides you with
an overview of the assignment and reminds you of the due
date; ending here allows you to be sure all of your work has
been completed and submitted. In other words, youll know
whats coming and wont have to wonder whether youve done all
thats required. For your convenience, Ill also place a hyperlinked return button
at the end of the document.

Orientation Week Checklist

All assignments are due no later than 11:30 p.m., August 20, 2017.
! In the start here area of our course, watch the welcome video, review the
handout on how to navigate our classroom (document or video format
same info, two delivery options), then explore our Bb classroom.
! If you havent already done so, take the self-quiz Is online education a best
fit for me? (located in the start here area of Bb; on the Am I in the right
course? page of the Google website).
! Read your syllabus (located in the start here area of this course) in its
entirety and follow the instructions within the syllabus.
! Introduce yourself on our discussion board.
! Study the OWL at Purdue resources related to rhetoric.
! Near the end of the week, compose the assigned response letter and submit
it to me as a PDF document in the dropbox provided.
! Download your textbook for the semester: Writing Spaces Volume I (WS1) and
Writing Spaces Volume II (WS2). Both are available at www.writingspaces.org.
! Set up your online portfolio website and post your URL in the discussion board
area titled Portfolio URLs.

Getting started. To kick things off, get oriented within our online classroom. If you
havent already done so, watch the welcome video in the start here section
of our classroom then click around within the various areas in order to become
familiar with the course layout. For your convenience, Ive also included a video
entitled How to navigate our online classroom in the start here section of our
Bb classroom.

In that navigation video youll learn that Im also placing the same assignment
content on an external website at http://moorecomposition.weebly.com/. Last
semester, we had some problems accessing Blackboard, so I thought Id
duplicate the assignment information for at least the first couple of weeks of this
semester. This will probably just be a temporary backup alternative, as theres no
submission option within Weebly. In other words, everyone ultimately has to
access Blackboard, but itll provide content access if Bb is down for some
reason.

Navigating assignment documents. Youll notice the colored circles on the first
page of each assignment document. These are a few categories that well
typically address within our lesson on a somewhat consistent basis. For your
convenience in reviewing any one area, Ill hyperlink those colored circles to
their respective information section within each assignment document. In other
words, when you load the assignment document, you should be able to just
click on the colored button to go to that area of the assignment document.

The syllabus. Be sure to read our course syllabus in its entirety

(located in the start here area of our online classroom), as its
our course contract; you need to understand exactly what
youre committing to in this course. Reading to the end will
enable you to respond appropriately, and following instructions
within the syllabus is worth participation points if completed this
week, so dont miss out!

Am I in the right classroom? If you havent taken the self-quiz (Is online
education a best fit for me? located in the start here area of our online
classroom), be sure to do so, and the sooner the better. As I mention within the
quiz, you can drop this course for several weeks to come, but you only have THIS
week to switch to an on-campus class if the online venue isnt your best fit. Take
the quiz, so youll know what to expect in this course.

Pleased to meet ya! Introduce yourself on the discussion board by

sharing some information about yourself. Post it under the discussion
board topic Introductions. Ideas for your post could include (but
certainly arent limited to) your goals and objectives in college as
well as what your major is and why youve chosen it; something about your
family or your hobbies; your life dreams or passion; etc. As you begin this first
short writing assignment, think carefully and as already mentioned, be aware
that excellent writing is a process. For all your work in this course, you should go
through the process of drafting, revising, and editing before you post your
writing. Remember that for these years of your life, college work is your job
(people even refer to it as your college career). You should treat all of your
composition work seriously and realize that you are not posting on Facebook but
writing in a professional setting. In this class, I expect to see evidence of recursive
composition. Write early and write often! After resting your compositions, always
do a final evaluation and ask questions such as, Do I need to add anything?
Delete anything? Rearrange anything? Good writing is always clear, concise,
and compelling.

Although youll probably do all of this composing and thinking within your word
processing program, when you post on the discussion board, dont upload your
introduction as a documentjust type or copy/paste it directly into the
discussion board thread.

Habits of mind. Read the handout on habits of mind, and

identify two or three of the items listed that youd like to
explore further. Think about habits and what the concept of
Reading & habits of mind really means. Take some time to explain the
response habits of mind to a trusted friend, and ask him or her what
habits of mind you should prioritize. Save your thoughts and
your friends advice for the letter to me that will be assigned
below.

The definition of rhetoric. Our Comp I course is offered through the Department
of Rhetoric and Composition here at UALR. Youre going to hear a lot about
rhetoric this semester, and specifically about the rhetorical situation. Before we
dive into that further, lets discuss for just a moment what rhetoric actually
pertains to, as every field has vocabulary terms that require understanding in
order to bring those terms into everyday usage. If you dont understand this
term, moving forward to fully understand our course outcomes will be difficult.

Aristotle defined rhetoric as the faculty of observing in any given case the
available means of persuasion.1 He went on to say that other arts persuade
only upon their particular subject matter, but rhetoric seeks to persuade upon
any and all topics. That means our pursuit of rhetoric will help us prepare to
address any topic, and a core course such as first-year composition is in fact
intended to prepare you for composition in all of your other courses. Yet the
definition of rhetoric today is even broader than Aristotles definition.

To help us understand todays definition of rhetoric, I like the OWL (Online Writing
Lab) at Purdues explanation, so lets take a look at that and some of the OWLs
further information resources. The OWL references Kenneth Burke, a literary
theorist who heavily influences our modern rhetorical theory. The OWL overview
states,
over the last century or so, the academic definition and use of
rhetoric has evolved to include any situation in which people
consciously communicate with each otherInstead of just
persuasion, rhetoric is the set of methods people use to identify with
each otherto encourage each other to understand things from
one anothers perspectives (see Burke 25). From interpersonal
relationships to international peace treaties, the capacity to
understand or modify anothers perspective is one of the most vital
abilities that humans have. Hence, understanding rhetoric in terms
of identification helps us better communicate and evaluate all
such situations.2

As you might guess, Burke wrote extensively on this concept of rhetoric and
identification, and the following quote will clarify his perspective a bit for you:
a speaker persuades an audience by the use of stylistic
identifications; his act of persuasion may be for the purpose of
causing the audience to identify itself with the speaker's interests;
and the speaker draws on identification of interests to establish
rapport between himself and his audience.3

To gain further insight into this topic of rhetoric, take time to view and study (take
notes) any one or all of the resources provided by the OWL at Purdue that Ive
listed immediately below. This is the meat of our course, so dont miss this
important concept! For your convenience the resources below are included
right in our online classroom: visit Weekly content Orientation week and look

1Aristotle.
1954. Rhetoric. Translated by W. Rhys Roberts.
http://rhetoric.eserver.org/aristotle/rhet1-2.html (accessed January 1, 2017).
2 OWL at Purdue. Rhetorical Situations." (Online Writing Lab, 2016). Accessed January 9, 2016.

https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/625/01/.
3 Burke, Kenneth. A Rhetoric of Motives (Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1969), 46.

for the folder entitled Resources on Rhetoric. All three resources are directly
hyperlinked within that folder. Again, youre only assigned to review one of the
threebut feel free to review all three resources if you need to clarify any
confusion.
A three-minute video entitled Purdue OWL: Introduction to Rhetoric,
located at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIESu4yXco4
A 14-minute video, In Defense of Rhetoric: No Longer Just for Liars, located
at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYMUCz9bHAs&feature=youtu.be&hd=1
The OWL at Purdue PowerPoint that is included within this weeks content
area, entitled Understanding Writing: The Rhetorical Situation.

Textbook reading. Well begin reading in our textbook in week 1, which will
begin on Monday, August 21st. This week, orientation week, is just a week to set
things up, learn our way around, and hopefully, gain an overview of rhetoric.
Having this short orientation week also allows us to set our regular work weeks
from Monday through Sunday, so after this week, that will be our rhythm for
course work. However, I want you to go ahead and prepare by downloading
your textbook right away. Your textbooks are Writing Spaces Volume I (WS1) and
Writing Spaces Volume II (WS2). Both are available at www.writingspaces.org.
Go ahead and get those on your computer, so you can be on track when the
reading begins.

Composition response to assigned readings. Sometimes well have a single

composition response to a textbook reading assignment. At other times, well be
working on a major project or some other portion of the assignment that
overlaps what were reading and fulfills or partially fulfills a response to the
information. Since this week is our orientation week, Im going to combine our
composition response with a type of reflective journaltypically these will be
two separate things, but I think they fit well together for this week.

So the composition response for this week is a reflective letter: compose a letter
apprising me of the following:
First, in light of the ideas about rhetoric weve already touched upon,
reflect about your personal development as a writer so far. Write about
the types of writing youve done previously, what you feel is most
important in writing (e.g., content? purpose? punctuation? etc.), genres in
which you enjoy writing, and so forth. Also if the WPA outcome statement
concepts come to mind, discuss how youve applied these ideas within
your writing up to this point.
Secondly, in response to the information about habits of mind, write about
how this course and your life as a writer might help you develop two or
three specific habits of mind. Feel free to include your friends advice as

well. (Consider yourself in view of academic writing, social/personal

writing, workplace writing, and/or community writing.)
Thirdly, write about any questions or concerns you may have in response
to the course so far or in response to the self-test about online education.
Finally, let me know what, if anything, you feel I need to know about you
this semester. Including this information is not required but is simply
intended to provide you with a safe and open door to discuss questions,
concerns, or issues in a private manner.

Your letter response should be in business letter format with correct grammar
and punctuation. Im not concerned with perfect business letter formatting, as
thats not the focus of this assignment, so dont stress about that. I just want you
to write somewhat formally in order to understand that all of your
communication in this course should be taken seriously and written properly. This
isnt social media (no lols or hahas!), and you should treat all of your
compositions seriously.

Save your file as a PDF document, and title it YourLastName_Wk0Letter. To

submit your letter, just click on the submission area entitled Letter to Ms.
Moore, and upload your PDF document no later than 11:30 p.m., August 20,
2017.

Housekeeping. Lets do just a bit of housekeeping

before we move on, so take a moment to read
through the points below.

File formats. I may ask for submissions in various file formats from PDF documents
to Word/Google docs to simply posting within the discussion board. Whatever
the case, pay careful attention to the assigned submission format and be sure to
follow the directions. If you submit a document as a Word document, and I
asked for a PDF, youll be asked to re-submit and will receive a score of zero until
I have time to assess the (late) resubmission.
File-naming conventions. Make the effort to save all of your documents with
meaningful and organizationally relevant file names. Please use the following as
your naming convention: LastName-ItemName OR LastName-ProjectName-
Draft#. The project file name is different because we are more concerned with
which project than which week.
So, for example, I would name my response to this weeks assigned letter
composition as MooreS-Wk0Letter.
If I were submitting my first major project (which will be a literacy narrative) I
might name that file MooreS-LitNarr-Rough or MooreS-LitNarr-Draft1 (depending
upon the draft Im submitting). Notice that I used my last name and first initial

because I have a very common last name. If my name were something less
common, Id omit that first initial.
Assessment. Assessment for daily work compositions refers to any assigned
writing throughout the week thats not a major project draft (major projects
each have their own rubric). For daily work, I wont fill out a rubric for each
piece you write, but there are standards by which daily work will be measured.
In other words, youll simply receive a grade in the grade center for each
weeks work. The rubric below is typical for how I evaluate practice and
participation work:

Typical Rubric for Short Composition Responses

100% 85% 70% 50%
Any one of the following:
Applies appropriate Any one of the
Any one of the Makes an attempt to adapt
voice, tone, structure, & following: Little or no
following: Exhibits a to the rhetorical situation,
level of formality for the readily identifiable
satisfactory attempt to but lacks in more than one
rhetorical situation & evidence of capably
adapt to the rhetorical regard. There is a central
successfully addresses adapting to the
situation, but is lacking point but it isn't clearly
audience expectations. rhetorical situation.
in some manner. There identifiable or is developed
Offers a clearly No clearly identifiable
is a clearly identifiable with insufficient or
identifiable central point central point.
central point but some inappropriate evidence.
that meets assignment Finished draft has so
support evidence is Finished draft has enough
guidelines & is supported many errors a reader
insufficient or errors to call into question
with appropriate & has difficulty in
inappropriate. Finished the writer's ethos of care &
sufficient evidence. understanding
draft has some errors may affect comprehension
Finished draft has no meaning or purpose.
but none that affect at times. Author needs to
errors or almost no Assignment
comprehension. review assignment
errors. Assignment guidelines seemingly
Assignment guidelines guidelines as he or she has
guidelines are aptly go unaddressed or
are satisfactorily met. somehow missed the
fulfilled. misunderstood.
expected outcome.

Late work. As stated in our syllabus, no late work is accepted except in regard to
major projects, and those projects drop one letter grade per day for each day
theyre late. This weeks writing is all participation and process work, and earns
no credit if submitted late.

Resources and practice. The button titled resources and

practice refers to various resources and reference
information. For example, this week our resources are our
syllabus and the self-quiz about online education, so youve
already heard about these items at the beginning of this
document. Sometimes well conduct practice exercises,
and quite often well have a component concerning the
online library or how to conduct research for a formal essay.

Online portfolios. Well talk about the WPA outcomes

statement a little more below, but now that youre aware of
them and understand the definition of rhetoric in general,
Projects & you can probably see that UALRs Department of Rhetoric
Portfolio and Writing FYC classes are not designed to be spoon-fed
instructional writing classes, but rather hands-on
composition workshops. As we move through the semester,
youll be constructing an online portfolio that will function as
both an evaluation and learning portfolio:
As an evaluation portfolio, your final product will be assessed as you
engage the writing process (i.e., all major projects will be required
submissions within the portfolio).
As a learning portfolio, youll engage in metacognition as you observe
your learning process in relation to the WPA outcomes (e.g.,
metacognitive reflection assignments will be required as a part of each
major project as well as our final).

Your portfolio can be housed as a Google site within

your UALR Google account, or feel free to use an
alternative blog option such as Weebly, Wix, or
Wordpress. If you use Google sites within the UALR platform, you have some
privacy protection within the Universitys account, but the other sites also afford
privacy according to how you set them up. Ill talk about Google sites more
often and perhaps use that term interchangeably with online portfolio
because thats been our requirement here at UALR for the past few years.
However, you really are free to use any other platform you choose, so dont let
that terminology confuse you.

Whichever platform you prefer, go ahead and set up your portfolio site this week
in order to obtain a URL (your web address). If you choose Google sites, for your
convenience Ive included a 2-minute video entitled How to set up Google
sites. Its located in this weeks content folder and on the web at
http://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cb1rrdle2y. (Ill also post it in
ResourcesPortfolio Information.) After creating your site, post your URL in the
discussion board area entitled Portfolio URLs.

Multimedia. Because we are in an online classroom and live in a technological

world in general, we have a great opportunity to compose with multimedia. In
order to develop our abilities in this area, I suggest that as you submit major
projects within your online portfolio, feel free (and encouraged!) to add
appropriate multimedia to enhance and clarify your work. Sometimes a project
will require this, but even if its not required, multimedia enhancements are
always welcome. This process of composing an essay then moving to
multimodal composition will serve you well in whatever class you find yourself

throughout your college years. Many instructors are going to require formal
academic papers, so well be learning correct academic construction and
formal academic styles. However, todays technology offers a very rich learning
experience with multimedia, and many courses (and the work-world itself) may
require multimedia compositions.

Reflection. Some weeks youll be writing and submitting a

reflective journal. I strongly suggest that you set up a folder on
Reflective your computer specifically for the reflections that pertain to
Journals each major project. Those particular reflections will be a great
resource for your final essay at the end of the semester.

Critical discussions. Every classroom needs a place for critical

Critical conversation; for the online course, this is the discussion board.
Discussions This week your introduction takes the place of a critical
discussion.

Thats all for now. I truly look forward to our semester together! Dont hesitate to
message any and all questions as quickly as they come to mindI seriously
need your help to know what might need clarification. If you have a question,
someone else is wondering the same thing!

Remember all assignments are due no later than 11:30 p.m. August 20, 2017.

Return to the
weekly
checklist

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