WRI 1002 Composition and Rhetoric II
Professor: Kerry (Carol M.) Barnett
Semester: Fall 2021
Section A: MW noon – 1:40 pm, Ferry 11
Contact:
carol.barnett@centenaryuniversity.edu
Voicemail: (908) 852-1400 ext. 2120
Office: Lackland 261
Fall 2021 Encouragement
I’m very glad to be back in person for classes! The past three semesters have been challenging in
many areas - social justice, health, politics, economics, and personal / family circumstances. I look
forward to our semester together as we continue to move through those. Centenary University has
required vaccination or medical waiver for everyone on campus, social distancing, and is encouraging
masks for everyone, requiring masks if unvaccinated. Conditions and requirements may change over
the semester and we’ll adapt. If directed by the University, I’m prepared to shift to synchronous online
classes as needed; please be prepared as well.
Office Hours: MW 2 – 3 pm, TR 10:30 – 11:30 am and by appointment in Teams Dr. Kerry
Barnett’s Office Hours
https://teams.microsoft.com/l/channel/19%3af3140b42be884f259430526550237690%40thread.tacv2/
General?groupId=12dff0ff-8ba2-46f6-9f3f-fcf2cf413bfc&tenantId=da35a1a5-80b7-4ba7-ad0faf181b765b10
Required Materials
Braziller, Amy and Elizabeth Kleinfeld. The Bedford Book of Genres: A Guide and Reader. 3rd
edition. Bedford St. Martin’s Press, 2021.
Additional materials will be accessible online.
Learning Outcomes
After satisfying the Writing requirement in Centenary’s Core Curriculum, a student should be able to:
 Demonstrate understanding of a variety of purposes and audiences for a text
 Exhibit knowledge of rhetorical genres and their associated conventions
 Incorporate sources and show proficiency with standard documentation styles (MLA and APA)
 Demonstrate proficiency with academic discourse in written and oral responses
Course Goals and Expectations
The course is designed as an introduction to academic discourse and effective college-level writing.
We will practice critical thinking and explore what it means to be a college writer in this course. By
the end of the course, you should be able to think critically, argue effectively, and create a supported
and sustained written argument.
The best way to learn to write effectively is to write. A lot. In this course, you will be expected to:
 Write! Informally, formally, individual and collaboratively
 move through the process of writing
 effectively find, evaluate, and use sources to back up your claims.
 learn the concepts and terminology of writing, and apply them to your own work
WRI 1002 addresses the Centenary Learning Outcomes (CLO) of communication, critical thinking,
information literacy, diversity, and collaboration. Please see the syllabus statements in Moodle for
explanation of the outcomes.
Course Requirements
Attendance Policy
Attendance for the course will be taken based on you:
1. attending classes in person (or on Zoom or Teams as scheduled)
2. completing assignments that have been posted ON TIME based on your professor's
instructions for submission, unless you have made prior arrangements with your professor
3. completing any discussions that have been posted ON TIME based on your professor's
instructions for submission, unless you have made prior arrangements with your professor
Please note that every week you should also:
1. check your email for assignments and other notifications
2. check the syllabus for assignments
3. check the weekly module in Moodle for assignments
You must be present for at least 85% of the course in order to receive a passing grade. *Please note
that accommodations from the Disability Office may supersede this. If you have accommodations,
please be sure to share them with your professor.
Project and Informal Writing Requirements: Project submissions should follow the MLA or APA
formatting style and documentation as specified in the assignment. Informal writing should be
collected in a physical notebook or saved in a designated efolder.
Late Work: All assignments are due in Moodle as specified. Drafts are due before class on the due
date to allow for feedback from peers and instructor. Late assignments will be accepted if the
student has made prior arrangements for an extended deadline. Assignments submitted after
the due date may receive a reduced grade. Drafts are assessed as Complete if submitted on time or
Incomplete if not.
Assignments and Assessment
Each Project will incorporate in-class pre-writing in a variety of modes, one or more drafts for peer
and/or instructor feedback, an individual or small-group conference outside of class or miniconference in class for feedback, and a final version. The WRI 1002 Written Communication Rubric is
accessible in Moodle and at the end of this document.
Writing Conferences
All students will have regularly-scheduled individual or small-group conferences with the instructor to
review current writing projects.
Writing Collaboratory and extra credit
Students seeking help with writing assignments, as well as those wishing to develop their writing skills
in general, are invited to contact the Writing Collaboratory, a tutoring center specializing in writing.
The tutors, who offer one on one assistance, are advanced-level undergraduates specifically trained
in proven methods. Make an appointment for an in-person or online session at
https://centenary.mywconline.com/ Each Collaboratory appointment will receive an extra credit
grade equal to an extra draft.
Projects and Assessment
Project 1: Social Media / Visual Rhetorical Analysis (2 – 3 pages, MLA). Compose an analytical
essay examining a website, Facebook page, social media page, or piece of public visual rhetoric (a
meme or ad, for example) that represents a group or a concept in your discipline or area of interest.
Consider the concepts of ethos, pathos, logos, and Kairos to explore what the site is trying to do and
how. What audiences is it intended to reach? Does it use rhetorical appeals to authority (ethos),
emotion (pathos), reason (logos), and kairos (timing) effectively?
Project 2: Empirical Research Paper (6 – 8 pages, APA) Complete a 6 - 8 page research paper on
a current topic of concern in your major field, using original research and primary and secondary
sources. Developing a topic is one part of the project. We will find and evaluate sources and
document their use with APA style. You will create multiple documents for this assignment, including:
 A 1 page proposal, focusing on your topic of concern and including a plan for how you are
gathering your data. For example, what years might you look at? What databases from the
library seem appropriate? What are the major strands of argument that you see developing
about your topic just from briefly researching it?
 An annotated bibliography of 5-7 sources
 A paper, including the following sections:
 Introduction What is the context for your study, what is your main idea, and what is
your purpose?
 Literature Review What research has been published already about your general
topic? What are the common arguments, methods, and problems associated with your
topic? How do your sources work together to support what you are trying to do with your
own study? This overlaps in content with the Annotated Bibliography, but is presented in
the literature review genre.
 Methods How did you gather your data?
 Results What did you find? This section should be just a report or summary – not an
analysis – of the data. This section should also include a visual representation of
some of your data that you will create.
 Discussion What do your findings mean? How did the limitations of your study impact
your results? This should be an analysis – not a summary or report – of your data.
 Conclusion Why are your findings important to the larger question or general topic you
addressed in this study? Why should your readers care about your findings? What can
future researchers do to further address your research question, and how might they
learn from your challenges or mistakes?
Project 3: Research in the Writing of your Field (4 – 6 pages, MLA or APA as appropriate)
1. Option one: you will complete your own research about the types of writing that are done in your field,
as well as an analysis of those types of writing. You may want to think about how others see writing in
your field (in other words, what are the stereotypes about writing in your field?). As part of this project,
you will
a. examine journals in the field. What types of journals does your field produce? Are they
mostly scholarly in nature? Peer reviewed? More popular? A combination of
each? Look at 3-5 journals
b. interview people who work in your field to ask them about the types of writing that you
do. Is there much regular writing? More sporadic writing based on need?
Using your journal review and your interviews, you will complete a 4-6 page analysis
about the writing in your field, properly documenting your sources.
2. Option two: will require you to choose piece of mainstream media that displays
misconceptions regarding an issue of concern for your major field of study. (This piece of
media might come from a newspaper, a TV show, a popular website, a movie, music, etc.) The
issue of concern should be specific; rather than discussing misconceptions about your future
profession or major, you should be identifying misconceptions about an important issue,
concept, problem, or practice related to your major field of study. Using research from at least
three scholarly journal articles in your field, explain not only how the mainstream source “gets
the issue wrong,” but also the differences between how the topic at hand is discussed and
presented by the media, how it is viewed by the public, and, by comparison, how it is
discussed by experts in your field. How does the mainstream media piece differ from the
scholarly piece in its approach to your discipline as a whole? What rhetorical moves are made
in each piece you review? You’ll need to describe the major themes, genres, modalities, etc.,
and rhetorically analyze the pieces in detail. Make sure that you carefully discuss the rhetorical
choices of the authors. What common conversations can you see running through these
pieces? How do these texts reflect discussions that are important to your field in different
ways? How might these common issues be approached differently? Given the genres and
modalities that you observe in these texts, as well as other rhetorical choices such as tone,
style, etc., what can you say about writing in your field?
Project 4: Resume, Cover Letter, and Analysis (3 – 4 pages). Explore the types of experiences
you have had, and document them in a highly stylized resume format, then write a 2 page analysis of
those experiences. Where do you see gaps in your experiences? In your types of experiences?
What will you need to do during the next few years to become a professional in your field? Identify a
job or internship of interest and write a cover letter introducing your relevant skills and experience and
how they will serve the company or organization in order to entice the reader to review your resume.
Final Portfolio and Reflections / Digital Literacy Narrative: Students will curate and reflect on their
work from the semester and create a digital portfolio or literacy narrative which will be shared with the
class.
Writing Workouts: Several weeks include an assignment in support of the ongoing project work,
often an exercise with reference to the current reading. These are due in Moodle before class each
Thursday and are assessed on a pass/fail basis. Most workouts will consist of 1 – 3 pages of text
and/or images; some will be done in collaboration with a classmate.
Course Calendar (subject to change)
Unless otherwise noted, all readings are from The Bedford Book of Genres, 3rd edition with readings.
Additional readings in various genres from the textbook and the web will be assigned periodically.
Week
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Week 5
Week 6
Date
Aug 30
Sep 1
Sep 3 last
day of
DROP/ADD
Sep 6
Sep 8
Topics and writing
Introduction, Tech orientation
Show & Tell, freewriting
Sep 13
Prewriting for Project 1: Social Media /
Visual Rhetorical Analysis (2 – 3 pages,
MLA)
MLA style and documentation
Sep 15
Draft of Project 1 due
Introduction to peer review with
Collaboratory tutors
Sep 20
Project 1 individual conferences. Please
sign up via sign-up genius link in Moodle.
No class meeting.
Sep 22
Project 1 individual conferences. Please
sign up via sign-up genius link in Moodle
No class meeting.
Sep 27
Project 1 Social Media / Visual
Rhetorical Analysis (2 – 3 pages, MLA)
due
Prewriting for Project 2
sentence structure review & practice
Ch 10
Sep 29
Prewriting for Project 2 Empirical
Research Paper (6 – 8 pages, APA)
Empirical research – method and design
Virtual workshop with librarians
Researched Essay pp. 487 490
Oct 4
APA style introduction
Library video workshops 1 & 2
Ch 11 and 12
Oct 6
Project 2 proposal due
Library video workshops 3 & 4, library quiz
Finding resources, developing a topic
Labor Day - no class meeting.
Rhetorical choices and concepts
Reading due
Ch 1 and 2
“S****y First Drafts”
Ch 3 and 4
Ch 6 and 9 (pay special
attention in Ch 9 to
“Advertisements” and “Photo
Essays”), Ad p. 453, and
Photos pp. 494 – 497
Ad p. 453, and Photos pp.
494 – 497
Ch 5, peer review pp. 74 –
91
Week 7
Oct 11
Literature Review genre expectations,
possibly with Collaboratory tutors
Ch 13 and 14
organizing information, writing what you
know, using sources ethically
Oct 13
APA style
Project 2 draft of Annotated Bibliography
due
Ch 13 and 14
Oct 18
APA style, qualitative and quantitative
sources
Ch 15 (also review Ch 9) and
Infographic p. 481
Oct 20
progress
reports due
Project 2 Annotated Bibliography due
Revision strategies, communicating data
visually
Week 9
Oct 25
Project 2 individual conferences. Please
sign up via sign-up genius link in Moodle.
No class meeting.
Project 2 individual conferences. Please
sign up via sign-up genius link in Moodle.
No class meeting.
Week 10
Oct 27
Oct 29 last
day to
withdraw
with a “W”
Nov 1
Nov 3
Presentations of research, visual gallery
tour
Project 2 Empirical Research Paper (6 –
8 pages, APA) due
Nov 8
registration
for spring
begins
Prewriting Project 3 Research in the
Writing of your Field (4 – 6 pages, MLA
or APA as appropriate)
Centenary Study Away options by Patricia
Mahaffey
Ch 8 and List p 498
Nov 10
MLA & APA review, professional genres
Ch 5 Revising
Nov 15
Due: Project 3 draft for in-class peer
review
Blog p. 537
Nov 17
Project 3 workshop with optional individual
or small group conferences on Project 3
Nov 22
Project 3 Research in the Writing of
your Field (4 – 6 pages, MLA or APA as
appropriate) due
Week 8
Week 11
Week 12
Week 13
Presentations of research, visual gallery
tour
Ch 7, Researched poster
presentations, pp.141 - 147
Ch 13, APA pp. 414 - 430
Week 14
Week 15
Week 16
Nov 24
Thanksgiving – no class meeting
Nov 29
Prewriting for Project 4 Resume, Cover
Letter, and Analysis (3 – 4 pages)
Resume and cover letter by Aaron Ratzen
Dec 1
Due: draft of Project 4
Dec 6
Project 4 Resume, Cover Letter, and
Analysis (3 – 4 pages) due
Dec 8
Portfolio workshop
Dec 13
Final Portfolio and Reflections / Digital
Literacy Narrative due
Dec 15
Final class activities
Ch 8 “Cover Letters and
Resumes”
Ch 7, Literacy Narratives pp.
155 - 161
Centenary University Communication, Writing, and Design Department Outcomes and Written Communication Rubric for WRI 1002 Composition and Rhetoric II
1.
2.
3.
4.
Students identify, analyze, and explain a variety of purposes and audiences for texts
Students exhibit knowledge of rhetorical genres and their associated disciplinary conventions
Students incorporate sources and show proficiency with standard documentation styles (MLA and APA)
Students demonstrate proficiency with academic discourse
Criteria/levels
Assignment
Guidelines
Thesis statement
and Content
Rhetorical
awareness Includes
considerations of
audience, purpose,
and the
circumstances
surrounding the
writing task(s)
Structure
Sources and
Evidence
Control of Syntax
and Mechanics
Excellent 5
Student has exceeded all
guidelines for the assignment
(formatting, length, attention
to the assigned task, etc.).
Thesis is clear and connected
to the topic. Content is fully
developed.
Demonstrates clear
disciplinary knowledge of the
rhetorical triangle (ethos,
pathos, and logos).
Demonstrates attention to
context, audience, and
purpose. Shows full
awareness of the audience’s
perceptions and assumptions.
Uses a consistent system for
organization, development,
and presentation. Sequence of
ideas is logically organized
and easy to follow.
Uses a sufficient
quantity/quality of evidence
to support ideas in the
writing. Citations, if
applicable, are accurately
placed and are correctly
formatted in MLA or APA.
Uses language that is free
from errors in usage and
mechanics. Writing is clear
and precise and uses a mature
tone.
4.5
Satisfactory 4
Student has met all guidelines
for the assignment (formatting,
length, attention to the assigned
task, etc.).
Thesis is clear and connected to
the topic. Content is
inconsistently developed.
Demonstrates some disciplinary
knowledge of the rhetorical
triangle (ethos, pathos, and
logos). Demonstrates some
attention to context, audience,
and purpose. Shows awareness
of expectations appropriate to a
specific discipline and/or
writing task.
Uses a consistent system of
organization, development, and
presentation. Sequence of ideas
is logical.
Demonstrates an attempt to use
a sufficient quantity/quality of
evidence to support ideas in the
writing. Citations, if
applicable, are generally
accurately placed but are
inconsistently formatted in
MLA or APA.
Uses language that occasionally
impedes meaning because of
errors in usage. Errors in
mechanics occasionally
undermine clarity and
precision.
3.5
Emerging 3
Student has met most guidelines
for the assignment (formatting,
length, attention to the assigned
task, etc.).
Thesis is mostly clear and
connected to the topic. Content
is developing but needs work.
Demonstrates some disciplinary
knowledge of the rhetorical
triangle (ethos, pathos, and
logos). Demonstrates minimal
attention to context, audience,
and purpose. Shows minimal
awareness of expectations
appropriate to a specific
discipline and/or writing task.
Attempts to use a consistent
system for organization,
development, and presentation.
Sequence of ideas may be out of
order or in need of combining.
Demonstrates an attempt to use
a sufficient quantity/quality of
evidence to support ideas in the
writing. Citations, if applicable,
are not always accurately placed
and are inconsistently formatted
in MLA or APA.
Uses language that sometimes
impedes meaning because of
errors in usage. Errors in
mechanics sometimes
undermine clarity and precision.
Table is derived from the American Association of Colleges and Universities Written Communication Rubrics
2
Unsatisfactory 1
Student has not met the guidelines for
the assignment (formatting, length,
attention to the assigned task, etc.).
Thesis minimally connects to the topic
and purpose of the Project, and may
not match the body of the Project in
some places. Content needs
development.
Demonstrates minimal disciplinary
knowledge of the rhetorical triangle
(ethos, pathos, and logos). Does not
demonstrate attention to context,
audience, and purpose. Shows no
awareness of expectations appropriate
to a specific discipline and/or writing
task.
Uses an inconsistent system for
organization, development, and
presentation. Project is not logically
organized; ideas are not sequenced in
an accessible way.
Demonstrates little attempt to use a
sufficient quantity/quality of evidence
to support ideas in the writing.
Citations, if applicable, are not
accurately placed and are not correctly
formatted in MLA or APA.
Uses language that often impedes
meaning because of errors in usage.
Errors in mechanics often undermine
clarity and precision. May use oral
rather than written language
inappropriately.
0