Overview of Graduate Curriculum Development

Submission guidelines are posted to the GCC Web site: http://www.ecu.edu/cs-acad/gcc/index.cfm

1. Course prefix and number: 2. Date:

3. Requested action:

X / New Course
Revision of Active Course
Revision & Unbanking of a Banked Course
Renumbering of an Existing Course from
from / # / to / #
X / Required / Elective

4. Method(s) of delivery (check all boxes that apply for both current/proposed and expected future delivery methods within the next three years):

Current or Expected

Proposed Delivery Future Delivery

Method(s): Method(s):

X / On-campus (face to face) / X
Distance Course (face to face off campus)
Online (delivery of 50% or more of the instruction is offered online)

5. Justification. Identify the committee or group (e.g., Graduate faculty of the Department of English) that conducted the assessment of curriculum and student learning. Explain why the unit wishes to offer or revise the course. Include specific results from the unit assessment that led to the development or modification of the course. If applicable, cite any accrediting agency/ies and reference the specific standard/s.

After a comprehensive review of the curriculum and required courses in the PhD program along with assessment data related to the placement of graduates and the program's applicant pool, the graduate faculty involved in the PhD program determined the need to revise several of the program's required courses and create several new courses that would make us competitive and in alignment with other PhD programs similar to our own. This course is part of curriculum revisions that specifically provide students with depth and research practice related to post-Enlightenment rhetorics.
This course supports the curricular revision by providing students with more in-depth knowledge of key texts and concepts that form the theoretical foundation for the field of rhetoric since the Western Enlightenment. This change is necessary to bring our PhD program in line with other equivalent programs and to prepare our PhD students for competitive positions in the job market. As a result, we are revising ENGL 7615: Rhetorical Theory (which currently covers 2500 years of rhetorical history and theory) in order to limit the scope but increase the depth of the course. The revised ENGL 7615 will cover history and theory of rhetoric from the ancients (beginning with oral traditions of rhetoric) to the Enlightenment. This revision necessitates the creation of English 7620 in order to provide graduate students with an overview of key texts, themes, and concepts that have been part of rhetorical traditions since the Enlightenment.
The Doctoral Program Steering Committee, the Graduate Committee, and the Graduate Faculty approved this course on November 25, 2012 and December 3, 2012.

6. Course description exactly as it should appear in the next catalog:

7620. History and Theory of Rhetoric II (3) Examination of key texts and concepts in the history of rhetoric since the Enlightenment.

7. If this is a course revision, briefly describe the requested change:

8. Course credit:

Lecture Hours / 3 / Weekly / OR / Per Term / Credit Hours / 3 / s.h.
Lab / Weekly / OR / Per Term / Credit Hours / s.h.
Studio / Weekly / OR / Per Term / Credit Hours / s.h.
Practicum / Weekly / OR / Per Term / Credit Hours / s.h.
Internship / Weekly / OR / Per Term / Credit Hours / s.h.
Other (e.g., independent study) Please explain. / s.h.
Total Credit Hours / 3 / s.h.
15

9. Anticipated annual student enrollment:

10. Changes in degree hours of your programs:

Degree(s)/Program(s) / Changes in Degree Hours
N/A / N/A

11. Affected degrees or academic programs, other than your programs:

Degree(s)/Program(s) / Changes in Degree Hours

12. Overlapping or duplication with affected units or programs:

X / Not applicable
Documentation of notification to the affected academic degree programs is attached.

13. Council for Teacher Education (CTE) approval (for courses affecting teacher education):

X / Not applicable
Applicable and CTE has given their approval.

14. University Service-Learning Committee (USLC) approval:

X / Not applicable
Applicable and USLC has given their approval.

15. Statements of support:

a. Staff

X / Current staff is adequate
Additional staff is needed (describe needs in the box below):

b. Facilities

X / Current facilities are adequate
Additional facilities are needed (describe needs in the box below):

c. Library

X / Initial library resources are adequate
Initial resources are needed (in the box below, give a brief explanation and an estimate for the cost of acquisition of required initial resources):

d. Unit computer resources

X / Unit computer resources are adequate
Additional unit computer resources are needed (in the box below, give a brief explanation and an estimate for the cost of acquisition):

e. ITCS resources

X / ITCS resources are not needed
The following ITCS resources are needed (put a check beside each need):
Mainframe computer system
Statistical services
Network connections
Computer lab for students
Software
Approval from the Director of ITCS attached

16. Course information (see: Graduate Curriculum and Program Development Manual for instructions):

a. Textbook(s) and/or readings: author(s), name, publication date, publisher, and city/state/country. Include ISBN (when applicable).

Bizzell, Patricia & Bruce Herzberg. The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present. 2th Ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Maritn's. 2000. ISBN: 0312148399. Required.
Plus selected primary readings and articles from secondary sources.

b. Course objectives for the course (student – centered, behavioral focus)

If this is a 5000-level course that is populated by undergraduate and graduate students, there must be differentiation in the learning objectives expected.

Upon completion of this course, students will be able to:
1. Analyze the audiences and components of the three genres of ancient rhetoric (forensic, deliberative, epideictic), as well as more recent genres (e.g., sermonic).
2. Demonstrate an understanding of the historical specificity of rhetorical texts since the Enlightenment.
3. Identify how the five canons of rhetoric (invention, disposition, memory, style, and delivery) have evolved since the Enlightenment, particularly with the shift to digital media.
4. Explain relationships between ethics and rhetoric.
5. Develop a research project that applies rhetorical concepts from the readings.
6. Use rhetorical theory to examine digital texts.

c. Course topic outline

The list of topics should reflect the stated objectives.

Sample Units
Unit 1: Introduction to History and Theory of Rhetoric
Unit 2: Enlightenment Rhetorics & Critiques
· Locke, excerpts from An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
· Hume, excerpts from Of the Standard of Taste
· Astell, excerpts from A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, Part II
· Vico, excerpts from On the Study Methods of Our Time
· Rousseau, excerpts from Emile
· Nietzche’s, excerpts from On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense
· Foucault, excerpts from The Archeology of Knowledge
Unit 3: Elocution/Belletristic Traditions & Critiques
· Campbell, excerpts from The Philosophy of Rhetoric
· Smith, excerpts from The Theory of Moral Sentiments
· Blair, excerpts from Lectures on Rhetoric and Belle Lettres
· Whately, excerpts from Elements of Rhetoric
· Johnson, excerpts from Nineteenth Century Rhetoric in North America
· Crowley, excerpts from Composition in the University
Unit 4: Composition-Rhetorics
· Bain, excerpts from English Composition & Rhetoric
· Hill, excerpts from The Principles of Rhetoric
· Connors, excerpts from Composition-Rhetoric
· Berlin, excerpts from Writing Instruction in 19th-Century American Colleges
· Crowley, excerpts from Composition in the University
· Carr, Carr, & Schultz, excerpts from Archives of Instruction
Unit 5: Modern Rhetorics
· Woolf, excerpts from A Room of One’s Own & Professions for Women
· Grimke, excerpts from Letters on the Equality of the Sexes …
· Palmer, excerpts from The Promise of the Father
· Burke, excerpts from A Grammar of Motives & Language as Symbolic Action
· Perelman & Olbrechts-Tyteca, excerpts from The New Rhetoric
· Toulmin, excerpts from The Uses of Argument
Unit 6: Contemporary Rhetorics
· Bitzer, “The Rhetorical Situation”
· Bahktin, excerpts from The Problem of Speech Genres
· Weaver, excerpts from Language Is Sermonic
· Richards, excerpts from The Philosophy of Rhetoric
· Cixous, excerpts from The Laugh of the Medusa
· Anzaldua, excerpts from Borderlands/La Frontera
· Gates, excerpts from The Signifying Monkey & the Language of Signifyin(g)
· Foucault, excerpts from The Order of Discourse
Unit 7: Digital Rhetorics
· McLuhan, “The Medium Is the Message”
· Welsch, “Screen Rhetoric: Sophistic Logos Performers & Electric Rhetoric”
· Haas, “Wampum as Hypertext”
· Landow, “Hypertext: An Introduction” & “Hypertext & Critical Theory”
· Hayles, “Virtual Bodies & Flickering Signifiers”
· Bolter, “Writing the Self” & “Hypertext & the Remediation of Print”
· Kress, “Reading as Semiosis: Interpreting the World & Ordering the World”

d. List of course assignments, weighting of each assignment, and grading/evaluation system for determining a grade

Sample Assignments
Annotated Bibliography & Proposal 30%
Major Paper 40%
Leading class discussion (2 @ 10% each) 20%
Online Posts & Class discussion 10%
Grading Scale
A = 90 – 100
B = 80 – 89
C = 70 – 79
F = 69 or lower

Approved by GCC April 2012; posted summer of 2012