Assignment ideas for English 5361

Here are a few proposals:

1. An iterative progression, from Assignment No. 1 to No. 3, building a multimodal presentation that maybe starts with textual discourse and then expands into other media, such as video or audio (podcast).

2. A formal debate of classical perspectives. A scenario is introduced in the MOO, and students are given a specific theoretical lens through which to examine and analyze the situation. Maybe pit two contrasting schools of thought, having half the students argue one side and half the other.

3. A profile of a person in the field and a presentation of that person's primary contribution. Maybe pick a "Top 10" rhetoricians list, Aristotle, Foucault, Burke, etc., and have each of us pick one and give a summary or introductory presentation on that person and the primary contributions to the field.

4. Creating a case study of contemporary expression and looking at it through various classical perspectives. So we could create a new piece of rhetoric, in whatever form (in my case, say, a snippet of historical interpretation delivered through a mobile device) and then examine the skeleton of the piece from the inside, through the perspective of either a specific rhetorical paradigm or a cluster/school of thought.

5. Or how about something that extends rhetorical theory into visual rhetoric, like maybe a thorough examination of an image using the classical perspectives on rhetoric as a foundation of the analysis.

Mobile Apps: Shifting Dynamics of a Digital World

Some interesting perspectives shared during this panel on mobile apps at the Commonwealth Club: