As we read Crowley and Hawhee's text, we will be completing the rhetorical excercises at the end of many of the chapters. Those exercises were designed by ancient rhetoricians who hoped to provide their students with a rhetorical sensibility. By developing multiple arguments, crafting stories, and playing with language, students of rhetoric are "tuning their instrument" and preparing themselves for rhetorical situations. These exercises are also used for invention - for the development and discovery of arguments.
We will use these exercises toward the same ends as we brainstorm and tinker with ideas for our digital remake of Lauren Redniss' Radioactive. In order to bring these exercises into digital rhetorical situations, we will remake the exercises themselves. After completing these exercises via writing, the primary technology of the ancients, we will ask the following question: How could this same exercise be carried out using a digital technology? We will be workshopping various tools for digital composition, and we will learn the basics of various software packages. As we learn these tools, we will use them to remake these ancient rhetorical exercises. For instance, if we have written a fable in words, we will then ask: What would that fable exercise look like if we used sound, image, or any other method of digital composition? How do these technologies change the exercise? What new rhetorical possibilities are opened up by digital technologies? What possibilities are foreclosed?
These are the questions we'll ask ourselves as we complete these exercises. We will use the exercises as ways to explore the rhetorical possibilities of digital composition, and each of these exercises will stand as opportunities for you to consider how you might like to create a digital remake of Radioactive.
When evaluating these projects, here are the questions we'll be asking:
- Have you used the written version of the rhetorical exercise to generate ideas and arguments?
- Does your exercise demonstrate an effort to apply the terms and concepts of the textbook chapter?
- Does your digital remake of the exercise take advantage of the rhetorical possibilities of your chosen technology?
- Do these exercises demonstrate that you are working toward an idea for your digital remake of Radioactive?
- Were your assignments turned in on time? (Reminder: We do not accept late work.)
