高級寫作(一)

This course aims to equip students with advanced skills for communicating clear, compelling arguments in writing. Each class, we will devote time to the following activities: (1) To make sure students read the textbook, I will sometimes have unannounced quizzes concerning the main points of the textbooks. Any day may begin with a quiz. Contents of quizzes: (a) questions designed to make sure students read the readings for that class (from both textbooks); (b) questions designed to test detailed mastery of lessons from previous weeks based on the textbooks (Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace; A Rulebook for Arguments). (c) questions designed to test detailed mastery of lessons from previous weeks based on the textbook Anthony Weston. A Rulebook for Arguments and any supplemental materials regarding logic and fallacious reasoning passed out in the previous week. (2) Discuss assigned readings and review homework exercises from the textbook: Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace, 11th edition. (3) Analyze a film trailer or news story (from audiovisual news source in English) and generate an argument based on your interpretation of it. This task will sometimes involve group discussion to brainstorm connections and associate themes with the trailer. It will also become one of your homework assignments. (4) Workshop (peer review) of previous week's in-class writing. (Your in-class individual writing will be polished for peer review in the next class (and then turned in for grading in the class after that, that is, after further polishing.) (5) Discussion of rhetoric and logic: how to (not) construct an argument. This weekly discussion will center around how to form compelling arguments and avoid fallacies. (6) As time allows, other readings (for instance of model paragraphs and short nonfiction writing) will be analyzed and discussed. Class assignments are sometimes limited to one paragraph (or about 250 words) to focus on a limited number of writing mistakes as well as strategies for improving sentences, diction, and paragraph structure. The aim of the course, however, is to develop coherent short essays, and will follow the conventional five-paragraph essay structure. To develop advanced skills in argumentation, students will also construct outlines of arguments and do various assignments based on Weston's A Rulebook for Arguments. One of the primary aims of this course is to master an understanding of what makes a compelling or fallacious argument.

This course is designed for DFLL students (majors and minors).

Paragraph grades: 50% Homework (assignment from Style): 25% Quizzes: 25% -2 from final grade for each unexcused absence.

(1) Williams, Joseph M. and Gregory G. Colomb. Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace, 11th edition. (2) Anthony Weston. A Rulebook for Arguments (Hackett Student Handbooks) Paperback. Fifth Edition. 2018. Both books are available in the campus bookstore.

地點

HC 415

時間

Wednesday afternoons and by appointment.

聯絡方式

brink@nctu.edu.tw