Project One:  Conjectures

In this assignment, you will study an issue in order to discover how that issue is depicted by people who are interested in it. Depictions of a state of affairs are called "conjectures" in rhetoric. The goal of the assignment is to understand that people depict issues differently because they are advancing their own interests that arise from culture and history and to explore those interests.

Project Two: Values

In this assignment, you will return to the issue you explored in assignment one and determine the structure of values that create the agreements and disagreements you discovered. The goal of the assignment is to evaluate the competing positions you have discovered.

 

Project Three: Proposal

In this assignment, you may stay with the same issue or you may choose another topic. You will either advocate that something be done or some procedure be changed or you may argue for or against a policy proposal that has actually been made. The goal of the assignment is to convince an audience that some action should or should not be taken in response to a particular situation or problem.