Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

This course teaches you how to write PERSUASIVELY and understand the rudiments of arguing well. It focuses on ethical rhetoric and consists of both reading and writing activities, including TWO 5-6 pg. essays that you will build through a series of required process steps. 

It is a HYBRID course, meaning that you do most of your work online but that we meet ONCE A WEEK for 3 hours on Wednesdays, and your attendance and participation in those face-to-face (F2F) meetings are critical and constitute a significant portion of your grade. Indeed, material will be covered there via lectures that won't be accessible any other way, so this is NOT an all-online course. Please schedule accordingly so you can attend all 8 weekly sessions in person.

In addition to those 3 hours in class at Rock Creek Campus each week, you'll be expected to do about 12 hours of online homework (reading & writing) outside of class each week as well, so please allow plenty of time for this (otherwise fun!) class. It moves quickly since it's only an 8-week course, with the last class session consisting of an extensive in-class final exam.

In addition to learning how to write persuasively, you'll be learning about the history of rhetoric (beginning with the Greeks and ending with the Scottish Rhetoricians of the 18th century) and moving through ALL the various stages of drafting two "argumentative" essays that are research-based. There is only one textbook you'll need to purchase (under $30), which we'll be using a lot. You'll be learning about the various means of psychological persuasion, as well as logical fallacies and rhetorical devices, and the course is designed for students who have already successfully completed Wr. 121. 

There will be in-class writing (by hand!), and electronic devices are only allowed at designated times and/or with special permission. All your writing must be done by YOU, with no assistance from AI.