syllabus
calendar
blackboard
student.email resources

last.updated 6.7.09

 

Arrangement


Purpose

Arrangement, the canon rhetors use to strategize how they will order a text, is closely connected to logos. Today we will focus on examining this connection between arrangement and logic.


Discussion–The Order of Things

As a class, we will address the following questions...

  • What questions do you have about the readings?
  • How is arrangement connected to logos? What connection do you see between arrangement and genre?
  • How does Aristotle connect arrangement to the appeals? How has Aristotle's understanding of arrangement informed current writing pedagogy? Using Aristotle's discussion, explain the advantages of this form? disadvantages?
  • What are the different parts of Toulmin's layout for an argument? How does one arrange these parts to create different effects? In Toulmin's rhetoric what are warrent-using arguments and warrent-establishing arguments? analytic and substantial arguments? Where would you place Toulmin on a continuum from certainty (similar to Plato) to probability (similar to Aristotle)?
  • On page 133, Toulmin discusses the value of paradigms. How do you think he would respond to the ways in which his theories have been appropriated for composition textbooks and classrooms?
  • What does Kaplan teach us about how texts are arranged in other cultures? What does this say about how other cultures makes logical appeals? What might be the limitations of his theory?

Activity II–How Do I Arrange a Wiki Entry?

In groups of three you will...

  • Choose a topic that you and your group want to research
  • Among your group members look at a minimum of six Wikipedia entries related to the topic that your group has chosen
  • Take notes on the patterns that you are seeing among the ways each entry is composed; as the audience of these entries note the effectiveness of these strategies
  • Discuss the logic of this pattern. In other words, how does this arrangement affect our understanding of the content?
  • Using Aristotle as a model, compose one page of advice that you would give to digital rhetors on the way to compose a wiki entry

Be prepared to share your advice with the class. You will have sixty minutes to work on this.