Seminar Preparation

Thursday, September 8

II.	Writing Critically

A.	Reading Criticism

Discussion: Our job this session is two fold: to read criticism and to develop reading to find characteristics to emulate.

To Prepare: You should cut through a couple journals. The standard would be Quarterly Journal of Speech. Other journals are acceptable. Consult me. Your task is to select an example criticism that you admire and one you thought the editor should not have published. Contemplate how the author of the admirable essay does his/her craft.

Writing this week: Write 1-2 pages about what you admire. Illustrate your arguments from the article. Reason to "I want my own criticism to do this well and here is how I think this author does it." Similarly, what must be avoided in the other essay? Illustrate. And make your own.

B.	A History of Critical Scholarship of Communication

Reading: Herbert A. Wichelns, "The Literary Criticism of Oratory." in Studies in Rhetoric and Public Speaking in Honor of James A. Winans. ed. by Alexander Magnus Drummond. New York: Century, 1925. pp. 181-216. Available on Hathi Trust Digital Library through UM.

Lester Thonssen and Albert Craig Baird, Speech Criticism. New York: Russell, 1948. pp. xiii-xvi; 1-26. Available on Hathi Trust Digital Library

Edwin Black, Rhetorical Criticism: A Study in Method. 1965; Madison: Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1978. pp. ix-xv; 1-9.

Michael Leff. "Introduction." Western Journal of Speech Communication 44.4 (1980):264.

John Angus Campbell. "Special Issue on Rhetorical Criticism." Western Journal of Speech Communication 54.3 (1990): 249-251.

David Henry. "Rhetorical Criticism: The State of the Art Revisited." Western Journal of Communication 65.3 (2001): 229.

Richard Leo Enos. "Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Rhetorical Criticism. Introduction: The Inclusiveness of Rhetorical Criticism." Rhetoric Review 25.4 (2006): 357-358.

Greg Dickinson. "Introduction to Special Issue." Western Journal of Communication 74.1 (2010): 1-3.

Select an essay from the last three special issues to report on.

Discussion: This will be a session on the history of the craft. Your task is to develop an account of the major events. We will construct a map of the evolution of the activity.

To prepare: Read the essays above. There are two tasks:

Construct a brief timeline of important developments. Date roughly and summarize the development in a sentence or two. We will work to do this as a class.

Read one of the essays from the last three special issues and be prepared to make a 5-10 minute report on the article. What is the thesis of the article? How does it relate to the history of criticism.