Facilitation of Class

Throughout the semester, you will be responsible for helping to guide class discussion. In addition to your regular attendance and contributions, you will sign up for a specific day when you will take the lead in our conversations. When you are scheduled to facilitate, you will provide a 1-2 page handout for each member of the course. Your well-designed handout should include biographical information for each of the day’s authors. It also should contain rhetorical précis for each of the assigned readings and discussion questions. Sharing these handouts will not only encourage discussion but also allow you to collaboratively develop a portfolio of reference materials for professional communication resources.

In order to facilitate conversation, your 3-4 discussion questions should focus on theoretical or pedagogical concerns rather than simply define concepts or summarize assertions. Be certain to use your précis as your starting points. Your questions can focus on each reading separately, explore connections across the day’s readings, or explore connections between that day’s readings and previous selections.

Rhetorical Précis
Woodworth, Margaret K. (1988). The rhetorical précis. Rhetoric Review, 7.1, 156-164.

For your facilitation days, you should craft rhetorical précis for each of the day's readings. The purpose of the rhetorical précis is to offer a short account of an article that does more that summarize the content. The rhetorical précis, which is four sentences long, highlights the author’s thesis, purpose, audience, and backing for his or her argument. For additional information about how to craft your précis, please consult the Précis Guidelines document.

Sentences of the précis:

1. Name of author, [optional: a phrase describing author], genre and title of work, date in parentheses; a rhetorically accurate verb (such as “assert,” “argue,” “suggest,” “imply,” “claim,” etc.); and a THAT clause containing the major assertion (thesis statement) of the work.
   
   
2. An explanation of how the author develops and/or supports the thesis, which usually follows the chronological order of the text.
   
   
3. A statement of the author’s apparent purpose, followed by an “in order” phrase indicating the change the author wants to effect in the audience.
   
   
4. A description of the intended audience and the relationship the author established with the audience.

Sample précis:

1. Douglas Park, in his essay “Audiences” (1994), suggests that teaching audience is an essential but elusive aspect of teaching writing.
   
   
2. Park develops this idea by exploring different definitions of audience, looking at how a text itself can delineate audience, and then discussing specific strategies writers can use to create contexts for audience.
   
   
3. His purpose is to help teachers of writing understand and teach the different aspects of audience in order that they can help students improve the sense of audience in their writing.
   
   
4. Park establishes an informal relationship with teachers who are interested in strengthening their students’ weak writing.