Reading for the Rhetoric Stage

Full-year course. Reading for the Rhetoric Stage is designed to engage rhetoric-stage students in reading, literary discussion, and introductory literary analysis. Students will come together with their instructor once a week to talk about that week’s reading and engage in literary analysis related to it. The course will be a mix of lecture and socratic seminar.

The goals of this course are to encourage students to further develop the habits of lifelong readership, to introduce them to a range of texts, and to provide foundational skills in literary analysis and criticism. In Reading for the Rhetoric Stage, students will be expected to read the assigned pages in advance of class sessions and come to class prepared to share their responses and ideas about the texts with their instructor and each other. Course time will also consist of instruction in the art of literary analysis and criticism, and students should be prepared to take notes on course lectures and use these notes to prepare for quizzes, exams and other assignments that will contribute to their final grade.