English 505

On Wednesday, I will be giving each of my students a grade report, indicating their performance on the five assignments thus far, their participation (whether "excellent" "acceptable" or "needs improvement"), and their absences. Putting these together, I was pleased to discover that the majority of my class is currently earning As and Bs (with one C and two distressing Fs thrown in there).

We then begin a series of linked projects - the Annotated Bibliography, the Visual Rhetoric Project, and Essay #2 - which I have chosen to center around the broad topic of "Africa and Advocacy". Inspired by my students' total lack of background for the game "Darfur Is Dying" during the second week of class, this next unit will begin with a brainstorming exercise that (hopefully) will illuminate the common misperceptions held (and fostered by the media) among people in the U.S. toward Africa (accomplished by asking students to list what things they associate with the word "Europe" versus the word "Africa" and then analyzing these lists).

On Friday, we're scheduled to tour the DLC, so the students can get an idea of the resources available to them for the visual project.

The following week, we'll be viewing and discussing "Hotel Rwanda" as a class, which will conclude - and dovetail nicely - with a discussion of RUG's Chapter 3, wherein Ramage discusses the importance of persuasion (aka advocacy, instead of coercion/violence) in the world today.

My assignment handouts are posted on my child page of "106 Materials". Comments and suggestions are much appreciated.