In order to assess the success of the pilot Rhetoric courses this semester, an assessment committee will review portfolios of writing from the students in the pilot classes, as well as videotapes of the pilot students’ speeches. You will therefore be required to provide a portfolio of your writing at the end of the semester. This portfolio (and your videotaped speeches) will also be assessed in order to determine whether or not you will be exempted from Rhetoric II.
The portfolio will be due on December 13.
Your portfolio should include a finished, clean copy of PAPER 4 and finished, clean copies of the best two other papers that you wrote for Rhetoric class. You may revise the latter two papers before putting them into your portfolio (and, in fact, I encourage you to revise them, looking carefully at the comments that I wrote about them at the time I graded them). Put only clean copies of finished papers in the portfolio -- no drafts and no copies with marginal comments.
In addition, you are required to include a cover letter in your portfolio that presents an argument justifying your exemption from Rhetoric II. In what ways have you met the goals of the Rhetoric Program such that you should be considered for exemption from the required second semester of Rhetoric? In order to answer this question, you should explore the Rhetoric Web, particularly the statement of goals for first-year writing available in Word document format at http://rhetoric.intrasun.tcnj.edu/WPArev1.doc. Your cover letter need only be one, single-spaced page.
When the assessment committee meets to decide exemptions from Rhetoric II, two people will score your portfolio based on the six-point scoring guide at http://rhetoric.intrasun.tcnj.edu/scoring4.doc. Your portfolio will receive one numerical score from each scorer, and the two scores will be added together. If you receive a 9 or better (that is at least a 5 from one scorer and at least a 4 from the other), you will be exempted from Rhetoric II. If you receive an 8, the scorers will watch the videotape of your speeches and, based on your skill at public speaking, will decide whether or not to exempt you from Rhetoric II. As your instructor, I will not be one of the scorers of your portfolio, although I will probably be in the room when it is scored.
Click here to go to the course syllabus.