Weekly 1 Exploratory: Creating a Schema of
P&O-T's Theory of Practical Reasoning
This task sounds more complex than it is. For your first exploratory assignment, I invite you to work in teams to create a schema of rhetorical argumentation from the point of view of Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca—as reflected in this week’s texts, primarily, but you may absolutely enhance that schema with other texts to which you have access. A “schema” is more commonly known as a formal structure, which shows how things are organized in relation to one another or are arranged in relation to the world. Your goal in creating one is to try to reveal the intertextual nuances and theoretical or philosophical contours that you think underlay their work, as well as the extra-textual influences a theory like theirs could have on rhetoric, composition, and communication more broadly. (Note that I attribute Perelman’s later New Rhetoric to his earlier collaboration with Olbrechts-Tyteca, which is why I am assuming she has influenced both works.)
Since we do not have access to the whole of their book, I encourage you to think of your schema not as an outline, but as an intellectual map. This means it is more generative than demonstrative. Consider how you might present their hierarchy of concerns. How do they organize their theory (i.e., by historical moments, by schools of thought, by disciplinary problems, by rhetorical questions, by theoretical approaches, by philosophical figures, or something else) and what are the factors that might have led them to do so? But also, what are the various and potential outcomes of their theory? How does it overlap with other issues in rhetorical theory and practice, other texts, other fields, or even other disciplines? What could be the nature of ideas or types of questions inspired by this work?
Most schemata combine the visual and the alphanumeric, and sometimes they look like trees, database structures, venn diagrams, charts, or architectural drawings. You have absolute creative license in terms of how you will compose your schema (including using freeshare tools such as draw.io, SmartDraw, etc.). In fact, you may make it as layered as you would like—even topographic—if you think a multi-dimensional map would better demonstrate the depth of their work. Your schema will likely need some prose explanation (perhaps even selective quoting), as well as a symbol key or a guide. As such, please include use in-text (parenthetical) citations where needed (MLA or Chicago style preferred).
Finally, feel free to draw on any resource available to you, including our resources for study. Though you are not required to draw on other sources, whatever you do find to help you enhance your schema is fair game, as long as they are trustworthy (e.g., robust, creative commons, or peer-reviewed), and as long as you report the sources and share how you came about them.
I'll arbitrarily suggest the following working teams for this first exploratory:
- Angela, Amanda, and Parisa
- Jessi and Kamila
- Katelyn and Mandy
- Michael and Rob
Please upload your completed schema to Canvas by the beginning of class time on Thursday, September 22, and bring a hard or digital copy to class for our discussion (just in case).
For your follow-up critical blog post (which you will do individually), please reflect on the schema assignment and how some aspect of the task illumined/complicated/addressed/extended your reading of our texts for this week. This critical blog post can be reflective but should be formal. It should be a minimum of 2-3 well developed paragraphs in length (a couple of screens), and my great desire is to see you engage expertly with both task and texts, at times speaking through or alongside what we read, and speaking with some insight about what we read (citing where necessary and embedding links where relevant). Since your post will be intertextual, I'll ask you to use MLA or Chicago-style parenthetical citations where needed, and to be clear that we know which articles/authors you are referencing.
You will post directly to our course blog, so what you write will become the temporary landing page. Be sure to define terms and unpack assumptions for us, using your posts as occasions to teach. Because the blog is somewhat performative, I'll ask you to title your posts creatively (or insightfully). Feel free to compose your post as a response to someone else’s, if you see an interesting conversation starting on the blog.
This is work, but have fun with it!
