info page – race for glory andrew scholtz, instructorinfo page – rfg ascholtz, instructor
Progumnasmata: Oral-Written Presentations
Introductory Remarks
In fulfillment of the requirements for both O-"Oral" GenEd courses and Harpur Writing ("W") courses, students will individually compose and orally present three progumnasmata, or "preliminary rhetorical exercises" (also spelled progymnasmata, plural of progumnasma / progymnasma), one each of the following:
Herodes Atticus
Muthos (fable).
Encomium (praise).
Ekphrasis (description).
In Keeping with the "Race for Glory" theme, please keep in mind that these are your bids for glory. What I mean is that these are, in a sense, about you and the very act of composing-presenting for an audience — more below.
Respectful Speech
Please regard our classroom as a place to exercise free yet respectful speech. Thus when speaking or writing, just as when listening, reading, or responding, let's be tolerant and respectful of the various points of view that exist on our campus and in our classroom. (More in the "Expectations" section of the Syllabus.)
In keeping with the principle that sophistic performance should reflect paideia, not just "learning" but "decorum," profanity and offensive language are not allowed for either oral or written versions of progumnasmata. If during the delivery of a speech I sense that any of the aforementioned principles are not being respected, I reserve the right to shut it down.
Sequence of Tasks (general)
For each of the three progumnasmata, you will:
Produce an initial version of your progumnasma-speech. This will include the text of your oral presentation to the class, plus other elements, as described below for each of these presentations.
Deliver your presentation (perform it from printed text, not notes; don't memorize, don't improvise) in class on the indicated date.
You'll deliver orally only the presentation text: no summaries, citations, reflections, biblio, etc. etc.
The oral delivery of your presentation will receive its own grade
Go to Brightspace to find your oral-presentation grade, plus comments summarizing students'/my reactions-comments, and including in-text writing pointers. Comments will include suggestions for revising as well as for future presenting.
With attention to those comments, revise the whole of the document, including added elements as per assignment (below) for final submission. Upload to the Brightspace course page > Assignments within seven days of the time of your presentation. This final, written version will be graded separately from the orally delivered one.
You will be producing three speeches for this class. One key criterion is, therefore, evidence of:
Improvement over the course of the semester
Attention to comments
Further, I'm asking whether each of your speeches uses language well:
Vocabulary. Aim for standard, comprehensible vocabulary. That's not to exclude "big words." Just be careful that big words are used correctly, comprehensibly, and effectively
Grammar
Punctuation
If you have questions on any of those points, see the Purdue Owl
Oral Version/Intial Upload
My criteria for evaluating the oral performance include those listed on the Oral Presentations Rubric (PDF). Those criteria include considerations not simply of delivery but of content and language: structure, clarity, reasoning, vocabulary, etc.
Final Version
My basis for evaluating the final version, that is, the second submission to Brightspace, will be the same as the above, but with added considerations:
Was there a good-faith effort from start to finish to fulfill the requirements of the assignment?
Was there an effort to revise the initial upload (basically, the performance script) in line with comments, whether those of students or of the instructor?
Does the final, written submission conform to format and research requirements, as per assignment?
As noted, your research will simply be to find a story out there and to work with that. Please do not use our practice fable, "The Frog Who Isn't Talking to You." You need a "Sources Used" section, but it need contain only one item: the source of your story: online, print, whatever. Maybe a story your relative used to tell you. In any case, you will need to cite your source!
Aesop and the Fox
The first document you upload will consist only of number 2 below, that is, auxēsis, which will be the actual speech you deliver orally, plus name, title, and moral.
For the second upload, your final version, all of the following are required, clearly marked in your document with headings:
Psilos logos. A "bare-bones narrative" of probably no more than 50 words, it summarizes your fable. Complete sentences, though, no bullet points. Still, see how little rhetoric it can contain. Please, though, include an epimuthion, or "moral," that is, a brief statement of of the lesson learned.
Auxēsis, about 300 words. This is your "amplification" or "elaboration" of the psilos logos. (The moral should, though, remain short and sweet.) This is what you will deliver in class. PLEASE TAKE NO MORE THAN FIVE MINUTES TO DELIVER. In addition to narrative, it will involve the use of:
Your name.
The title of the fable.
ēthopoiia, "characterization," i.e., details of action or speech revealing ēthos, or "character" (e.g., a courageous or cowardly lion, a brave or timid mouse).
Dialogue. You'll need at least some dialogue in the piece, and it can help delineate character. (Talking animals are typical for fable, but not required for this assignment.)
Antirrhēsis, or "refutation." About 250 words. Using Theon as your guide, compose a refutation of the fable, with all the same elements as the auxēsis, above.
In a "Sources Used" section at the end, provide a biblio citation for your source for the fable. You need cite only one source.
Things to Aim For, Things to Avoid. . . .
Aim for a short, sweet moral, like a proverb or maxim. The moral ideally should sound like a proverb, "Slow and steady wins the race." The moral is a general truth to be inferred from the narrative
Avoid telling, try to show with your narrative. The moral tells, the narrative shows through action and direct speech
Aim your narrative, laser-like, at demonstrating that moral. I'm not asking you to avoid elaboration; that's required. But diffuse narrative isn't going to help
Logic, of the rhetorical kind. The logical structure — not stated, but shown — of the frog fable is:
Major premise. People generally repay consideration with consideration
Minor premise. The frog was inconsiderate
Conclusion. The frog was repaid accordingly. Or something like that. . .
Simplicity and clarity of narrative. This isn't really creative writing. It's you trying to convince us of the truth wrapped up in your moral
A trick, very effective, deployed by the frog fable is its use of repetition with variation:
The fable first repeats the rude-frog thing a few times in varying circumstances
It then repeats with accelerated narrative the back-at-you thing
Not required, just one approach.
Contradiction. A section of Theon, not assigned, is good on this:
"We shall refute . . . as follows. Since even the fablemaker himself acknowledges that what he writes is false and impossible, though plausible and useful, one should refute by showing that what he says is implausible and not beneficial. . . ."
That showing is done in a counter-fable narrative that retells the fable in a way supporting the counter-fable moral. The logic should be based on premises more or less contrary to those of the fable, for instance:
Major premise. People should mind their own business
Minor premise. The frog was just trying to focus on the person calling
Conclusion. The interrupters paid dearly when they failed to mind the espresso machine, etc. etc. (That's not the most airtight of syllogisms, but it illustrates my point)
An encomium is a speech praising someone or something. The ancients were very fond of these: praise of people (for instance, the Emperor), praise of cities, and so on. It was a way to get noticed and to gain favor.
I am, though, asking that this be as well an exercise in eskhēmatismenos logos, "figured rhetoric," about which more on the "figured rhetoric" Study Guide. Using figured rhetoric, you'll be conveying a message that your subject wouldn't want to hear if delivered in plain terms.
Preparation for Stage One, the Oral Presentation and Intial Upload
Elements of the uploaded document. Double-spaced, MLA style. Include the following elements:
Your name, date, class.
Speech title, but don't give away the agenda hiding behind the speech.
Your speech script, about 600 words, double-spaced (two pages, maybe a tad more).
A bibliography listing your outside research sources. (You do need to be upfront about your research. And you do need to do research: not a lot, but enough.)
Choose a person, fictitious or factual, to praise, but also to lecture to/advise using figured rhetoric. We'll be your audience, but this will be your addressee, the person you're talking to.
In choosing, keep in mind that you want your speech to send a message to that person, one they'd ordinarily not want to hear from you. That is your (semi-)hidden agenda. That message likely will constrain your choice of person to praise
The person must be dead, though you should treat them as if alive and present. Speak to them
Controversy and political themes are OK, but as per Syllabus, offensive, intentionally provocative, or otherwise abusive content or language will not be tolerated. Your audience is open-minded, but don't take advantage of that fact
If you have any questions about person or theme, please, contact me.
Do research on your subject.
Construct your encomium. . .
More or less along the lines suggested by Burton. and Pseudo-Dionysius. (You don't have to do each and every thing they talk about; rather, use them for ideas)
Using praise as a cover for criticism. Can you flatter your subject into changing their ways? That's basically what this is about. (More on the relevant Study Guide)
Use MLA-style in-text citation (not footnotes) to show sources that you rely on for info, sources you paraphrase, and sources you quote (verbatim quotations must be set off with quotation marks)
Upload the document to the dedicated Brightspace link.
Preparation of Stage Two, Final Copy
What you upload to the dedicated link will include the following components:
At the start of Daphnis and Chloe, the author describes a beautiful painting he found while hunting in the woods, a painting even more beautiful than the woods themselves — a painting so beautiful that the hunter is seized with longing to put it into words.
Ekphrasis is ancient Greek for description as a literary-rhetorical genre, and it is with a description, an ekphrasis, that Daphnis and Chloe opens. In a way, though, the whole novel is ekphrasis, an attempt to translate what is visual into something verbal.
Indeed, the hunter's admiration for the artwork, and his longing to create its like in words, suggests zēlos, "emulation," the urge to equal, maybe to surpass, the achievement of another. And I'm hoping that you'll likewise feel longing to compose and present an ekphrasis, a description, of some thing or place that you feel is special — longing to arouse in others admiration, both for the thing you describe and for the thing you create.
Here's how it's going to work:
Length:Devote about about two double-spaced pages of to the performance script = submission 1. Submission 2 will additional reflection/discussion, as per below.
Choose any reasonably well-documented artwork or place. Artworks can be from any period, any culture. They can be real or imaginary (imaginary: the Argonath in Lord of the Rings). You can be inventive and not entirely accurate in your description. But the thing described has to be (mostly) visual and something out there, not something you've invented out of whole cloth. If a place, either natural or artificial is fine, or it can combine nature and artifice. In the case of architecture or landscaping, all of that comes together in one thing. If a place, it can't be overly vast; it has to be something you can take in.
Avoid:
People or animals, though artworks of people/animals OK
Events
The universe (too vast)
Do research on your choice of subject — why? Ancient description often, if not always, featured (often in a learned sort of way) historical or legendary lore associated with the thing or place. For ekphrases don't simply describe; they record impressions and associations that go beyond, often well beyond, the physical thing itself. Just so, I'm hoping that in your ekphrases you'll choose something with the power to evoke such associations. For that, you'll need to pull facts, real ones. But honestly, you can make facts up as well.
Be very careful about being over-technical. If you're losing your audience, you're losing points.
EKPHRASIS SUBMISSION 2 NEEDS TO BE UPLOADED WITHIN NINE (9) WORKING, NON-VACATION DAYS OF MY "PUBLISHING" (making avilable) MY COMMENTS (not similarity report, that's plagiarism detection). Working = Monday through Friday. Reading days and exam period do not count as vacation.
Include revised text with elements as per above. Do not upload anything until you have studied and resolved comments, whether those offered in class (by students and/or me) or mine via Turnitin.
Additional elements. Please reflect on your ekphrasis; comment on why you chose your subject (unless that's already obvious in the speech), your approach to your subject in terms of rhetoric and reasoning, and what your aims ultimately were, including any agenda you might have had. This doesn't have to be long-long-long, but it has to be enough.
