Rhetorical Arts is the other required first-year course that you can take either in the fall or the spring semester of your first-year. It is to be taken during the semester that you are not taking First-Year Seminar. Courses in Rhetorical Arts foster articulate expression, critical thinking, and moral reflection, enabling students to engage in written and oral public debate both within and outside of the classroom. Core-sponsored Rhetorical Arts events frequently engage the larger LMU community.
A note to registering students:
Rhetorical Arts courses follow the same common syllabus, learning outcomes, and assignments (with variation due to individual teaching styles). Varying Rhetorical Arts titles may indicate a difference in the focus of the course. For example:
“Rhetorical Arts” and “RA: Thinking, Speaking, Writing”
The Rhetorical Arts course furthers the development of essential skills in written and oral communication and information literacy. It also provides opportunities for active engagement with essential components of the Jesuit and Marymount educational traditions, including Jesuit Rhetoric, otherwise known as eloquentia perfecta, defined as “the good person writing and speaking well for the common good.”
“RA: Speaking and Writing for Social Justice”
This course follows the description for “Rhetorical Arts” above, but also focuses on issues of social justice, moral discernment, and civic literacy. In this course, students pick a social justice topic to research throughout the semester.
“RA: Environmental Rhetoric, Ethics, & Justice”
Although climate change impacts us all, the issue disproportionately affects people of color and other marginalized communities around the world. This course follows the "Rhetorical Arts" description above while exploring how environmental rhetoric blends emotion and science to shape public understanding, for better or worse. Some debates are driven by fear, others by facts, but the most compelling arguments combine various rhetorical devices, leading to real solutions. Students choose an environmental justice topic to research throughout the semester.
“RA: Rhetorical Arts in Spanish"
This course taught in Spanish is equivalent to RHET 1000 for students with appropriate Spanish proficiency (placement in SPAN 2804). It introduces vocabulary, grammatical, and cultural knowledge to develop students’ proficiency as Spanish speakers and writers for the public good combining rigorous comprehension and analysis of diverse sources and ethical discernment. Students will be guided through the process of planning, researching, developing, and presenting different types of written and oral texts. Students will engage in a variety of spoken and written genres, such as exposition, and argumentation. Through readings, discussions, and commentary of cultural products in literary, journalistic, linguistic, and educational discourses, students will be able to additionally identify the relationship between text and form, allowing them to recognize literal and implicit meanings and their cultural production context. By the end of the course, students will be able to read and write advanced texts and communicate their ideas orally in a detailed and complex manner.