SYLLABUS

Need to be in touch with me? 
Lee Torda, PhD
Acting Dean of Undergraduate Studies
Associate Professor of English
200 Clement C. Maxwell Library
508.531.1790
​Teaching Website: www.leetorda.com
OFFICE HOURS: By appointment. Email me at [email protected] with times/days you'd like to meet, and I will respond within 24 hours. ​
​OR, on MONDAYS, Stop by:
Student Accessibility Services 10-11:00
Commuter Services (RSU 007) Noon-1:00
The Pride Center (RSU 109), 1:00-2:00
LGCIE (RSU 101), 2:00-3:00​

Week One
21 January 2026 
First Day of Classes. IN-CLASS: class discussion archives or user experience research? 

Week Two
28 January 2026
Class Canceled due to travel

Week Three
4 February 2026 
IN-CLASS: work on classmate profile. Using archives to tell our story. Overview of Readers Notes, Discussion of terms relative to Archives. We will watch this video in class on what rhetorical analysis means. WORKSHOPPING: your draft of your classmate profile.

Week Four
11 February 2026 
READ: Click here to access  “A Rediscovered Tradition: European Pedagogy and Composition in 19th Century Midwestern Normal Schools.” IN-CLASS: first official set of reader’s notes posted to class discussion board. Time in class to compose and post. We’ll watch this video about what Rhetoric & Composition is (as a discipline in English Studies). Also, overview of Rhetorical Analysis Project. Working with materials for Rhetorical Analysis assignment.  DUE: your draft of your classmate profile along with Images of your archive materials and you (can be a photo or other image to represent you on our class profile page).

We’ll use the following materials in our class:

Week Five 
18 February 2026
NO CLASS due to President’s Day holiday on the 16th, Wednesday is a Monday schedule of classes. 
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Week Six
25 February 2026
READ: click here to access “Archival Survival: Navigating Historical Research” Also, spend time with the sampling of the Comment (linked below). See what you might use as you formulate and dig into your idea for what you want to do for your rhetorical analysis.  IN-CLASS: Mini-presentation on the focus of your Rhetorical Analysis. Reading Journal, time in class to compose and discuss. 
For Use in class and for Rhetorical Analysis:
The Comment, November 1928
The Comment, November 1938
The Comment, November 1948
The Comment, March 1957
The Comment, November 1968
The Comment, November 1978
The Comment, November 1988

Week Seven
4 March 2026
GUEST SPEAKER : Dr. Maura Rosenthal, curator of We Learn by Doing, Leading, and Competing: Women in Athletics and Physical Education 1890- 1960. READ: visit the online exhibit We Learn by Doing, Leading, and Competing: Women in Athletics and Physical Education 1890- 1960. You can access the exhibit by clicking here. Please read the introduction and spend time with each of the sections of the exhibit. READ ALSO : Click here to access two interviews with archival researchers: “On Keeping a Beginner’s Mind” (Gold) and “I Had a Hunch” (Mortenson). IN-CLASS: Reading Journal posted to class discussion board on Women in Athletics discussion board. Work on deciding what you’ll do for your final project. 

NOTE: On Monday, 2 March 2026, beginning at 10:00 AM until 2:00 PM, there will be a Women in Athletics mini-conference about the exhibit our guest speaker, Dr. Maura Rosenthal, authored. You are not required to attend, but, if you attend any part of the mini-conference, you can write about it in a special discussion board. Doing so will count as either one missed reading journal or one absence you need to clear off your record. 

Week Eight
11 March 2026
NO CLASSES: SPRING BREAK

Week Nine
18 March 2026
READ: Click here to access “Invigorating Historiographic Practices in Rhetoric and Composition Studies. Click here to access “”compostion becomes Composition” in the Making of Knowledge in Composition: Portrait of an  Emerging Field”. IN-Class: Reading Journal, time to compose and post. WORSKHOP: Rhetorical Analysis 

Week Ten
25 March 2026
READ:  Go to collected readings in our Class Blackboard Site to access. “Locating the Archives: Finding Aids & Archival Scholarship in Composition & Rhetoric”. Read, also "Why Johnny Can't Write".  Also, first 40 pages of H is for Hawk. IN-CLASS: Reading journal. Time to compose and post. In-class work on rhetorical analysis. DUE: Your artifact memoir. 

NOTE: Starting this week, we will do short book club journals each week so that folks keep up with the reading for H is for Hawk. We’ll talk about the memoir during our last class meeting (6 May 2026). This is set up so you are reading roughly 40 pages a week (320 pages total). 

Week Eleven
1 April 2026
ABSOLUTELY NO FOOLING: We will meet in the BSU Archives and Special Collections (third floor Maxwell, turn right off the staircase) @ 4:45. Plan for at least an hour and a half in that space. You'll have the option to continue to working IRL or not after that.
READ: Go to collected readings in our Class Blackboard Site to access “Journeying in the the Archives: Exploring the Pragmatics of Archival Research”. Also, 40 pages of H is for Hawk. DUE BY 8 APRIL 2026: Because we are meeting live in the library, there might not be time to do the in-class Reading journal. Prompts will be posted by class time; you have the week to respond. 

Week Twelve
8 April 2026
UPDATE TO TONIGHT'S CLASS:
This evening, Dr Kucich is hosting a talk about on Henry David Thoreau related to the new PBS documentary on his life and work as an environmentalist. I had thought that the only way to attend was in person which is why I did not initially include it in our syllabus, but I learned today that we can join via zoom. Please plan to attend on zoom (information below).  I am including this in our syllabus for two reasons: 1) any work on Thoreau is archival, and seeing how the documentary uses archives to make an argument (and the variety of archives it uses) will be beneficial to you at this moment in your own work; 2) I would like to support my colleague and your professor, an excellent one, in the English department.

INSTRUCTIONS ON ATTENDING CLASS AND THE THOREAU PRESENTATION: Our class will star at 4:45 as per usual. We will start by immediately taking care of tonight's discussion board posts and, if there is any time after that, you'll start in on reading each other's essays in preparation for the workshop. At 5:00, we'll leave our zoom class and you'll log on to the Thoreau presentation. Once it is over, you'll have a 5 minute break and we will return to our zoom classroom. The workshop proper will start at 6:35--or five minutes past when the Thoreau event ends, whichever comes first. We'll finish reading and responding to each other's drafts and then have some conversation about those drafts, if time allows, in a true, whole class workshop, style.

I'll need about 5 minutes before class ends to set a few things up for next week's class, which is asynchronous because I am away at a conference next week.

HERE IS THE THOREAU INFORMATION YOU'LL NEED TO ATTEND: The faculty roundtable celebrating the release of the new Ken Burns / Ewers Brothers documentary, Henry David Thoreau is today (April 8th) from 5:00-6:30 in DMF Auditorium. We’ll have appetizers available beforehand. If you can’t join us in person, we would love to have you join us via Zoom. (NOTE: Emily, since you are on campus, if you want to attend in person and get. free food, feel free to do so--that goes for any of you--but do log in to our class at 4:45 for the pre-work).
READ: Go to collected readings in our Class Blackboard Site to access Go to collected readings in our Class Blackboard Site to access  "The Personal as Method & the Place as Archives: A Synthesis". Also, 40 pages of H is for Hawk. DUE: Working draft of Rhetorical Analysis.  IN-CLASS: Reading journal. time to compose and post.  Sign up for one-on-one meetings to conference about your progress in the class and your final project. 


Week Thirteen
15 April 2026
NOTE: this class will be ASYNCHRONOUS. I will be away at a conference. 
READ: Go to collected readings in our Class Blackboard Site to access  “Archival Research as Social Process” (Lerner). Also, 40 pages of H is for Hawk. I will put up the book club discussion board post. ON-LINE: Reading journal. DUE: Your Rhetorical Analysis. Please post it to the assignment submission space on blackboard. Please also see related reflection discussion board post.  Get to know Sutori. Watch this video about how to use Sutori.  DUE, ALSO: Reading journal on next 40 pages of H is for Hawk, Reading journal on tonight's reading. 

Week Fourteen
22 April 2026
READ: Go to collected readings in our Class Blackboard Site to access a series of interviews with researchers: Lynee Lewis Gaillet, Jessica Enoch, Kathryn Fitgerald, Kenneth Lindblom, Lindal Buchanan, Also, 40 pages of H is for Hawk. IN-CLASS: Reading journal. time to compose and post. All Class workshop on your sutori presentation for STARS. DUE your draft of your final project presentation for All Class workshop: your presentation for the STARS platform. 

Week Fifteen
29 April 2026
READ: 40 pages of H is for Hawk. IN-CLASS: Fun work on your flash fiction or nonfiction. All Class Workshop: your final paper on your final project.DUE: Your presentation ready for upload to the STARS platform. And a draft of the final paper part of your final project for workshopping in class. 

Week Sixteen (Final Exam)
6 May 2026
READ: Also, last 40 pages of H is for Hawk. DUE: Final Portfolio. IN-CLASS: Reading our Flash fiction/nonfiction. 
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