For tonight's class, we're going to assume the roles of curriculum deities as a way to facilitate exploration of some of the propositions Richard Lanham puts forth in his book The Electronic Word. So here's the task that you and your group members will try to complete:

Design and justify an "English" or literacy curriculum for undergraduates. That means draw up the basic outlines of an undergraduate English or literacy curriculum (or, if you're ambitious, as Lanham clearly is) an entire undergraduate curriculum.

First, you and your group members should discuss Lanham's proposals; then talk about whether you'd accept his proposals for undergraduate humanistic education reform and why or whether you'd offer an alternative to what he proposes.

You may decide that you agree with Lanham's basic proposals for the reform of undergraduate education based on rhetoric in the context of digital media. If so, describe the basic elements of his proposals and offer some justification of your own for them. Work in readings from this course where appropriate.

If you decide to devise an alternative to Lanham's proposals, or if you wish to argue for maintanence of the status quo, then you must still offer a synopsis of Lanham's general proposals and reasons why you don't accept them. Then offer your alternative proposal and a justificaltion for it.

The only basic requirement, aside from providing some accurate synopsis of Lanham's proposals, is to address the issue of literacy directly and to address the role of technology in your proposed curriculum.

For reference, see Lanham, pp. 81-84; 110-117; chapters 5 and 6; pp. 187-192.

You'll have about 40 minutes to work together, after which I'd like you to post the general outlines of your proposal to our class email list, so that the other students can read what you've done; you will, of course, read what they have done as well.

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