Harvard Extension School EXPO E34: Business Rhetoric Section 1 (5:30PM-7:30PM)

1. Harvard Extension SchoolEXPO E34: Business Rhetoric Section 1 (5:30PM-7:30PM) Instructor: Julie Anne McNary Please check your Elluminate Audio Wizard; ***Due to my course that runs directly after this one, we will need to end 15 minutes early this evening.

2. Harvard University Extension SchoolFall Semester 2011 Expo E34: Business Rhetoric

3. Your Instructor: Julie Anne McNary B.A., Wellesley College, 1994 English Literature M.Ed., Harvard Graduate School of Education, 1995 Language and Literacy MA/M.F.A, University of Utah, 1998 British & American Literature and Creative WritingCell Phone: (617) 233-7532 – no calls after 10PM – Voicemail during business hoursjmcnary@post.harvard.edu

4. Class Schedule • House-keeping: • Harvard Writing Center and Tech resources • Instructions for those who did not attend our first class • All Class Announcement: unless otherwise notified, please wait to upload assigned exercises, drafts, and papers to the dropbox until AFTER class on the night they are due. • When to e-mail, call, or otherwise contact me…or not. • How to conduct your own rhetorical approach to managing your relationship with instructors, i.e. tone, frequency, etc. • Class Discussion: Personal Rhetorical Analysis • First Graded Assignment: CEO Report • In Class Exercise: CEO Report Samples • By midnight tonight, please upload your Personal Rhetorical Analysis into the appropriate dropbox on our iSite.

5. Harvard University Writing Centerhttp://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k33202Additional Tech Resource http://lab.dce.harvard.edu/web/index.php

6. FOR NEW STUDENTS Please complete the two following assignments: the first, by midnight tonight; the second, asap.

7. Writing Assessment Essay • In the next thirty (30) minutes, please write a letter to your instructor outlining your experience thus far with formal or academic writing. You may write about your experiences in school, or at work, but try to outline your strengths and weaknesses, the level of instruction you have received, and how much you enjoy the writing process. • Important: Make an attempt to organize your letter into coherent and clear paragraphs. Try to formulate an introduction and a conclusion of some kind. • Please go to our class website and upload your essay into the dropbox therein labeled Writing Assessment.

8. Personal Rhetorical Analysis • Please download, read, and complete all exercises on the Classical Rhetoric Exercise Packet on our website. • In a personal cover letter to me, please market three of your strengths as a writer, worker, student, or other role of your choice. Ultimately, I want you to consider how you would market yourself to me as a rhetorical strategist, but in whatever context you choose. • Important: consider how you will position the three strengths, how they should build upon, and/or relate to, each other. • Be strategic in how you structure your letter with an introduction, body, and conclusion. • Remember to consider what discourse communities you function in most often, and how those discourse communities might influence the rhetorical strategies you use every day.

9. FIRST GRADED PAPER: CEO Report • See Assignment Prompt on our iSite • Your assignment is to write a 3-5 page rhetorical analysis of a CEO who leads one of the publicly-traded companies listed on the Fortune 500 List (see iSite). • You will begin with a standard biography of that CEO, but then shift into analysis thereof, focusing on three key rhetorical strategies you observe about his/her leadership. • You will focus your body paragraphs on these three elements. • You will write a conclusion in which you consider the larger and synergistic implications behind what you have learned about this person’s leadership style.

10. RESOURCES FOR CEO REPORT • Corporate Website (we’ll discuss) • Executive Biography • Most Recent Annual Proxy Statement • Letters from the CEO, etc. • Web Resources • Wikipedia • Articles from higher-quality online resources: WSG, NYT, HUFFPO, top regional newspapers; • Higher quality business mags: Forbes, Fortune, HBS Review, Morningstar, Red Herring, Wired, etc. • Higher-quality blogs: feld.com, etc. • Hardcopy sources • Biographies • Business articles

11. Looking at Corporate Websites and why… Transparency Ethos Overall Rhetorical Presentation What do we learn?

12. CEO REPORT SAMPLES EXERCISE – 35 minutes, followed by discussion • Please proceed to our iSite and download the four sample CEO Reports you find there. • Read all four reports and rank them in order of preference, using the following criteria: • Clear distinction between biography and rhet. analysis; • Clear thesis statement or at least identified analytical strategies through which the writer intends to analyze the CEO’s leadership style; • Solid body paragraph structure within the analysis section; • Compelling conclusion that does more than merely restate the obvious.

13. CEO Example #1 Louis R. Chênevert United Technologies Corporation

14. CEO Example #2 W. James (Jim) McNerney Jr. Boeing

15. CEO Example #3 IndraNooyi PepsiCo

16. CEO Example #4 Sir Richard Branson Virgin