rhetorical appeals and argument

“So What?” Speed Dating: Articulating an Argument’s Significance

Activities, critical thought and analysis, drafting and revising, Feedback, reflection, rhetorical appeals and argument /

Shannon Mooney Assignments & Activities Archive Activity Description This activity is intended to help students practice articulating the larger stakes, or the “so what,” of an argumentative or analytical assignment. The activity works best after students have developed complete drafts, and it can be easily adapted for any paper that requires students to present and […]

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Brand Style Guide Assignment

digital literacy, professional writing, rhetoric, rhetorical appeals and argument, technical writing, visual/multimodal rhetorics, writing technologies /

Madeleine Sorapure Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description The Brand Style Guide (BSG) is a common genre for organizations both large and small. It establishes a verbal and visual style that employees can apply in print and digital communications, yielding consistency across different expressions of the brand. Creating a BSG is therefore a good fit

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Impersonation Podcast: Understanding Untruth in Uncertain Times

Assignments, collaboration and group work, digital literacy, information literacy, research, rhetoric, rhetorical appeals and argument, visual/multimodal rhetorics /

Joseph S. Vuletich Assignments & Activities Archive Assignment Description In today’s media ecosystem, politicians dismiss unflattering news stories as “hoaxes” and AI-generated deep-fakes concern us because of their increasingly realistic qualities. Scholars teaching information literacy have responded by developing sophisticated methods for sorting fact from fiction, promoting credibility, and dismissing falsehood. Yet falsehood is not

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Writing Counterstories: Ways to Challenge Dominant Narratives in FYC

Anti-Racist Pedagogy, cultural awareness, linguistic difference, linguistic diversity, Racial Literacy, rhetoric, rhetorical appeals and argument, rhetorical situation, Volume 7 /

Sana Sayed Volume 7 Chapter Description This chapter draws from Aja Martinez’s concept of counterstories as a rhetorical research methodology in rhetoric and writing studies and encourages you, a first year writing student, to draw upon your experiential knowledge to both challenge and reframe master narratives that are accepted by the majority. In first-year composition

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Rhetorical Analysis: Creating an App Casebook 

Assignments, collaboration and group work, rhetoric, rhetorical appeals and argument, writing technologies /

Melvin E. Beavers Volume 5 Assignment Description The purpose of this assignment is to use rhetoric to think and write critically about technology and the users’ experiences with it. To do so, students will work collaboratively to determine what makes a smartphone app successful. Once they agree, each student is bound by the criteria they

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What Is Rhetoric? A “Choose Your Own Adventure” Primer

genre and discourse community, rhetoric, rhetorical appeals and argument, rhetorical situation, Volume 5 /

William Duffy Volume 5 Chapter Description Providing an introduction to rhetoric is a foundational component of most first-year writing courses.1 Discussion of rhetorical appeals, for example, is standard fair in these contexts, as are activities that ask students to develop an appreciation for rhetorical situations, audiences, purposes, and even more nuanced concepts such as kairos

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Elaborate Rhetorics

rhetoric, rhetorical appeals and argument, rhetorical situation, Volume 5 /

David Blakesley Volume 5 Chapter Description This essay presents a working definition of rhetoric, then explores its key terms to help you understand rhetoric’s nature as both an applied art of performance and a heuristic art of invention and creation.1 The definition also situates rhetoric in the social processes of identification and division. The definition

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Make Your “Move”: Writing in Genres

demystifying writing assignments, genre and discourse community, rhetorical appeals and argument, volume 4 /

Brad Jacobson, Madelyn Pawlowski, & Christine M. Tardy Volume 4 Chapter Description When approaching new genres, students often wonder what kind of information to include and how. Rhetorical moves analysis, a type of genre analysis, offers a useful, practical approach for students to understand how writers achieve their goals in a genre through various writing

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At Work in the Archives: Place-Based Research and Writing

Archival Research, drafting and revising, Place-based Writing, primary source research, rhetorical appeals and argument /

Lynée Lewis Gaillet & Jessica Rose Volume 4 Chapter Description This chapter outlines a plan for incorporating primary and archival research into first year writing course designs. Correlating directly with recent college initiatives and composition best practices, archival research asks students to see themselves as experts, engage in rhetorical activism, and take on college-to-career projects.

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Four Things Social Media Can Teach You about College Writing—and One Thing It Can’t

drafting and revising, rhetorical appeals and argument, social media, Style, visual/multimodal rhetorics, volume 4, writing technologies /

Ann N. Amicucci Volume 4 Chapter Description Many students are frequent users of social media, and it’s important to recognize the rich rhetorical activity that happens on apps like Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok. This chapter teaches students how to take rhetorical moves they make on social media and mimic these moves in academic writing,

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