Quentin Vieregge Volume 3 Chapter Description This essay defines the word exigency and explains its value as a way of gaining and holding a reader’s interest. Exigency is defined as not simply explaining why a topic matters generally, but why it should matter specifically at this time and place and for one’s intended readership. Four […]
Exigency: What Makes My Message Indispensable to My Reader Read More »
Kirk St.Amant Volume 3 Chapter Description The international spread of online access means we live in an increasingly interconnected world. This situation means our students will likely write for audiences in different parts of the globe. Writing for such diverse audiences means addressing different contexts affecting how individuals perceive texts. Writing students can benefit from
Writing in Global Contexts: Composing Usable Texts for Audiences from Different Cultures Read More »
Kathleen J. Ryan Volume 3 Chapter Description This essay offers a more robust definition of ethos than the typical definition of credibility to teach students more about ethos. I define ethos as the strategic positioning of the rhetor in relationship to the audience and/or community and then discuss four interrelated parts of ethos that can
Constructing Scholarly Ethos in the Writing Classroom Read More »
Craig Hulst Volume 3 Chapter Description This chapter focuses on grammar, specifically on understanding that grammar is much more than just the rules that we have been taught. Rather, grammar can be used rhetorically—with an understanding of the writing situation and making appropriate choices regarding the structure of the sentences, the use of punctuation, using
Grammar, Rhetoric, and Style Read More »
Melanie Gagich Volume 3 Chapter Description This chapter introduces multimodal composing and offers five strategies for creating a multimodal text. The essay begins with a brief review of key terms associated with multimodal composing and provides definitions and examples of the five modes of communication. The first section of the essay also introduces students to
An Introduction to and Strategies for Multimodal Composing Read More »
William T. FitzGerald Volume 3 Chapter Description Exposure to rhetorical figures, once central to writing pedagogy, has largely fallen out of favor in composition. This chapter reintroduces today’s students to the stylistic possibilities of figures of speech, drawing on an analogy to figure skating to illustrate how writing communicates with an audience through stylistic moves.
Writing with Force and Flair Read More »
Kerry Dirk Volume 1 Chapter Description In this chapter, I introduce students to genres as rhetorical responses to reoccurring or similar situations. After defining genre in the context of rhetoric and composition scholarship, I use examples from popular culture, discussion from contemporary scholars, and personal experience to show students how genre awareness requires a rhetorical
Rebecca Jones Volume 1 Chapter Description Public argument has been compromised by either/or argumentation strategies characterized by Lakoff and Johnson through the metaphor, “argument is war.” This essay discusses the blocks to ethical argumentation and offers three models: classical rhetoric, Toulmin, and pragma-dialectics that provide theoretical and practical methods for recognizing and inventing good arguments.
Finding the Good Argument OR Why Bother with Logic? Read More »
Laura Bolin Carroll Volume 1 Chapter Description Students are digital natives who spend their days saturated in rhetorical messages that they have learned to decode quite well – for example, they can easily size up an instructor within moments of walking into the classroom. As students look at various messages from fashion advertising to political
Backpacks vs. Briefcases: Steps Toward Rhetorical Analysis Read More »
Alex Reid Volume 2 Chapter Description Blogging offers unique opportunities for first year composition writers to develop personal motivations and rewards for writing. This chapter will help you encourage students to find an approach to the unique rhetorical features of blogging as a genre. Students may need detailed assistance as they get started in the
Why Blog? Searching for Writing on the Web Read More »
