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 and genre. Unfortunately, it’s easy for these concepts—along with the idea of rhetoric itself—to get taken up in these contexts as yet another set of keywords that have static and/or underdeveloped definitions, which in turn limits the ability for students to productively wrestle with the complexities of rhetoric as a resource for their own development as writers. This essay serves as an introduction to rhetoric, but it does so through the medium of a “choose your own adventure” narrative. Divided into ten sections, each of which contains a handful of rhetoric definitions that highlight one of its many qualities, this essay invites students to let their own interests guide how they come to understand rhetoric.
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