Transcript Week 2: Reading Rhetorically

Week 1 Review: BA1
 What do you think your strengths are as a writer?
 What do you think your weaknesses are as a writer?
 What are your goals for this course?
 What is audience? How can you identify audience?
 What is purpose? How can you identify purpose?
 What are rhetorical choices? How can you identify
rhetorical choices?
Purpose and Audience
 Purpose is why you are writing.
 Three broad purposes for writing:
 To entertain
 To inform
 To persuade
 Audience is the person for whom you are writing.
 Two questions about audience:
 What does my audience know about this topic?
 What does my audience need to know for me to achieve
my purpose?
Practice: Purpose and Audience
 Identify purpose and audience within the following
video clips:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSJFAYi4UmM
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UYxe7c1Gm3c
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPDM1BjwZg8
Group Practice: Purpose and Audience
This picture shows
concert-goers enjoying a
live performance at a rock
concert. Choose a specific
person—an elderly
relative, a roommate, a
teacher—and write to
persuade him or her that
rock concerts are fun,
boring, or whatever else
you think about them. Is
there any evidence in this
photo to support your
argument?
http://commons.wikimedia.org
“Taking Stock:” How Do You Read?
As you answer these questions about how you read, imagine
yourself reading a facebook post, a text message, a Harry Potter
book—anything that you might read for fun in your leisure time.
 List your reasons or purposes for undertaking this reading.
 Describe the setting as fully as possible—the place where you
are reading, the surroundings, the level of noise or other
distractions, the presence or absence of other materials besides
the text (pens, laptop, coffee, etc.).
“Taking Stock:” How Do You Read?
 Notice what you do to get started—what do you say to yourself,
what do you actually do first, what “rituals,” if any, do you have
for this kind of reading?
 What are your initial expectations regarding each reading? Do
you expect the reading to be easy or difficult, enjoyable or a
chore? Do you expect to learn something new, to be
entertained, to be surprised, or perhaps to be inspired?
 List all of the strategies you use as you read—glancing ahead;
pausing to reread; reading word-for- word, scanning, or
skimming; taking notes. How do you “manage” this particular
reading experience? That is, what do you do to keep yourself
moving along?
“Taking Stock:” How Do You Read?
 Note how often you stop, and think about why you
stop. What do you do when you stop? How do you get
restarted?
 How long does it take you to complete this reading? Is
that what you expected?
 What are the results of this reading experience? Did
the text meet your expectations? What criteria are you
using to judge whether the reading experience was
successful or satisfying in this case?
“Taking Stock:” How Do You Read?
As you answer these questions about how you read,
imagine yourself reading a journal article, a chapter from
a textbook, reference book – anything that you might be
assigned to read for one of your classes.
 List your reasons or purposes for undertaking this
reading.
 Describe the setting as fully as possible—the place
where you are reading, the surroundings, the level of
noise or other distractions, the presence or absence of
other materials besides the text (pens, laptop, coffee,
etc.).
“Taking Stock:” How Do You Read?
 Notice what you do to get started—what do you say to yourself,
what do you actually do first, what “rituals,” if any, do you have
for this kind of reading?
 What are your initial expectations regarding each reading? Do
you expect the reading to be easy or difficult, enjoyable or a
chore? Do you expect to learn something new, to be
entertained, to be surprised, or perhaps to be inspired?
 List all of the strategies you use as you read—glancing ahead;
pausing to reread; reading word-for- word, scanning, or
skimming; taking notes. How do you “manage” this particular
reading experience? That is, what do you do to keep yourself
moving along?
“Taking Stock:” How Do You Read?
 Note how often you stop, and think about why you
stop. What do you do when you stop? How do you get
restarted?
 How long does it take you to complete this reading? Is
that what you expected?
 What are the results of this reading experience? Did
the text meet your expectations? What criteria are you
using to judge whether the reading experience was
successful or satisfying in this case?
Comparing Reading Strategies
 To what extent did your purposes for reading and the
reading situations account for these differences or
similarities?
 What most surprised you about your reading
processes?
Homework
 Before our next class meeting, complete the following:
READINGS
 First-year Writing: Chapter 1, pp. 2-15; Chapter 2 pp. 16-30;
Chapter 3 pp. 37-46, 51-61; Chapter 6 pp. 124-131
 St. Martin's Handbook: Chapter 1, “Expectations for College
Writing”; Chapter 12 f2, “Paraphrases”; Chapter 12 f3
“Summaries”; Chapter 60a, "Reading Texts in the Humanities"
and DiYanni, "Developing a College Vocabulary" (available in
the final part of the handbook, "WID/Critical Reading Skills”)
Homework
 Before our next class meeting, complete the following:
AUDIO LESSONS
 Reading Critically
https://raiderwriter.engl.ttu.edu/files/ReadingCritically.mp3
 Introduction to Rhetorical Analysis
https://raiderwriter.engl.ttu.edu/files/RhetoricalAnalysisIntrodu
ction.mp3
Homework
 Before our next class meeting, complete the following:
OTHER ITEMS
 Post to the class blog by no later than Sunday, September 7,
2014 at 11:59.59pm (CST). You must make one original post and
respond to at least one of your classmates to get credit for this
assignment.
Consider a community that you belong to where you feel that you can
quickly catch the drift of an in-progress conversation (e.g., other triathlon
athletes, or regulars on Farmville). What are some “hot topics” of
conversation in these communities? What might exclude someone from
these conversations? If you wanted to address a general audience about
this issue, how much background information would you need to supply?
Homework
 Before our next class meeting, complete the following:
OTHER ITEMS
 Complete the “Taking Stock” worksheet and bring it to class
next week. We will begin class with group work/discussion on
this activity. You will find the worksheet linked to the schedule
in the course website.
Future Homework: BA2
 Description, Part One, Article Summary
 The following four articles are located in Ch. 16 of your
textbook. To complete your article summary, select
one of the articles from the list below. Your summary
of an article should follow the summary writing
guidelines discussed in Section 12f 3.
 “The New Sovereignty,” Shelby Steele 450
 “My Pedagogic Creed,” John Dewey 46
 “The American Scholar,” Ralph Waldo Emerson 468
Future Homework: BA2 contd.
 Description, Part Two, Paraphrase Assignment
 After you’ve completed your summary, you will paraphrase
a brief but complex passage from the same text. Your goal
in this assignment is to restate the ideas of the passage in
your own words and do so in a way that is readable and
understandable. To complete this assignment, choose a
passage of the text you summarized and paraphrase that
passage. Identify the page number and paragraph number
of the original passage (i.e. p. 205, paragraph 1) above
your paraphrase so that your instructor can easily see the
changes you have made to express the ideas of the
passage in your own words.
Future Homework: Rhetorical Analysis
 Description: To complete this assignment, you will
begin by selecting a text to analyze. You may choose
from the following:
 “The New Sovereignty,” Shelby Steele 450
 “My Pedagogic Creed,” John Dewey 460
 “The American Scholar,” Ralph Waldo Emerson 468
 After selecting your text and critically reading it, you
will determine the writer’s purpose and intended
audience for the text.
Future Homework: Rhetorical Analysis contd.
 Once you have determined these elements, you will begin to
analyze the text so as to determine the specific strategies
(rhetorical choices) the writer uses to achieve his or her purpose
and to meet the needs of the audience. For example, you might
choose to look at such elements as the types of evidence a writer
puts forward and how he or she does so. Ask yourself if the writer
uses evidence from sources, or if he or she tells stories from
personal experience. Examine the sentence structures and word
choice. How do these contribute to the author’s purpose?
Evaluate the overall tone of the text, and determine how it does or
does not contribute to the way in which it communicates to its
audience. After you determine what these strategies or rhetorical
choices are, consider how well these strategies (rhetorical
choices) actually work.
Future Homework: Rhetorical Analysis contd.
 Although this is an initial draft, it should be carefully
edited and written in a professional tone. Please use
MLA format for both your in-text citations and your
works cited in this draft.
 Your draft should be 1200 words in length.
Questions, Comments, Concerns
 Your success is important to me! Make sure you are
communicating with me if you have any
questions/comments/concerns about anything in the
course.
Mrs. Edlin
Email: [email protected]
Office: ENGL 459
Office hours: M and W 9:30am to 11:00am
(other hours available by appointment)