1.30 Grant-Davie and Rhetorical Situations

Today's class was an introduction to reading academic essays by composition teachers/researchers.  I was VERY impressed with how well you did on the quizzes and with the ideas you raised in our discussion.

Terms you should feel comfortable with from today's discussion:

rhetorical situation
exigence
rhetor
audience

Hopefully discussion helped sort out (using an example different from the ones raised by Grant-Davie)
1. definitions for terms
2. connections among rhetors, audience, and exigence =>

• how rhetors' self-representations are shaped by the purpose of their communication 
• how the values and beliefs of the audience and the rhetor shape exigence
• how exigence shapes discourse, and how it can be explored both in terms of questions of fact, policy and value - and in terms of questions addressing "what the discourse is about (surface versus deep/larger issues)?" why the discourse is needed (why now, why it matters)? and "what the discourse is trying to accomplish?"  

 We did not get to constraints.

Reflection on Swales
We briefly applied Swales CARS model to Grant-Davie's introduction; as you read additional essays you will see the moves identified by Swales used repeatedly, and you can use them to nail down the focus/purpose of these essays.

For Thursday:
We will continue class discussion on Thursday - with some discussion of constraints and "applications" of the terminology.
Think about which of the objectives for Chapter 1 (listed on p. 36) Grant-Davie meets + what we have left to do (by reading Porter).

1.26: Sample quiz + introduction to the readings

Quiz: We started out with a practice quiz - which was a little unfair since about half of you couldn't get the book (the bookstore sold out).  The point was for you to get an idea of the kind of questions I will ask, and to think about what kind of study habits will best prepare you to answer those questions.

FYI:   the most common points you made about how to strengthen your study habits were:

• to use writing (write down points in your own words) 
• to connect the reading to your own experience
• to read the essay more than once (a second time with a focus in mind)

Some additional suggestions: do some thinking about what the author emphasized as the most important points (as indicated in the introduction/conclusion, headings, bolded terms, etc);  and to ask yourself why/how the reading is important to course/unit we are working on.

Good job on this!

Journal writing: what do you want to do with writing and what do you want to get out of this course?  The writing for this prompt covered a wide range of purposes and needs.  You reported that you wanted to teach writing, write books, work in law and journalism.  You also wrote that you wanted your writing to be respected, have authority, be "heard" by others (so that it can change the way they see the world), and that you wanted to be clear, and know how to write to different audiences.

Writing from these prompts was meant to set up discussion of rhetorical situations - with the differences between student vs and teacher purposes, needs, values and expectations as a focus for defining rhetors and rhetorical positioning = but our discussion took a (useful) sidestep - and we considered the imbalance of power built into the physical set up of the computer labs. This is part of the rhetorical context of teaching in that room - and it shapes the kinds of conversations we can have - as does the fact that you call me Dr. Chandler and I call you by your first names.  This connects to the discussion we had about your expectations of me as a teacher - whether teachers should be the expert to "tells" students what is important in the readings, or whether they are guides/facilitators who direct students as they discover their own interpretations, or whether we are full partners in discovering/creating the meanings of these essays.   I am hoping we can work into the last postion - where we work together.  I am counting on you to fill in some of the gaps in what these researchers say about writing - so that your perspectives, needs, and interests will be part of the research in our classroom.

Set up for Grant-Davie essay (if you don't have the book yet - click on the link.  It might take a while to load).  We spent the last part of class talking about the language and ideas from Grant-Davie's essay.  You (very quickly) worked through the first "getting Ready to Read" activity = describing (and writing down)  a serious argument in as much detail as you could remember.  We used those descriptions as illustrations of the terms Grant-Davie used to write bout rhetorical situations.  We noted the exigence (the problem/disagreement/factors that convinced the rhetors that this issue needed to be dealt with in discourse = language in use) and the stases= the matters of fact, value and policy that shape the discussion.  If we had more time, we would have talked about audience and constraints.

As you read this essay, think about why this is an "important" essay for you to read.  Look back to the goals set up for the chapter (p 36) and think about how this essay meets those goals.

For next class:

Read:  Grant-Davie, p. 101

Have a great weekend!

Voice Recorder

This is a link to a description of the digital voice recorder I recommended.

Writing about Writing

Thanks for a great first day!  I didn't spend as much time learning your names as I meant to - so I will have to catch up on Thursday.

We spent today setting up the class.  I talked through the readings and major assignments, and directed you to the syllabus for the course policies.  The syllabus represents our agreement for how we will work through the course together.  If, as you read through, you think of questions or concerns - let me know and we will talk them through.

You then did some writing about  times in your lives when writing was important to you.  You came up with the following list:

• Business self representation
• Relationship building
• Song writing = metaphoric representation of self
• Interpretations of others’ ideas
• Creative writing (family + personal significance)
• Journaling/autobiography
• Documentation (professional)
• Political activism
• Planning – containing craziness
• Representation of self

We sort of ran out of time - but the plan was to take a look at how you used writing - and what it "did" for you - and then to think about the features of writing that allowed it to work for you the way it did.

In the very short time we had to talk about this - you pointed out that writing helped you build confidence, be creative and provide information.  You also noted that it was therapeutic.    We then noted what some of the particular features of writing were that allowed you to "use" it for these ends.   Some of these features were that writing: 1) creates distance between the writer and his/her feelings or thoughts by putting thoughts outside -on the page - where they can be examined, rearranged, and re-combined.  2) It waits -  it is "still" - and "permanent" so that you can come back to it - and while your feelings and interpretations may change, the while the interpretation or understanding of what they say can change = the marks on the page will be the same when you come back.  This contributes both to its importance as documentation =recording "what happened" at a partricular point in time.  There were some more ideas on our list - and what is remarkable is that the "important experiences" you noted were evidence for features of writing that linguists and other language researchers have observed as characteristics of writing.

Our little experiment is along the lines of what we will be doing in this course (well, sort of).  You will read essays about writing - and then reflect on and apply what you have learned,  You will then analyze your own writing and your relationships to writing conventions and communities = and use what you discover to re-think who you are (want to be) as a writer.  Sorry for running out of time at the end - it would have been better if we had more time to talk through what your experiences suggest about writing - I was pretty interested in your interpretations of what we were finding.


For next class:

Read: Introduction to WAW, pp 1-8, Introduction to Chapter I, pp 34-36

Bring your books and we will talk through some of the vocabulary + the way the book is organized.  You will also do some more writing + reflecting, and get set up to read Grant-Davie's research essay.  Great class and see you on Thursday.