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).