Take out your texts and break down the rhetorical situation of
each (exigence, rhetors, audience, constraints). Give an example
for each category.
For example: the exigence is to show that grammar rules arent
always applicable, and I know this because.
3. 4. No Class Next Week
Sign up for a conference
Bring a draft of your project to discuss
Not coming to your conference will result in you being marked
absent the whole week
Its your responsibility to write down your conference time, and
remember it
5. Why do your texts disagree?
Audience?
Rhetors?
Exigence?
Constraints?
My texts both discuss plagiarism, but they target different
audiences and are produced by different rhetors.
6. Potential Project Ideas
How is correctness in writing presented differently in your
texts?
How is plagiarism defined differently by various sources?
How is the role of grammar in writing interpreted
differently?
How are the writing rules interpreted by different
audiences?
7. Format Ideas
Video
-Must have a script for me to grade
-If you are working in groups with more than a couple of
people, you should consider adding more texts (maybe 3-4).
-You can make a video like Grammar School with Snooki, where
you look at how different texts portray writing rules, grammar,
plagiarism,or correctness. Analyze like the teacher analyzed
Snookis Tweets
8. Format Ideas
How to guide
-Make a guide for how to analyze when to follow writing rules.
Use your texts to show how they use grammar for different
audiences. Think of the Stephen Fry video on language.
Your How to guide should be followed by a narrative that
explains to me why you decided to write the guide (whats the
point?)
9. Format Ideas
Traditional paper using the structure you used for the DC
ethnography
Analyze the rhetorical situation of your texts, and make an
argument about why they disagree
10. 11. Paper: Introduction
In Reading Strategies and Construction of Meaning, Christina
Haas and Linda Flower researched the reading strategies of
students, concluding, student readers seem to concentrate on
knowledge content, what the text is aboutnot taking into account
that the text is the product of a writers intentions and is
designed to produce an effect on a specific audience, meaning that
student readers rarely question or analyze texts that are presented
to them (136). According to Haas and Flower, students tend to view
reading and writing as merely an information exchange:
knowledge-telling when they write, and knowledge-getting when they
read, implying that students often perceive the information they
receive as factual, without taking the time to question biases or
potential flaws in the writers ideas (136).
Also discussing the importance of analyzing the texts that we
read, Keith Grant-Davie explores rhetorical situations in,
Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents, where he identifies a
rhetorical situation as a situation where a speaker or writer sees
a need to change reality and sees that the change may be effected
through rhetorical discourse, arguing that texts are rhetorical
situations intended to get the reader to react (105). Grant-Davie
breaks down a rhetorical situation into four constituents,
including the exigence or purpose of a text, the rhetor or author,
the audience or intended reader(s), and constraints, which he
identifies as factors that can help or hinder the strength of
therhetors message (105).
12. Introduction, Continued
Taking into account Grant-Davie and Haas and Flowers
discussions on rhetorical situations and rhetorical reading, I have
decided to rhetorically analyze three texts discussing the role of
grammar in writing, because I think that it is important for
students to understand that the use of grammar in writing is
dependent on the rhetorical situation in which writing happens.
Grammar rules are constantly changing, and students need to make
choices about when and how to follow these rules in order to
effectively convey their ideas through writing.
In order to explore the ways in which the use of grammar in
interpreted differently in various situations, I have chosen to
analyze Stephen Frys video, On Language, Richard Coons cartoon,
Grammar Use in the Classroom, and Sam Frys blog post, When is it
Cool to Break the Rules? While all three of these texts discuss the
use of grammatical conventions in writing, they are written by
different rhetors and targetting different audiences, which lead
their purposes or exigencies to change. By analyzing these three
texts using the rhetorical strategies outlined Haas and Flower, I
plan to explain how these sources disagree in their portrayal of
grammatical conventions.
13. Other possibilities
By analyzing these three texts using the rhetorical strategies
outlined Haas and Flower, I decided to write a How to Guide for
elementary school students, showing them how grammatical
conventions are flexible.
14. Other possibilities
By analyzing these three texts using the rhetorical strategies
outlined Haas and Flower, we decided to create this video to show
college students that grammar rules are not all there is to good
writing
15. Things to remember
Use specific examples in your headings, videos, or guides. Show
us HOW you interpreted the rhetorical situation.
Use quotes from your articles and/or videos, and reference
specific parts of the cartoons that you might use. Be as specific
and detailed as possible.
16. Before you leave class
Talk to me about your plan
Sign up for a conference time
Know where you are headedand get started
17. For your conference
Have a draft of your project or paper. Something that I can
look at to see where youre headed.
