Chapter 4

Connecting College Reading and Writing: Rhetorical Reading Responses

Reading and writing are elements of critical thinking. Both readers and writers think critically, as they “implement cognitive strategies that are fundamental to the construction of meaning” (Olson 9). You make meaning when you read and write, always storing away information to be retrieved at other times when you need to rely on your understanding of passages in reading or when you are developing a writing task. This tapping of prior knowledge is what theorist Gail Tompkins calls schemata, or “mental file cabinets [where] new information is organized with prior knowledge” (12). Researchers note that “reading and writing taught together engage students in a greater use and variety of cognitive strategies than do reading and writing taught separately (Tierney and Shanahan 272).

As you move through English 1101, your instructor will support you in becoming a more experienced reader and writer by modeling cognitive strategies that “underlie reading and writing in meaningful contexts (Olson 16). Your instructor will also offer “enough sustained, guided practice that you internalize these strategies” to effectively perform reading and writing tasks in this course, in courses across the content areas, and into the professional world (Olson 16). The focus of this chapter is on the Rhetorical Reading Response, a reading-writing assignment that implements the use of cognitive strategies. The following faculty essays support this assignment.

Connecting College Reading and Writing

Mary Lamb

Academic writing begins with reading.

This reading, however, is a specialized type of reading. Consider, for example, the reading you do when you skim a website for movie listings, read a text message from a friend, or study a menu at a restaurant. In these cases, you are reading quickly for information alone. You pay little attention to the layout, the rhetorical strategies, the writing style, and the word choice, unless these are so sloppy they interfere with your reading. You merely find the information you want and stop reading. College reading is different. In college, you read for information, but you don’t stop there. You consider the writer’s motives, the reason for writing, and you evaluate the validity of the information. This is because college aims to educate you to become a critical thinker, someone who does not just accept things at face value but rather thinks critically, evaluates information and ideas, and comes to reasonable conclusions about them. Successful academic readers adjust their reading to various purposes— skimming (fast reading), reading for information (fast to moderate reading), reading for analysis (slow reading), and reading as evidence (note-taking). To teach you these reading/thinking skills, your first-year writing instructors will teach you to read to understand how the text was constructed, and you will use this information to form evaluations of the material—how well it’s written, whether or not to believe it, how you might use it to bolster a claim, etc.

Connecting ideas through reading

We read to learn about ideas through careful, sustained, analytical reading. Academic writing is a special type of writing that focuses on thinking through problems and creating new knowledge. This knowledge always grows out of current ideas and responds to these ideas, so in a sense, academic writing is an ongoing conversation. The analogy of “conversation,” developed by twentieth-century rhetorician Kenneth Burke, is that ideas are always a response, or rejoinder, to other ideas. In terms of academic writing, this means that much of what we do and write is a thoughtful exploration and analysis of others’ ideas. John Bean explains that effective academic writers begin with a “perception of a problem” (30). He notes that: “Expert writers feel an uncertainty, doubt a theory, note a piece of unexplained data, puzzle over an observation, confront a view that seems mistaken, or otherwise articulate a question or problem” (30). Writers usually note this problem after a series of observations or, most often, a series of readings. They explore the problem, which often means reading more, researching in the library, or “probing a memory,” and then drafting these developing ideas (30). This write-revise-write continues until the writer expresses a resolution of the problem. At this point, the writing moves from writer-based prose, in which the writer makes sense of information, to reader-based prose, in which the writer works carefully to make the essay readable and effective. In first-year writing, you will learn to connect with the readings and write about this in your essays.

Another way we read in college is as a writer to learn how texts are constructed. We read examples of the type of writing we’re expected to do. Have you ever asked a teacher for an example when she presented you with an essay assignment? If so, you know that we often read examples of the type of writing we’re expected to do in order to understand the features, qualities, and strategies of that genre. For practice, think about how to explain to someone how to text. What qualities would you include? What type of short-hand would you explain (i.e. LOL, BF8, K, BTW, FYI)? Another way to think about the question of strategies or characteristics is to ask yourself what makes you keep reading and what causes you difficulty. Educators sometimes classify texts according to “readability,” and there are a number of scales used to evaluate texts, such as number of words per sentence, sentences per paragraph, average length of sentences, type of sentences (active or passive voice), etc. Others, especially technical and web writers, consider “navigational strategies” as part of what makes texts “readable.” For example, the font size, layout, headings, sub-headings, and visuals all contribute to ease of reading. In English 1101 and 1102, you will learn to notice the differences in texts you read: popular magazine articles vs. academic scholarly essays, for example. You will learn to ask yourself: What strategies do the writers use to keep readers interested? What strategies do they have in common? How do they differ? Reading as writers means you notice these qualities in everything you read, from blogs and recipes to scholarly articles and textbooks.

Connecting to genre through reading

Each semester, college freshmen in my classes refer to the nonfiction essays they read as “stories,” as in “this story is about how annoying cell phones are.” I’m always struck by their fictionalization of all writing, especially since many people complain that students no longer read literature. To become a successful college student (and effective reader and writer), you need to learn to distinguish among various types of writing, often referred to as “genres.” Genre means type, such as editorial, short story, essay, proposal, white paper, business report, science fiction, or poem. Genres exist because there was a social need for that type of writing, and general audience expectations coalesced into that genre. To understand genre, ask yourself what the text is trying to accomplish or “do” to its readers. Note these categories—fiction and nonfiction.

Next, working in groups, divide the following genres into fiction and nonfiction:

• textbook
• editorial
• blog
• CDC informational website about how to control mosquitoes in your yard
• memo explaining a new system for requesting vacation leave
• instructional brochure for installing a light fixture
• novel
• personal essay describing frustration over people texting while walking
• short story
• poem
• movie review
• book review on Amazon.com
• article written by medical researchers announcing the results of a recent medical trial for a new cancer treatment

In both English 1101 and 1102, you will read from all of these genres but primarily from nonfiction expository and argumentative essays. These readings are designed to help you connect with issues in contemporary society as well as offer examples of effectively-written essays that contain useful rhetorical strategies that you can use in your own writing. Indeed, in college, most of your writing will be expository and argumentative essays, business writing, academic arguments that offer interpretations of texts, and other types of nonfiction reports, proposals, summaries, and presentations.

Connecting to writing through rhetorical reading

Reading in order to write is a special type of reading that simultaneously focuses your attention on the author’s purpose, the construction of the text, and its meaning. Rhetorical reading, as described by Christina Haas and Linda Flower, John C. Bean, and others, focuses on the context of the material and the aims of the writer (Haas “Beyond,” Haas and Flower “Rhetorical,” and Bean et. al. Reading). Most importantly, it focuses not just on what the author is saying but also on how the author is saying it. When readers read rhetorically, notes Haas, they “use or infer situational information—about the author, about the texts’ historical and cultural context, about the motives and desires of the writer—to aid in understanding the text and to judge the quality and believability of the argument put forth in it” (24). Haas contrasts rhetorical reading with the strategies students bring to college, strategies that read texts as “bodies of information or collections of facts, rather than as complex social and rhetorical acts” (24). Rhetorical reading, on the other hand, requires interpretation about “the author’s identity and ‘agenda,’ the response of others to the argument, [and] other texts with similar or diverse perspectives” (24). This type of reading is useful for academic writing because 1) most academic writing is writing-from-sources; 2) good writing requires that we read, revise, and adjust our ideas to our developing sense of meaning, to anticipate our audience’s needs, beliefs, and values; and 3) good writing requires that we make substantive contributions to an ongoing cultural conversation.

When engaged in rhetorical reading, we go beyond just the content of the material, though comprehension of content is a necessary first step. Instead, you should analyze the material for how it works. As you read, think about how the writer is accomplishing his task. Doug Brent explains that “the process of reading, then, is not just the interpretation of a text but the interpretation of another person’s worldview as presented by a text” (28). To learn to read with these two aims in mind, both content and strategy, you must learn to modulate your reading strategies according to the essay’s genre and context so you can assess the writer’s “worldview” in the text.

Reading Critically

“I will try to publish nothing about any books or article until I have understood it, which is to say, until I have reason to think that I can give an account of it that the author will recognize as just.” Wayne C. Booth, Critical Understanding: The Powers and Limits of Pluralism, 1979.

To read critically, look beyond just the information in the text as the truth about reality; rather, read it as one truth presented by one writer. Give the writer a fair chance and summarize the essay carefully. After comprehending the text, you are ready to separate what it says from how it is written. Bean, Chappell, and Gillam discuss a useful “descriptive outline,” helpful for in-depth understanding of an essay. Borrowing from Kenneth Bruffee’s A Short Course in Writing, they suggest creating “does” and “says” statements for each paragraph or section. They explain that “the does statement identifies a paragraph’s or section’s function or purpose, while the says statement summarizes the content of the same stretch of text” (58). Note that the does statement comments on the purpose of the paragraph, such as “offers an anecdote to illustrate the point” or “summarizes the previous section” (58). As you read the essays in this book, try it by dividing your essay into two columns, one for says and one for does. For each paragraph, write a brief summary for says and then describe the paragraph’s purpose in the essay for does.

Another very useful way to respond to a text is by writing a summary. There are numerous ways to summarize, but the idea is to capture the text’s meaning as accurately as possible. You may find it useful to compare your summaries with your classmates. Summaries help us remember what we read, but they also provide evidence for essays. They also help you notice what you don’t understand. For example, if you read a text, close the book, and summarize, you’ll notice that you probably omit some of the information. This omission is likely due to your lack of understanding. Return to the section that you can’t remember and study it more fully.

Rhetorical Reading Responses

In both English 1101 and 1102, you may be assigned Rhetorical Reading Responses, and your best one of these could go in your ePortfolio. You may also write various other assigned responses, and you could write at least one of these each semester. A Rhetorical Reading Response has three parts: 1) a précis (summary), 2) a personal response, and an 3) analytical paragraph. The summary is a four-sentence précis, which was developed by Margaret K. Woodworth, and described in Bean, Chappell, and Gillam as “listening as you reread” (120). These tightly-structured summaries require of students an analytical type of reading, and the genre provides practice in the type of reading and writing you’ll include in longer position essays, literature reviews, researched position essays, and other nonfiction genres because it helps you learn to summarize, introduce borrowed material fully, and evaluate the material. Woodworth explains this response as a way to “learn to read and listen to what others have to say with great comprehension, to question and evaluate what [we] read and hear, and then write and speak with control and conviction” (156).

Challenges writing these responses

Form – For those of you who enjoy free-writing, these responses may feel inhibiting because of the form. If you like “open” assignments, try reading and note-taking first and structuring your response later. You may also enjoy seeing how many variations are possible within the format. Woodworth suggests: “once students have mastered the form, they are heartily encouraged to create other, less rigid forms to accommodate the information” (157).

Re-reading and Re-writing – Although the assignment is short, usually no more than one page long, the responses are not “one-draft” essays. Instead, plan enough time to read the essay, draft, re-read, and revise several times. This focused attention to the text is, precisely, one main benefit of the assignment for students.

Purpose vs. Content – Another challenge is that while writing a précis might seem easy because it’s short, it nonetheless requires you to grasp the overall purpose and genre of the work, instead of reading for literal information to answer a comprehension question. Indeed, you are probably used to reading for the answers to assigned questions rather than reading for purpose and rhetorical strategies. For example, students often write in the first sentence, “the author talks about cell phone technology,” which indicates a tenuous understanding of the purposes of various nonfiction essays and does little more than name the topic of the essay (which often can be gleaned from simply reading the essay’s title). The “rhetorically active verb” that describes the purpose, even though it’s just one word, indicates a deep level understanding about the whole essay. Examples of these signal verbs, which indicate the essay’s purpose, include:

• argues,
• claims,
• asserts,
• discusses,
• describes,
• interprets,
• speculates,
• compares,
• implies,
• contemplates,
• wonders, and
• explains, etc.

Note that writing this sentence will help you practice introducing borrowed material into your other assigned essays. Use some of your study time to define a few of these verbs at a time, and as you read the essays, think about what the writers are doing in their essays.

Analysis

Before explaining the third, analytical paragraph, let’s think about what you have learned by writing the first two paragraphs. First, you have learned to accurately summarize material. We often leap to conclusions about what we’re reading because a certain passage or detail intrigues us or is familiar to us. These responses are useful, and it’s important to pay attention to your responses to texts. But rhetorical reading asks us to suspend our rush to judge for a moment to make sure we fully understand what the essay means first. One way to think of this type reading is through “Bloom’s Taxonomy.” This work, named after Benjamin Bloom, describes patterns of thinking in terms of a hierarchy of objectives. This work has been updated, as explained by University of Georgia professor Mary Forehand. She explains the following:

Basically, Bloom’s six major categories were changed from noun to verb forms. Additionally, the lowest level of the original, knowledge was renamed and became remembering. Finally, comprehension and synthesis were retitled to understanding and evaluating. In an effort to minimize the confusion, comparison images appear below.

The new terms are defined as follows:

• Remembering: Retrieving, recognizing, and recalling relevant knowledge from long-term memory.
• Understanding: Constructing meaning from oral, written, and graphic messages through interpreting, exemplifying, classifying, summarizing, inferring, comparing, and explaining.
• Applying: Carrying out or using a procedure through executing, or implementing.
• Analyzing: Breaking material into constituent parts, determining how the parts relate to one another and to an overall structure or purpose through differentiating, organizing, and attributing.
• Evaluating: Making judgments based on criteria and standards through checking and critiquing.
• Creating: Putting elements together to form a coherent or functional whole; reorganizing elements into a new pattern or structure through generating, planning, or producing (Anderson and Krathwohl 67–68).

When you write the first part of these reading responses, you are thinking about the material and “remembering” and “understanding” what you’ve read. When you respond, you are “applying” what you’ve read to your own life and your own experience.

The third, analytical paragraph requires a different type of critical thinking, and it can be difficult at first to write. Although it’s just one paragraph, you will state a claim (the topic sentence), support it with textual evidence, and cite correctly. One reason this is difficult is that you have to pose a question in addition to answering it. Note how Anderson and Krathwohl (cited in Forehand above) define “analyzing”: “Breaking material into constituent parts, determining how the parts relate to one another and to an overall structure or purpose through differentiating, organizing, and attributing.” In this paragraph, pick out a curious sentence, strategy, or word choice and explain how it fits into the whole essay and why the author used this strategy. Beware not to re-summarize the essay, as in the following “claims” about an essay on dating via the Internet:

• TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and other social networking apps are a big part of connecting with younger generations.
• A different side of the technology that has become the norm in this day and time are blogs and chatting over the internet.
• The technology of cell phones has made dating and relationships less personal.

All of these summarize the essay-writer’s claim, which IS NOT analysis. Rather, you should make your own claim about how the essay is written. Your claim should be something that is arguable; that is, reasonable people who read the essay might have different interpretations of it.

In addition, avoid stating a claim about your opinion of the topic, rather than a claim about the way the essay is written. If you are stating your opinion about the topic in paragraph three, you run the risk of not fully considering the ideas first. Note the following example of a claim that states an opinion about the topic, not the essay: “I haven’t spent much time thinking about technology, but I agree that some of it makes our relationships less personal.” This claim is about the topic of the essay, but doesn’t make a claim about how the essay is written.

Elizabeth A. Flynn explains reading as “a confrontation between self and ‘other’ (267). She writes: “Text and reader are necessarily foreign to each other in some ways, and so the exchange between them involves an imbalance (267–68). She notices that: “The reader can resist the alien thought or subject and so remain essentially unchanged by the reading experience. In this case, the reader dominates the text” (268). She describes “dominant” reading:

The reader imposes a previously established structure on the text and in so doing silences it. ……Readers who dominate texts become complacent or bored because the possibility for learning has been greatly reduced. Judgment is based on previously established norms rather than on empathetic engagement with and critical evaluation of the new material. (268)

Writing this Rhetorical Reading Response interrupts this “detachment” from the text (or jumping to conclusions) and requires you to enter, for a moment, into another’s world. Once you fully understand the text and understand how it is written, then you can make an educated value judgment about the writer’s claims. This rhetorical reading creates a dialogue between you and the text rather than a one-way proclamation. In Flynn’s words, this is when

the self and other, reader and text, interact in such a way that the reader learns from the experience without losing critical distance; reader and text interact with a degree of mutuality. Foreignness is reduced, though not eliminated. Self and other remain distinct and so create a kind of dialogue. (268)

Further Advantages

These responses teach you to create claims and build textual cases, a skill necessary for most college and professional writing. They provide content for class discussions since these précis can be compared, discussed, and revised in class. Woodworth explains “summarizing significantly improves reading comprehension and recall,” so writing a précis is also useful as a writing-to-learn activity done in class (156). Précis also provide teachers with an accurate way to gauge both whether students have read and precisely what they have understood, since students often leave out of a summary the material they don’t understand. By comparing a class’s set of responses, teachers can assess the points that need explaining. Most importantly, these responses require students to recognize various types of nonfiction genres and to evaluate claims and methods. In this way, they are learning, in Paolo Freire’s terms, how to read the “world and the word” (Freire qtd. in Berthoff, “Reading” 119), or put another way, to read the world through the word.

Works Cited

Bean, John C. Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 2001. Print.

Bean, John C., Virginia A. Chappell, and Alice M. Gillam. Reading Rhetorically. Brief Edition. New York: Pearson/Longman, 2004. Print.

Berthoff, Ann E. “‘Reading the world . . . reading the word’: Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of Knowing.”Only Connect:Uniting Reading and Writing. Ed. Thomas Newkirk.Upper Montclair, NJ: Boynton/ Cook, 1986. 119-130. Print.

Bishop, Wendy ed. Acts of Revision: A Guide for Writers. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 2004. Print.

Blau, Sheridan D.The Literature Workshop: Teaching Texts and Their Readers. Portsmouth, New Hampshire: Heinemann, 2003. Print.

Booth, Wayne C. Critical Understanding: The Powers and Limits of Pluralism. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1979. Print.

Brent, Doug. Reading as Rhetorical Invention: Knowledge, Persuasion, and the Teaching of Research-Based Writing. Urbana: NCTE, 1992. Print.

Bruffee, Kenneth. A Short Course on Writing. 4th ed., Pearson, 2020. Brummett, Barry. Rhetoric in Popular Culture. New York: St. Martin’s P, 1994. Print.

Flynn, Elizabeth A.“Gender and Reading.” Gender and Reading: Essays on Readers, Texts, and Contexts. Ed. Elizabeth A. Flynn and Patrocinio P. Schweickart. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1986. 267–288. Print.

Forehand, Mary. “Bloom’s Taxonomy.” College of Education, University of Georgia. 31 Jan. 2012. Web. 10 June 2012.

Hairston, Maxine. “Using Nonfiction Literature in the Composition Classroom.” Convergences: Transactions in Reading and Writing. Ed. Bruce T. Peterson. NCTE, 1986. 179–188. Print.

Haas, Christina. “Beyond ‘Just the Facts’: Reading as Rhetorical Action.”

Hearing Ourselves Think. Ed. Ann Penrose and Barbara Sitko. New York: Oxford UP, 1993. 19–32. Print.

Haas, Christina and Linda Flower. “Rhetorical Reading Strategies and the Construction of Meaning.” 1988. On Writing Research: The Braddock Essays 1975–1998. Ed. Lisa Ede.Boston:Bedford, 1999. 242–259. Print.

Holden, James and John S. Schmit, ed. Inquiry and the Literary Text: Constructing Discussions in the English Classroom. Urbana: NCTE, 2002. Print.

Woodworth, Margaret K. “The Rhetorical Précis.” Rhetoric Review 7 (1988):156–65. Print.

Yancy, Kathleen Blake. Teaching Literature as Reflective Practice.

Urbana: NCTE, 2004. Print.

Sample Outline for Rhetorical Reading Response

Content:

Write the MLA citation as you would in a Works Cited entry here or at the end.

Paragraph 1:

Write a rhetorical précis in your own words with no words borrowed directly from the text:

• Sentence 1: Name of author, genre, and title of work, date in parentheses; a rhetorically active verb (such as “claims,” “argues,” “asserts,” “defines,” “explores,” or “suggests”); and a “that” clause containing the major assertion, main idea, or thesis statement in the work.
• Sentence 2: An explanation of how the author develops and supports the thesis (i.e. evidence), usually in chronological order.
• Sentence 3: A statement of the author’s apparent purpose, followed by an “in order to” phrase.
• Sentence 4: A description of the intended audience and/or the relationship the author establishes with the audience.

Paragraph 2:

Write your response to the text. Are you confused? Annoyed? Delighted? Tickled? Do you agree?

Paragraph 3:

Write an analytical paragraph about the text in which you make an interpretive claim about the way the text is written or the meaning of the text and support it. Use plenty of examples (quotations, paraphrases), citing as appropriate. (Use a question from the book if you need an idea).

Format and Grading

Format – Academic, follows MLA format; be concise and analytical. Choose words carefully, and revise sentences to include the most meaning for the syntax. Type your responses; keep them under 2 pages.

Tip – Keep these responses on your computer or a hard copy as these will become the basis of essays. This takes time—academic writing requires you to read, ponder, and write about source texts—but rest assured, the skills and habits you form will help you in other classes.

Grading (in addition to grammatical correctness, MLA format) – F— off topic, incomplete; D—complete but sketchy; C—good effort but keep digging deeper; B—you’ve made important observations but develop them more fully; A—I learned something new about your thinking about the essay; thoughtful and well-developed. They’re due in class, on time. This assignment was developed by Mary R. Lamb, drawing on an assignment by Ann George; Reading Rhetorically by John Bean, Virginia A. Chappell and Alice M. Gillam; and Margaret K. Woodworth, “The Rhetorical Précis,” Rhetoric Review 7 (1988): 156–65.

Sample Rhetorical Reading Response

This is an example response (the essay, not the Work Cited entry). Notice the MLA heading and format, which requires you to doublespace the document and not add extra spaces between paragraphs. Space once after periods: don’t add extra spaces between sentences.

Sherry Student
Dr. Lamb
English 1101
3 September 2011

The Disappointment of Cheating

In the article “Everybody Does It” (2003), written by David Callahan, which originally appeared in Callahan’s own book The Cheating Culture, Callahan argues that over time, cheating has become more and more prominent in today’s society. Callahan shows this by giving examples of different forms of cheating that are present in all aspects of life. Callahan highlights cheating in order to make readers think about their own guilt about doing things they may not think of as cheating. The intended audience for this article is people who may not be aware of the increase of cheating or people who may disbelieve the fact that most people will cheat when no one is looking.

Para. 1 is the summary, or précis. Sent. 1: “Article” is the genre of the essay. The genre of a work varies: chapter, blog, novel, nonfiction essay, scholarly article, short story, editorial, Facebook post, film documentary, ecyclopedia entry, etc.

Sent. 1: Notice the rhetorically active verb, “argues.” These include: claim, explain, state , explore, ponder, define, contrast, suggests, etc.

Sent. 2: “Shows this” can be re-worded—Callahan writes, supports, develops, demonstrates, etc.

I am disappointed after reading this article. I wonder if cheating is really this common, and if it’s true that we only do the right thing because we think someone is watching.

Callahan’s argument is weakened somewhat by his use of overgeneralization. When comparing this article to the information in Diana Hacker’s handbook A3, I noticed this logical fallacy. He generalized that all humans cheated and may not be 100% honest (Callahan 4). This is not a very good way of writing because it focuses on one bad thing in society which is not present with everyone. In order for this piece of work to be considered reasonable, Callahan could have touched on the fact that not all humans cheat or would cheat if presented the opportunity.

Para. 3: Make a claim about how a quotation or writing startegy works in the esay. These include: word choice, type of evidence, appeals, imagery, parallelism, repetition, allusions, etc. This writer starts off well, but doesn’t illustrate the claim. The paragraph should be strengthened and developed by illustrating the overgeneralization with textual evidence and how this affects the argument.

Work Cited

Callahan, David. “Everybody Does It.” The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing It to Get Ahead, Harcourt, 2004, pp. 1–27.

Writing an Analysis: The Third Paragraph of the Rhetorical Reading Response

Margaraet W. Fletcher

In my classes, the third paragraph of the rhetorical reading response is the one that is most challenging to many of my students. The first paragraph is an introduction and summary of the author’s thesis and purposes. The second paragraph is a personal reaction to the article, which I feel is an important paragraph to learn to write so that you can practice supporting your opinions; but the third paragraph, the analysis, is the one where my students’ grades start to fall. Writing a good analysis is one of the most important skills for the writing you will do throughout your college career, but first you need to first understand exactly what an analysis is.

To analyze “analysis,” we start with the meaning of rhetoric. Rhetoric is basically the study of the ways in which authors and orators put words together in order to persuade or influence their audience. A rhetorical analysis is intended to interpret how and why a writer puts words together in a particular pattern to convince an audience of his or her ideas about a topic. This explanation is from the Writing Center at the University of Arkansas: “A rhetorical analysis assignment generally asks you to do two things: 1) figure out what the writer is trying to accomplish, and 2) identify what writing tactics he or she is utilizing to accomplish it” (“Rhetorical Analysis”).

The analysis is not your opinion of the essay; in an analysis, rather than using unsupported opinion, you present an argument that helps to explain a piece of writing based on evidence from the text. The analysis is not a summary of the essay, although it may need some sentences that summarize particular points. In an analysis you show how a writer uses some writing technique or strategy to get his or her ideas across. For example, in the “I Have a Dream Speech,” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. uses repetition in a type of emotional appeal to his audience. Most of you have heard or read this speech, and the words people remember are “I have a dream,” spoken in different tones with different metaphorical examples of the dream. In an analysis of this speech, you could use the idea that Dr. King uses repetition to get his message across, and you would follow your thesis sentence with an explanation of how Dr. King uses the repetitions and why they have an emotional as well as intellectual appeal. For example, your thesis sentence might be: “In his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, Dr. King uses repetitions to convey an emotional as well as intellectual message to his audience.” You might then give examples of several repetitions (quoting them briefly) and explain how they have emotional as well as intellectual connotations.

Note that in the analysis paragraph, the thesis sentence is usually the first and/or second sentence in the third paragraph. The thesis sentence comes first in the rhetorical reading response we are writing because this is a short paragraph of analysis, not an entire essay of analysis, where your thesis might appear later in your essay or even be implied. An analysis can consist of many pages; an entire book can consist largely of analysis. In longer forms of analysis, the thesis sentence or sentences may be placed at different places in your text; however, an analysis always needs a thesis to give it focus and unity.

Thus, the analysis paragraph should begin with a clear thesis. To support this thesis, you should give examples that consist of brief quotations from the text you are analyzing. You should discuss how the writer makes his or her argument (the strategies) and why this approach is or is not effective (citing examples). Some examples of rhetorical techniques and strategies include use of imagery, use of dialogue, use of metaphor, plays upon emotions, figurative language, rhetorical appeals, use of scholarly research sources, anecdotes, and many others. For example, you might also write an analysis of the author’s logic, describing how it is effective or ineffective and giving examples.

To brainstorm ideas for your rhetorical analysis, read the work you are analyzing and ask yourself the following questions:

• What is the author’s thesis and how effective is it? Does the writer appeal to your emotion or reasoning?
• What point is this writer trying to argue?
• How does the author feel about his or her topic?
• How does the writer want his or her audience to feel about the argument or appeal?
• What kind of language does the writer use to get the audience to buy into the argument?
• What does the author say that makes you believe in the argument?
• What does the author say that makes you dislike or reject the argument?
• What is the author’s purpose? Is he trying to explain, persuade, motivate, entertain, or cause her audience feel a particular emotion?
• How does the author develop her ideas? Does she use compare and contrast, description, definition, analogy, cause and effect, or some other method?
• How does the author’s development of his ideas and use of language affect the clarity, coherence, appeal, and the logic of his essay?
• If the author uses quotes, paraphrases, or dialogue, what is the purpose of these techniques?
• Does the author convince you of the truth or worth of her argument? Why or why not?
• Does the author use particular terms, metaphors, or images that are striking? What is his or her purpose for this?

Answers to these questions will provide you with clues about the specific techniques/strategies the writer is using to convince his or her audience. Please note that these questions should not be part of the analysis; they are guides for a thinking process you use before you write the analysis. This short analysis should begin with a thesis, not a question. The questions are tools that help you come up with ideas for the paragraph.

In summary, when you are writing the rhetorical reading response, you need a paragraph of analysis. Begin that paragraph with a topic sentence that makes a claim about strategies the author uses to convince the audience. Then explain how the author uses those techniques and give examples. When you write a sentence summarizing something the author says, tell WHY that particular statement is important and relevant to the author’s purpose. Remember to tell HOW the author gets his point across and WHY he or she uses that particular technique.

Mistakes to avoid

The biggest mistakes students usually make in the analysis are 1) summarizing too much, 2) giving personal opinion, and 3) giving personal ideas about the topic. Some summary is necessary; however, avoid just summarizing the argument in the article. To eliminate opinion, I ask students not to write “I think” in the third paragraph. Usually, this leads to personal opinion about how you feel, and that isn’t what we want in an analysis. We want you to explain how the essay is put together. You always take a position in an analysis, but you state a thesis. Then you prove that thesis with examples. Technically it is all right to say “I think”; however, you should use that term very carefully (or, best, avoid it altogether in this short paragraph.)

Mistakes with quotations also cause problems with an analysis. It is incorrect to quote from the work and then summarize the quotation. You should quote from the work, and then tell why that particular quotation is significant to the author’s purpose and/or argument. You should explain any quotation you use in terms of your thesis for the third paragraph.Students sometimes just summarize the author’s major points and tell something about what he or she means. This is NOT an analysis. Avoid writing “this quote means.” Don’t refer to a quotation as a quotation or quote. Instead use tag lines such as: 1) “In this line, the author refers to …”; 2) “Lines such as this reinforce…”; 3) “This particular use of repetition …” ; 4) Again the author uses …”. Use quotations in a manner that advances your argument, so focus on the author’s intent in the lines that you quote.

Be careful not to write a weak conclusion. Students sometimes conclude with what they think about the author’s essay or ideas. Sometimes students feel that they have to say something extra about the topic to add to what the author has written. These are weak (or just bad) conclusions. I always look at the last sentence (or two sentences) and compare these to the thesis. Students have sometimes been taught to restate the thesis at the end of the analysis, and they proceed to do this, restating the thesis word for word. This is incorrect. The end should return to the thesis, but in different words. When I look at the thesis and the concluding sentences together, I am looking at the conclusion for the same ideas stated in different words and for the same ideas as in the thesis with the added context of your analysis. A good analysis moves in a kind of circle, constantly building on the ideas in the thesis and ultimately returning to the thesis, having presented a strong argument.

Another problem with the ending is that students sometimes conclude with a quotation. Technically, it is all right to begin a paragraph or end a paragraph with a quotation, but I think you should avoid this entirely unless you have very strong writing skills. I want to see my student’s words in the conclusion, and my personal opinion is that a great conclusion can make up for a series of other errors or weaknesses.

Here is an example of a good analysis paragraph on the essay “Twitter as a Way for Celebrities to Communicate with Fans: Implications for the Study of Parasocial Interaction” by Gayle S. Stever and Kevin Lawson. This is written by first-year writing student Ivan Lopez Martinez.

Stever and Lawson utilize research techniques such as data collection and statistical analysis to support their statement that Twitter is a useful tool for studying parasocial interactions; however, they acknowledge that this is an area that has not been widely researched. The methods used throughout their experiment are carefully crafted and cover all the bases for what they are trying to prove; however, their data may not be a completely accurate representation of society because, according to the authors, “All of the celebrities in this particular sample are Caucasian” and “It will be important in subsequent research to choose a sample of ethnically diverse celebrities for comparison” (218). Another uncontrolled variable that Stever and Lawson reveal is that “it is never possible to be certain that celebrities are Tweeting for themselves” (217). In spite of the limitations, the drawbacks for their research is clearly expressed by the authors when they claim that “[this] is an area with no clear precedents” (213). One additional observation made on their part displays the necessity for this type of research: “Developmental psychologists in particular should understand the impact of social media and how it enhances PSI/PSR/PSA” (212). In spite of their work’s limitations, Stever and Lawson have created a precedent for coding messages on Twitter which should allow other researchers to be able to make more in-depth analyses on social behavior and include not just celebrities in their research, but also the general public.

In this paragraph, the concluding sentence reinforces the thesis in the first sentence and takes it further by explaining that there is a need for the research techniques, including the data collection and statistical analysis that the authors use to provide information on how celebrities use Twitter.

Here is another good example of an analysis, this time on Michaela Cullington’s “Texting and Writing,” written by first-year writing student Faith Leonard.

Cullington demonstrates ethos when doing her research on texting and writing. She displays credibility by providing information from not only students in her own research, but also observations from high school and college professors in order to help the audience better understand student and instructor perspectives on textspeak in writing. She states, “Naomi Baron, a linguistics professor at American University…blames texting for the fact that ‘so much of American society has become sloppy and laissez faire about the mechanics of writing’” (91). On the other hand, she writes, “Most students, including those I surveyed, report that they do not use textspeak in formal writing” (94). By examining these two contradictory points of view, Cullington demonstrates that she considers the perspectives of both the teachers and the students. Although her research may be flawed due to the fact that she interviews her friends rather than a random sample, her consideration of the counterargument is a writing strategy which enhances her credibility.

Look at other examples of the third paragraph in rhetorical reading responses to see how students handle the analysis paragraph in different ways. You should constantly remind yourself of what the analysis does. According to Teresa Thonney, “Analysis involves breaking down a subject—whether a poem, a dynasty, or an internal combustion engine—to determine how the parts are related or how they combine to achieve some purpose” (137). You look at the parts in order to determine how they achieve the author’s purpose. Some students have correctly described this as going below the surface to find meanings that aren’t directly stated. You start with a thesis, you support your thesis using examples from the text, and you conclude by returning to the same ideas that are in your thesis and showing how they achieve (or don’t achieve) some goal that the author intended.

Remember that each analysis will be slightly different depending on the ideas and the guidelines stated here.

Works Cited

“Rhetorical Analysis.” Writing Center. University of Arkansas Web. 10 June 2013.

Thonney, Teresa. Academic Writing: Concepts and Connection. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. Print.

Writing Connections

By becoming adept at developing Rhetorical Reading Responses, students can transfer skills and strategies for reading and writing to other courses. This transference may include the following:

• Read critically, rhetorically, and for various purposes.
• Identify the themes in an essay or book chapter.
• Summarize responsibly and incorporate others’ positions into one’s own writing.
• Compare and contrast various genres across the curriculum.
• Distinguish types of evidence used in essays.
• Reflect upon one’s own human condition.
• Determine importance of information.
• Evaluate a text’s argument.
• Analyze the text to discover or reveal the message.
• Identify relevant logic, organization, strategies, sentences, and/or word choices of any given text.
• Explore how writer’s choices affect the meaning of text.
• Follow directions so that responses to tasks cover the important elements.

Suggestions for Writing

• Be sure to read the essay carefully before writing the Rhetorical Response. As you read the essay, circle important words or words with which you are unfamiliar so that you can discuss these in class.
• Underline main ideas of each paragraph so that you can get the overall picture of what the essay’s message conveys
• Highlight what you believe to be the overall thesis and the topic sentences of each paragraph.
• Have a conversation with your peers about the overall message of the essay.

Drafting and Revising

• Read the directions for writing the Rhetorical Reading Response, as well as review the student essays and your notes about Rhetorical Reading Responses.
• Begin drafting by developing a way to plan out your thinking. Develop a mind map or an outline or any other brainstorming strategy that you have learned in class.
• Start with your first Rhetorical Reading Response precis’ paragraph. Remember that the first paragraph is about records the essential elements of what the essay is all about. You will identify the main assertion or thesis of the essay; provide an explanation of how the author develops and/or supports the thesis; determine a statement of the author’s purpose; and, describe the intended audience of the essay. Write a draft.
• As you move to the second paragraph of the Rhetorical Reading Response, think about your initial reactions to the article when you first began marking and highlighted elements of the essay. What passage(s) sparked a connection with your own feelings or impressions? Make that connection and draft your initial reactions so that those who read your Rhetorical Reading Response can make that connection with you. Write a draft.
• Go back and reread the essay. Then take the essay apart, as you try to feel the overall meaning of the essay. What individual points about the essay cause you to think about the message? What is it about how the author wrote the message that is impactful? Isolate the element that you want to analyze. Write a draft.
• Once you have written a draft of each paragraph, be prepared to work in pairs or small groups to share your essay with your peers.
• Revise your essay, based on new knowledge that may have been offered by your peers.
• Edit carefully before submitting your essay to your instructor.

Reflecting on Writing

• After reading the assignment directions, do you have all elements of the first paragraph precis? If not, make changes where applicable.
• In paragraph two, do you make a reader response connection with the writer’s essay? Do you make it clear the connection of specific lines in the essay that triggered your personal response? Have you included a pertinent direct quote to support your points, cited per MLA? If you can’t answer YES to any of the questions above, make changes where applicable.
• In paragraph three, have you isolated an element to analyze? Have you brought in specific points from the essay that support your analysis? Are they cited per MLA? If you can’t answer YES to any of the questions above, make changes where applicable.

Focus on ePortfolio

In English 1101 (and also in English 1102), you might be assigned at least one Rhetorical Reading Response that is directly related to topical readings in Connections. If you do write a strong Rhetorical Reading Response that best reflects your ability to read and write about what other people have to say, consider using it as entry reflecting your Best Reading Artifact. Note: Do not use the same RRR for both English 1101 and 1102.

Discussion Questions for Analyzing Responses

Consider these questions as you read the student models of Rhetorical Reading Responses:

• What does the writer identify as the thesis statement of the original essay?
• What does the writer identify as the author’s purpose and intended audience of the original essay?
• How does the writer make connections to his/her own life experiences in the second paragraph?
• How does the writer identify rhetorical strategies in the third paragraph that convey what the original author intended?
• What is the interpretive claim that the writer makes when analyzing the original work?
• How does the writer support this interpretive claim?
• Are accurate summaries, paraphrases, and quotations included effectively to enhance the writer’s analysis?

Student Examples: Rhetorical Reading Response

The following student essays are solid examples of Rhetorical Reading Responses. However, please use them as only a guide, or model, as you develop your own Rhetorical Reading Responses.

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Mary Agrusa
Professor Richardson
English 1101
17 September 2016

Rhetorical Reading Response “Mother Tongue”

In her memoir “Mother Tongue” (1990), Amy Tan explores the familiar clash between parents and teenagers, exacerbated by communication breakdowns. Here a lack of language proficiency on her mother’s part produced a parent/child role reversal. Tan hones in on the different “Englishes” (Tan 121) she’s experienced throughout life, specifically her mother’s version, which contributed to increased tension between the two. She does so in order to provide those outside an immigrant’s world a glimpse into the difficult role children of parents whose primary language isn’t English may find themselves in. The piece gives great insight into the challenges immigrant parents and their children face to the general public, and to those working with them.

I readily relate to Tan’s story. I was once a teenage girl who believed her parents were out of touch, and a perpetual embarrassment. In addition, I’ve raised a teenage daughter. Although we speak the same language, at times, I may as well have conversed in Greek, and she, Swahili. The piece reminds me of a quote attributed to Mark Twain: “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.” This sums up teenage angst over perceived parental stupidity and its eventual resolution. I was disappointed not to learn what leverage the author gained from this role reversal, and how she exploited it.

Through flashbacks Tan depicts how her mother’s struggle to effectively communicate impacted her personally. In repeated motifs, the author compares her teenage view of her mother as contrasted with her opinion of her now. The mother’s “limited English” (122) that caused Tan shame has now become the “language of intimacy” (121) between the author and her husband. Acting as her mother’s surrogate voice in the phone call to a stockbroker, the author masterfully allows us to feel the frustration and aggravation of having to pretend to be her mother, while the real Mrs. Tan “was standing in the back whispering loudly” (122). She takes what as a teen was a distressing situation, and through the eyes of maturity, and skillful writing, turns it into a comedy sketch. Now, when her mother’s “best English, no mistakes” (123) failed to produce a CAT scan report, Tan willingly placed a call which delivered not only the needed medical information, but also a much deserved apology. From the author’s “empirical evidence” (122) of her mother’s diminished personhood in the eyes of business and retail people, which skewered her perceptions, Tan has come full circle. She adopted her mother as the target audience for her writing.The author successfully relinquished the bi-modal role of child forced to function as a parent, to that of mature adult comfortable being a daughter. Tan’s experience on its own isn’t sufficient data for determining the impact of the parent/child role reversal which may occur in immigrant families. It does shed interesting insights into their possible family dynamics. How to help children who straddle these two worlds learn to define the boundaries of each and know how to appropriately act in either situation deserves further study.

Work Cited

Tan, Amy. “Mother Tongue.” Connections: Guide to First Year Writing at Clayton State University. Ed. Mary Lamb. Sixth Edition. Southlake TX, Fountainhead Press, 2016. 121-125 Print.

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Christopher Delgado
Dr. Fletcher
ENGL 1102
11 February 2015

Twitter Fandoms and Celebrity Interactions

In Gayle S. Stever and Kevin Lawson’s essay, “Twitter as a Way for Celebrities to Communicate with Fans: Implications for the Study of Parasocial Interaction,” they explore the idea that the social media website Twitter is a good way to promote parasocial interaction between celebrities and fans. They support their argument by citing researched information on parasocial interaction, as well as discussing the results of their own study. They do this in order to gauge what kind of effect Twitter is having on the interactions between celebrities and their fans. The writing is most likely intended for people interested in the relationship between celebrities and their fans.

I think this essay is interesting. I use Twitter myself, and I can say that one of its many selling points is that fact that so many celebrities personally use it themselves. It gives ordinary people the ability to get more details about them than they would be able to if Twitter did not exist. On the other side, it also gives the celebrities themselves the ability to connect more closely with their fans. I have found this to be true of the celebrities that I follow, and I can see why. Twitter is short and concise, and messages have to be within a specific character limit. Because of this, people are able to read several tweets at one time: fans can read many tweets celebrities post, and celebrities can read many tweets that fans send to them.

Stever and Lawson effectively and logically support their statement of achieving parasocial interaction through Twitter by citing research and doing their own study. The first thing they do is describe what parasocial interaction is. They say, “(Parasocial Interaction) examines the relationship between celebrities, who are well known to their fans, and fans, who are known very little, if at all, by celebrities” (Stever 212). This is important because it explains the key concept that the paper is about, which the reader may not know. Shortly after providing the definition, they say, “Twitter appears to be a new forum for PSI that allows for the possibility that fans, both individually and as a group, might become better known to the celebrities whom they follow” (Stever 212). This is important because it relates the broad definition given to the smaller topic they are writing about. The researchers also conducted their own study. They decided to code different celebrities’ tweets based on keywords in them that revealed what they were about (Stever 213). The celebrities that were used in the research were chosen because of the researchers’ familiarity with them (Stever 217). This could represent problems with the study, as it doesn’t offer a very diverse range of subjects. Nevertheless, they found that parasocial interaction was occurring on Twitter, as they state in their conclusion, “Celebrities who dialogue with fans, and who read ‘Tweets’ and reply to at least some of them, have engaged in a new form of discourse that is unique to fan/celebrity interactions… the dialogue is serious, meaningful, and has impact for the participants” (Stever 225). It is in this way that their study supports their idea that parasocial interaction is happening on Twitter.

Work Cited

Stever, Gayle S. and Kevin Lawson. “Twitter as a Way for Celebrities to Communicate with Fans: Implications for the Study of Parasocial Interaction.” Connections: Guide to First-Year Writing @ Clayton State University. Ed. Mary R. Lamb. 4^th Edition. Southlake, TX: Fountainhead Press, 2014. 210-228. Print.

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Michael P. McPherson
Dr. Parrott
ENGL 1101-21
12 September 2014

Tragedies of False Imprisonment

“How It Feels to Be Falsely Accused” (2014), an article by Josh Greene, embodies the first hand emotion that Clarence Harrison feels, now that he has served 17 years in prison, after being falsely accused. Green initiates the article with background information on Harrison’s case, then goes into Harrison’s personal narrative. Green implies those personal statements in order to force the reader to see the after effects of prison, and how this was a direct cause of false accusations (pathos). Green is known for his blogs but this article was published in the Atlanta Magazine—Atlanta is where the events take place—and targets the Atlanta community.

I remember the day I watched the news and saw this story, and I felt such a catharsis and realization of how fragile life can be, both then, on the television, and now, reading Green’s article. Green does a phenomenal job by taking the accused personal accounts into the equation. The part where Harrison questions the judge’s sense of freedom struck me (195). It makes you question what freedom really is. Green also denotes Harrison’s unbreakable connection to the prison institution, “After four or five years, you realize that you’re no better off than when you were in there. I don’t know whether it’s being institutionalized or what. That’s how you cope with society—reflecting back in there. You’re out here physically, but mentally you’re still in prison” (Green 195). This broadened my perspective on how deep prison mentality is. It inclines me to stay out of trouble too, even though in this case it wasn’t even Harrison’s wrong doings that landed him in jail.

The background information in the beginning of the article and the personal narrative suggests Green tries to establish an emotional appeal to the audience. Green includes that, he was struck by a van, knocked off a bridge, and severely injured: “Holed up in the hospital, he lost a Laundromat in which he’d invested thousands” (194). That just puts the cherry on top of a sad story, after reading the tragedy that was instituted to him by a huge hole in justice. Then later in the personal narrative Greene establishes a family connection by quoting Harrison stating, “The jury found me guilty….Then I look back and see my mama. She felt the hurt before I did, because I didn’t accept it. She had lost her son” (194). Every mother, or parent for the matter, can only relate to the sorrow of witnessing their child being sentenced to prison, or losing their child forever. Green then finishes with Harrison’s optimistic view to the entire situation emphasizing, “Through all the financial problems and everything else, I’m free. So I take it day by day, and just thank God” (195).

Work Cited

Greene, Josh. “How It Feels To Be Falsely Accused.” Connections: Guide to First Year Writing @ Clayton State University. Ed. Mary Lamb. 4^th Edition. South Lake: 2014. 194-5. Print.