Rhetoric
What is "purpose" in writing?
What the author is trying to accomplish through the text
The funding for environmental research was cancelled.
Passive voice: "The government cancelled the funding for environmental research."
Guess how many words you have all written collectively as a class. Closest number wins the points.
101,000 words.
fixed mindset vs growth mindset
A fixed mindset is thinking that failure is always negative, while a growth mindset views failure as a learning opportunity with potential for growth
The three elements of the rhetorical situation
genre, audience, purpose
My first time skiing was super awesome, even though I kept falling into snowdrifts multiple times and potentially gave my phone very damaging irreparable water damage.
Could be more concise: My first time skiing was awesome, even though I kept falling into snowdrifts and potentially gave my phone irreparable water damage.
My NFL team
Name at least 3 out of 5 phases of the writing process
Why should the audience matter to a writer?
The more a writer can target a specific audience, the more effective the piece of writing will be, since the author can tailor their writing to the beliefs, wants, or needs of that audience.
She's a great friend.
"She brought me soup when I wasn't feeling well," or "She always asks me how my mom is doing," or "She's the kind of friend I can tell anything to," etc.
Acoustic guitar, patriotism, horses, beer, trucks, and many more
making the implicit explicit, moving from observation to insight, or going past surface level reporting on a topic to dive into how it functions, why it matters, or its larger implications
What do genres do for an audience AND/OR for a writer?
Create expectations for an audience before they interact with a text AND/OR provide a formula and guidelines for a writer
Last week, Harry Styles released his fourth solo album. The result is a new sound that gives his characteristically breezy pop a disco-inspired backdrop. He took a long break between his last album and this one.
This needs to be improved for coherence:
"Last week, Harry Styles released his fourth solo album. He took a long break between his last album and this one. The result is a new sound that gives his characteristically breezy pop a disco-inspired backdrop."
The name of the online textbook that most of your readings were from this term
"Bad Ideas About Writing"
Higher order concerns and lower order concerns in feedback
HOCs: paragraph organization, thesis, key ideas, quality of evidence, etc.
LOCs: word choice, punctuation, formatting, grammar, sentence-level detail, etc.
Provide examples of a genre -> subgenre -> microgenre.
In this paper, I argue that students should not use ChatGPT.
Not nearly specific enough, does not give the reader a clear sense of what is to come in the paper, and does not tie in to broader implications.
CITATION WAR
Whichever team can correctly cite the following source gets the points...
Title: "Harry Styles and 8 More Boy Band Stars Who Went Solo."
Author: None listed
Publication: The New York Times
Publication date: March 10, 2026
Explain how claims, evidence and reasoning relate to one another