WEPO was my first class at Florida State University and the first class for my major. When rhetoric was introduced it seemed like a foreign language to me. I vaguely remember my English teacher in high school brushing over the subject but I could never grasp the actual meaning. Through the readings, blog posts and discussions in class I can finally say that I understand rhetoric. A simple definition would be the study of communication and understanding.
Rhetorical Situation: This is made up of the rhetor, a pressing problem which was the reason for writing and how the audience reacts to that situation. The occasion for writing leads to the discourse. Your audience is influenced or will react to your writing. An example of a rhetorical situation is a football coach speaking to his team at halftime while they are losing, they are inspired by the speech and then react to it.
The Five Canons: In classical rhetoric, Aristotle broke it down into 5 important parts that are essential to the composing process. Invention is where you gather ideas. Francis Bacon suggests that invention is not the proper term for this since “out of the knowledge whereof our mind is already possessed, to draw forth or call before us that which may be pertinent to the process which we take into our consideration.” Arrangement is how you chose to structure your writing. This is a critical part of the process because in order for your audience to easily understand your composition the ideas have to be structured properly. Style is putting your own spin on writing. This is where you get to decide how formal your writing needs to be, depending on your audience. This is where you can be original and let your creativity to come out through your writing. Memory and Delivery go hand in hand to me. The more you study your writing and memorize the material, the smoother your delivery will be. If you are listening to someone giving a speech, you realize it is much more engaging if the speaker rarely has to look down at their notes. Memorization helps build credibility and will allow you to connect to your audience.
Remediation is representing a medium within another medium but the old medium is still represented by the new medium. Bolter and Grusin’s example of hypermediacy is the CNN website because by “arranging text, graphics, and video in multiple panes and windows and joining them with numerous hyperlinks; yet the web site borrows its sense of immediacy from the televised CNN newscasts.” Immediacy is having your ideals or your goals met so in depth where you get “lost” in the moment.
Reflection and composing process:
My definition of composing is finding a way to express your feelings, ideas or even share a story with someone. Throughout this class, my composing process has grown dramatically. It begins with thinking of who my audience will be. This is a vital part of this lengthy process. Ultimately you want to persuade or get your audience to react (in a positive way of course) to your writing. From there I can determine the rhetorical situation and make sure my writing is situation and audience appropriate. Next, I determine the style and creativity of my paper. Your originality is what makes your writing yours. As I get older I realize that finding your own voice as a writer and sticking to it but always improving will remind me of the passion I have had for writing. Revision/Editing is the final part of my composing process because it is essential to have a successful composition of your work. It is going to be pretty difficult to allow your audience to be engaged in your topic and then understand the message you wish to get across if you have sentence fragments or misspelled words. Reflection is looking over your work and thinking about how you have grown as a writer and what you learned. This is important in the composing process because your work can always be improved. Reflection will help you strive to be the best writer you can be.
No comments:
Post a Comment