Rhetorical Reading and Composing

Section Overview

The chapters in this section invite you to consider composition in rhetorical terms. We take a flexible, rhetorical approach to understanding writing because there are no fixed, universal rules for writing. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t any rules. Instead, effective writing is contextual, and your relative success as a writer is dependent on your ability to understand how to craft appropriate compositions across situations, whether you’re writing in your composition class, in your selected major, in your professional life, or in your personal life. You have likely already learned a lot about composition and rhetoric, although you may not have used some of the language we’ll introduce. We invite you to build on your existing knowledge and add tools to your toolbox in the form of new questions you’ll ask about writing situations, new understandings of how to organize writing effectively, and new ways of developing and filtering knowledge.

Many of the readings in this book, and certainly in this section include chapters from the book, Bad Ideas About Writing. It is important to note that Bad Ideas About Writing includes titles that can be misleading if you do not read the text itself. The titles for all of the Bad Ideas About Writing essays are actually misleading myths about writing that circulate. It may be confusing, at first, to see these titles. And it is important to keep in mind the content of each essay dispels these popular beliefs about writing that can be found in the titles, by using research from the field. Happily, there are both written and audio versions available for each of these brief, engaging chapters.

The first three chapters in this section address the relationship between rhetoric and first-year writing as well as the purpose of first-year writing in education:

• Rhetoric is Synonymous with Empty Speech by Patricia Roberts-Miller (Bad Ideas About Writing) (Podcast)
• First-Year Composition Prepares Students for Academic Writing by Tyler S. Branson (Bad Ideas About Writing) (Podcast)
• First-Year Composition Should be Skipped by Paul G. Cook (Bad Ideas About Writing) (Podcast)

The next three chapters consider the relationship between reading and writing:

• “Developing a Repertoire of Reading Strategies” by Ellen C. Carillo
• Reading and Writing Are Not Connected by Ellen C. Carillo (Bad Ideas About Writing) (Podcast)
• How to Read Like a Writer by Michael Bunn

To provide a foundation for this work, consider how rhetorical analysis is always at work in communication. Whenever we speak, write, or listen, we’re doing rhetorical work. By beginning our considerations of the rhetorical nature of communication with a focus on “Rhetorical Analysis” (below), we invite you to apply these skills throughout your work this semester. The following text, “Rhetorical Analysis,”  is an excerpt from Try This: Research Methods For Writers, (pp. 79-82) by Jennifer Clary-Lemon, Derek Mueller, and Kate Pantelides.

Rhetorical analysis helps demonstrate the significance of a text by carefully considering the rhetorical situation in which it develops and the ways that it supports its purpose. There are lots of definitions of rhetoric, and the definition that makes the

most sense to you and your understanding of communication will impact how you deploy rhetorical analysis. The following are a few definitions of rhetoric:

• Ancient Greek rhetor Aristotle: “Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion.”
• British rhetorician I. A. Richards: “Rhetoric…should be a study of misunderstanding and its remedies” (3).
• Contemporary American rhetors Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs: “Rhetoric is a field of study in which people examine how persuasion and communication work, and it is also the art of human interaction, communication, and persuasion” (366).
• Contemporary American genre theorist Charles Bazerman: “The study of how people use language and other symbols to realize human goals and carry out human activities. . . . ultimately a practical study offering people greater control over their symbolic activity” (6).

Rhetorical analysis helps us understand the various components that make a communicative act/artifact successful or not. A key component to effective rhetorical analysis is careful, active attention to what the author and her text are trying to accomplish. Krista Ratcliffe calls such attention rhetorical listening.

Most people summarize rhetorical listening as an orientation of active openness toward communication, and Ratcliffe identifies multiple components for such a stance:

• “acknowledging the existence” of the other, their self, and discourse;
• listening for “(un)conscious presences, absences, and unknowns”;
• and purposefully “integrating this information into our world views and decision making.” (29)

Rhetorical listening often draws our attention to absences. Jacqueline Jones Royster’s work on literacy practices, particularly of nineteenth century Black women, demonstrates how listening for and being curious about absences often leads us to understudied rhetors. Temptaous McCoy has coined the term amplification rhetorics (AR), a method of seeking out and amplifying rhetorical practices that may not have been effectively heard. She describes AR as a way of examining and celebrating the experiences and community rhetorics of Black and marginalized communities.

Another way of thinking of rhetorical listening in the context of texts is Peter Elbow’s practice of “The Believing Game,” in which he encourages audience members to suspend potential disbelief or critique of a text. Instead of starting with critique, he works to step into the authors’ shoes and actually believe whatever they are suggesting. Complimentary to this practice is Sonja K. Foss and Cindy L. Griffin’s formulation of invitational rhetoric. They offer invitational rhetoric as counter to understandings of rhetoric as primarily about persuasion, like Aristotle’s definition of rhetoric. They see persuasion as ultimately about power, whereas invitational rhetoric instead works to develop equitable relationships. Like rhetorical listening, invitational rhetoric is a method for establishing understanding within relationships. They define such work as “an invitation to the audience to enter the rhetor’s world and see it as the rhetor does” (5). Although these approaches all differ, what they have in common is using rhetorical awareness to invite understanding rather than arguing for one’s own point of view or “winning” an argument.

There are many ways to practice rhetorical analysis, although it is often reduced to an equation rather than a tool for discovery of a text. Let rhetorical analysis be a method that opens up understanding and possibility rather than one that simply labels certain words or passages. Consider how identifying a particular rhetorical appeal adds depth and nuance to a text and connects you to it in complex ways. For instance, the previous “Try This” offered two approaches to rhetorical analysis. The next “Try This” offers two additional approaches. Consider which one resonates most with you. Which method helps you identify the significance and interest of a text?