This is a textbook that was originally designed for a 3000-level large lecture course on “Rhetorical Theory” at the University of Minnesota, Twin-Cities. An interdisciplinary tradition, rhetorical theory describes how speech, representation, and power are managed by techniques and technologies of communication. The plan of this book moves from rhetoric as an art of speech to rhetoric as a technology of power. The early chapters provide definitions and context for rhetoric as speech, middle chapters (e.g., on signs, symbols, visual images, argumentation, and narrative) describe rhetoric as representation, and the concluding chapters (e.g., on settler colonialism, secrecy, and digital rhetoric) elaborate on rhetoric as a technology of power. Of course, there is considerable overlap across these areas: the chapter on “rhetoric and ideology” sets the stage for later understandings of rhetoric as power; the chapter on “the rhetorical situation” hearkens back to the introductory understanding of rhetoric as speech. The book includes (audio and/or video) recordings with each chapter, as well as guidelines for proposed written assignments. Students using this resource should gain a thorough understanding of what rhetoric is, how it was practiced historically and today, and the ways that rhetoric wields an invisible influence over contemporary public and political life. Additionally, this book is designed for use across a variety of modalities, including in-person, online (synchronous/asynchronous), and hybridized formats. Additional resources (PowerPoint slides, quiz/exam questions) are also available to confirmed instructors upon request.

The Commons: Tools for Reading, Writing, and Rhetoric gives instructors and students of college writing courses a single source for information on metacognitive critical reading, rhetorical awareness, and MLA formatting basics as well as interesting and relevant reading and viewing content. Its approach is interdisciplinary, bringing in material from ecology, sociology, psychology, technology, popular culture, political science, cultural studies, and literature. Each essay, website, video, infographic, and poem has been carefully chosen to speak to the Eastern Kentucky University community, but everyone can find something that speaks to our common human experience and our need to communicate and connect with one another.

The authors of Chinese Rhetoric and Writing offer a response to the argument that Chinese students' academic writing in English is influenced by "culturally nuanced rhetorical baggage that is uniquely Chinese and hard to eradicate." Noting that this argument draws from "an essentially monolingual and Anglo-centric view of writing," they point out that the rapid growth in the use of English worldwide calls for "a radical reassessment of what English is in today's world." The result is a book that provides teachers of writing, and in particular those involved in the teaching of English academic writing to Chinese students, an introduction to key stages in the development of Chinese rhetoric, a wide-ranging field with a history of several thousand years. Understanding this important rhetorical tradition provides a strong foundation for assessing and responding to the writing of this growing group of students.

The textbook covers modes related to creative writing, such as narration and illustration, while also covering analytically-focused modes such as comparison and cause and effect.
Chapter 1: Invention
Chapter 2: Arrangement
Chapter 3: Drafting and Revising
Chapter 4: Editing and Proofreading
Chapter 5: Narrative
Chapter 6: Description
Chapter 7: Definition
Chapter 8: Illustration/Example
Chapter 9: Compare/Contrast
Chapter 10: Evaluation
Chapter 11: Cause and Effect
Chapter 12: Argument
Chapter 13: Grammar and Mechanics Mini-lessons

The first in a two-volume set, A Rhetoric of Literate Action is written for "the experienced writer with a substantial repertoire of skills, [who] now would find it useful to think in more fundamental strategic terms about what they want their texts to accomplish, what form the texts might take, how to develop specific contents, and how to arrange the work of writing." The reader is offered a framework for identifying and understanding the situations writing comes out of and is directed toward; a consideration of how a text works to transform a situation and achieve the writer's motives; and advice on how to bring the text to completion and "how to manage the work and one's own emotions and energies so as to accomplish the work most effectively."

Rhetoric Matters: A Guide to Success in the First Year Writing Class offers students necessary concepts and practice to learn all the elements needed for successful first year writing and set the stage for future writing success in college.
Chapter 1: The Introduction
Chapter 2: Reading in Writing Class
Chapter 3: Thinking and Analyzing Rhetorically
Chapter 4: Writing a Summary and Synthesizing
Chapter 5: The Writing Process
Chapter 6: Structuring, Paragraphing, and Styling
Chapter 7: Revising and Refining
Chapter 8: Multimodal Reading and Visual Rhetoric
Chapter 9: The Research Process
Chapter 10: Sources and Research
Chapter 11: Ethical Source Integration: Citation, Quoting, and Paraphrasing
Chapter 12: Documentation Styles: MLA and APA

Word Count: 108374

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The second in a two-volume set, A Theory of Literate Action draws on work from the social sciences—and in particular sociocultural psychology, phenomenological sociology, and the pragmatic tradition of social science—to "reconceive rhetoric fundamentally around the problems of written communication rather than around rhetoric's founding concerns of high stakes, agonistic, oral public persuasion" (p. 3). An expression of more than a quarter-century of reflection and scholarly inquiry, this volume represents a significant contribution to contemporary rhetorical theory.

A freshman composition textbook used by the English Department of Virginia Western Community College (VWCC) in Roanoke, Virginia. It aligns with ENG 111, the standard first-year composition course in the Virginia Community College System (VCCS). The ten chapter headings are:

1. Chapter 1 - Critical Reading
2. Chapter 2 - Rhetorical Analysis
3. Chapter 3 - Argument
4. Chapter 4 - The Writing Process
5. Chapter 5 - Rhetorical Modes
6. Chapter 6 - Finding and Using Outside Sources
7. Chapter 7 - How and Why to Cite
8. Chapter 8 - Writing Basics: What Makes a Good Sentence?
9. Chapter 9 - Punctuation
10. Chapter 10 - Working With Words: Which Word is Right?

This book was created by the English faculty and librarians of VWCC using Creative Commons -licensed materials and original contributions.

EmpoWord is a reader and rhetoric that champions the possibilities of student writing. The textbook uses actual student writing to exemplify effective writing strategies, celebrating dedicated college writing students to encourage and instruct their successors: the students in your class. Through both creative and traditional activities, readers are encouraged to explore a variety of rhetorical situations to become more critical agents of reading, writing, speaking, and listening in all facets of their lives. Straightforward and readable instruction sections introduce key vocabulary, concepts, and strategies. Three culminating assignments (Descriptive Personal Narrative; Text-Wrestling Analysis; Persuasive Research Essay) give students a chance to show their learning while also practicing rhetorical awareness techniques for future writing situations.

The Writing Spaces Web Writing Style Guide was created as a crowdsourcing project of Collaborvention 2011: A Computers and Writing Unconference. College writing teachers from around the web joined together to create this guide (see our Contributors list). The advice within it is based on contemporary theories and best practices.

In Placing the History of College Writing, Nathan Shepley argues that pre-1950s composition history, if analyzed with the right conceptual tools, can pluralize and clarify our understanding of the relationship between the writing of college students and the writing's physical, social, and discursive surroundings. Even if the immediate outcome of student writing is to generate academic credit, Shepley shows, the writing does more complex rhetorical work. It gives students chances to uphold or adjust institutional codes for student behavior, allows students and their literacy sponsors to respond to sociopolitical issues in a city or state, enables faculty and administrators to create strategic representations of institutional or program identities, and connects people across disciplines, occupations, and geographic locations. Shepley argues that even if many of today's composition scholars and instructors work at institutions that lack extensive historical records of the kind usually preferred by composition historians, those scholars and teachers can mine their institutional collections for signs of the various contexts with which student writing dealt.

How Arguments Work takes students through the techniques they will need to respond to readings and make sophisticated arguments in any college class. This is a practical guide to argumentation with strategies and templates for the kinds of assignments students will commonly encounter. It covers rhetorical concepts in everyday language and explores how arguments can build trust and move readers.

Web Writing (2023) by Dr. A Nicole Pfannenstiel is designed to provide a practical, rhetorical approach to web writing and content strategy analysis for students completing advanced writing courses. The eTextbook uses the rhetorical situation and key concepts to help readers/students understand how to write within specific web spaces for specific audiences drawing on appropriate discourse community conventions. It includes a chapter devoted to the rhetorical situation and key concepts to help students analyze and build their understanding of existing communication. It also includes a chapter outlining approaches to content strategy analysis, using the rhetorical situation and key concepts to understand the rich public data provided through social media accounts to support learners understanding effective web writing. The content analysis overview helps students build skills for analyzing writing, for collecting and analyzing qualitative and quantitative social media data, and for drawing conclusions about content strategy best practices.

The editors of Writing in Knowledge Societies provide a thoughtful, carefully constructed collection that addresses the vital roles rhetoric and writing play as knowledge-making practices in diverse knowledge-intensive settings. The essays in this book examine the multiple, subtle, yet consequential ways in which writing is epistemic, articulating the central role of writing in creating, shaping, sharing, and contesting knowledge in a range of human activities in workplaces, civic settings, and higher education. Writing in Knowledge Societies helps us conceptualize the ways in which rhetoric and writing work to organize, (re-)produce, undermine, dominate, marginalize, or contest knowledge-making practices in diverse settings, showing the many ways in which rhetoric and writing operate in knowledge-intensive organizations and societies.

The Process of Research Writing is a web-based research writing textbook (or is that textweb?) suitable for teachers and students in research oriented composition and rhetoric classes.

This text is meant to be used in any first year College Composition class or as a general guide to college writing. The book focuses on writing as a process, not a product. The goal is to help students discover their own writing process, trying out different methods and strategies to find what works best for them.

A Project of Oregon Writes

Short Description:
This textbook guides students through rhetorical and assignment analysis, the writing process, researching, citing, rhetorical modes, and critical reading. Guided by Oregon's statewide college writing outcomes, this book collects previously published articles, essays, and chapters released under Creative Commons licenses into one free textbook available for online access or print-on-demand. Faculty guide available: https://canvas.instructure.com/courses/1035227Order a print copy: http://www.lulu.com/shop/jenn-kepka/oregon-writes-open-writing-text/paperback/product-23840147.html

Long Description:
This textbook guides students through rhetorical and assignment analysis, the writing process, researching, citing, rhetorical modes, and critical reading. Using accessible but rigorous readings by professionals throughout the college composition field, the Oregon Writes Writing Textbook aligns directly to the statewide writing outcomes for English Composition courses in Oregon.

Created through a grant from Open Oregon in 2015-16, this book collects previously published articles, essays, and chapters released under Creative Commons licenses into one free textbook available for online access or print-on-demand.

Faculty guide available: https://canvas.instructure.com/courses/1035227

Order a print copy: http://www.lulu.com/shop/jenn-kepka/oregon-writes-open-writing-text/paperback/product-23840147.html

Word Count: 66415

ISBN: 978-1-63635-058-5

(Note: This resource's metadata has been created automatically by reformatting and/or combining the information that the author initially provided as part of a bulk import process.)

Writing Guide with Handbook aligns to the goals, topics, and objectives of many first-year writing and composition courses. It is organized according to relevant genres, and focuses on the writing process, effective writing practices or strategies—including graphic organizers, writing frames, and word banks to support visual learning—and conventions of usage and style. The text includes an editing and documentation handbook, which provides information on grammar and mechanics, common usage errors, and citation styles.

Writing Guide with Handbook breaks down barriers in the field of composition by offering an inviting and inclusive approach to students of all intersectional identities. To meet this goal, the text creates a reciprocal relationship between everyday rhetoric and the evolving world of academia. Writing Guide with Handbook builds on students’ life experiences and their participation in rhetorical communities within the familiar contexts of personal interaction and social media. The text seeks to extend these existing skills by showing students how to construct a variety of compelling compositions in a variety of formats, situations, and contexts.

In Yoga Minds, Writing Bodies, Christy Wenger argues for the inclusion of Eastern-influenced contemplative education within writing studies. She observes that, although we have "embodied" writing education in general by discussing the rhetorics of racialized, gendered, and disabled bodies, we have done substantially less to address the particular bodies that occupy our classrooms. She proposes that we turn to contemplative education practices that engages student bodies through fusing a traditional curriculum with contemplative practices including yoga, meditation, and the martial arts. Drawing strength from the recent "quiet revolution" (Zajonc) of contemplative pedagogy within postsecondary education and a legacy of field interest attributable to James Moffett, this project draws on case studies of first-year college writers to present contemplative pedagogy as a means of teaching students mindfulness of their writing and learning in ways that promote the academic, rhetorical work accomplished in first-year composition classes while at the same time remaining committed to a larger scope of a writer's physical and emotional well-being.