Intros (5-10 min)
Writing publicly (20-30 min)
Questions to consider: What’s it mean to write privately and write publicly? What changes? What doesn’t? How do you know?
Activity: I want you to think about why you are here, what do you want to learn to do, and what do you have to say…if you are in a class like this, you must have something you are interested in broadcasting to the larger world around you. Spend about 5-10 minutes writing about that.
Public writing (45-60 min)
Questions to consider: What “publics” are out there to write to? How do you write to them? Is there such a thing as a “general” audience? What does it mean to write to such an audience? Can there be more specialized audiences? What’s that look like?
Activity: Read and skim through each of the below documents (6 in total, all linked below). Read these documents comparatively.
To begin, you’ll have to note characteristics of design (use of images? White space? Color?), of sentence style (longer sentences? Shorter ones? Vocabulary more or less technical?), digital vs print (is this something that can only be read online? Both? Where would it be better?), does the reader need any special knowledge of any kind (e.g., a degree of quantitative literacy, knowledge of more or less advanced science). Another thing to do: if you had to name each document as a “type” of a document, what might you call it? Why?
Next, compare your notes. What is similar across these documents? What is different? Why? Hard to answer such a question definitively, but quantity over quality here: what are some reasons that these choices were made in one document vs another? What do you think?
https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/
http://www.conserve-energy-future.com/various-climate-change-facts-php.php
https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/climate-change-science-white-paper.pdf
https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-08/documents/ci-brochure-2014.pdf
http://uli.org/wp-content/uploads/ULI-Documents/Insurance-White-Paper-FINAL.pdf
https://www.neefusa.org/weather-and-climate/climate-change/understanding-climate-change
Now, what about other factors to consider of your public? For example, age. Read each of the below and attempt to repurpose the above questions in relation to each of the three links below. Unlike above, these are different topics, but should still reveal some discussion points about considering age. What happens when you are thinking about children vs. teens? Or seniors? Different language, different approaches?
Transportation for elderly.
http://www.eldercare.gov/Public/Resources/Brochures/docs/N4a-transportation-brochure-access.pdf
Alcohol and teens
https://www.toosmarttostart.samhsa.gov/teens/
Human rights and children
https://www.unicef.org/rightsite/files/uncrcchilldfriendlylanguage.pdf
Break (15 min)
Syllabus (15 min)
Introduction to Rhetoric (20-30 min)
Questions to consider: What does rhetoric look like? How can this knowledge help?
Activity: Watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3IbscJWklI
Who’s the public for this video? How do you know? What kinds of “moves” are made? How is sound, image, speech, and writing all deployed? What do you think the video-author is going for here?
What is rhetoric???
Here are some sources of definition. Group up, and each group will count the numbers of definitions. Independently, pick one (skim through, don’t have to thoroughly pick one out here). Talk about differences and similarities in definition.
Group 1:
http://davidbeard.efoliomn.com/Uploads/Master%20Definitions%20of%20rhetoric.pdf
Group 2:
http://enculturation.net/5_1/rhetdef.html
Group 3:
http://rhetoric.sdsu.edu/resources/what_is_rhetoric.htm
What differences and similarities did you come across in your groups? How many definitions were there?
Now, read this short article about yet another person trying to define rhetoric: https://edurhetor.wordpress.com/about/rhetoric/
Debrief on rhetoric and “possibilities.”
Studio time on Review and Proposal (20-30 min)
Let’s get started on the first assignment.
Registering for website (10 min)
Getting logistics in order…
Next class (5 min)
What’d we cover today and how are we moving forward? Reading, writing for next time.