Reflections to Support Student Development as Rhetorical Readers and Writers

Reflections to Support Student Development as Rhetorical Readers and Writers                                                

  1. Excellent overall resource for metacognitive prompts for writing tasks:  https://lsa.umich.edu/content/dam/sweetland-assets/sweetland-documents/teachingresources/CultivatingReflectionandMetacognition/Metacognition.pdf
  2. Student-created wiki that defines, illustrates, and connects rhetorical terms (class-wide integrative project)
  3. Metatexts after each essay draft, especially to evaluate rhetorical choices made
  4. Reflections on readings about various aspects of the rhetorical situation, designed to help students internalize the rhetorical concepts.  For example, begin class by having students write about an aspect of the rhetorical situation reflected in the assigned reading for that day.
  5. Weekly letters reflecting on a rhetorical situation in the “real world.”
  6. Imagine the text under discussion as produced by a different author or artist from a different perspective or moment in history (similar to generating possible counter-arguments) to help students imagine how “real world” specificity impacts changes in a purpose, audience, meanings generated by a written or visual text.
  7. Reflect on how students can use or have used knowledge of the rhetorical situation outside of the traditional English classroom, in other classes or in the wider world.