Read: “Rhetoric: Making Sense of Human Interaction and Meaning-Making” by Doug D

Read: “Rhetoric: Making Sense of Human Interaction and Meaning-Making” by Doug Downs found on page 358 in Writing About Writing. (24 pages)
Think about and answer: Questions for Discussion and Journaling 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, and 9 on page 385. Please write your answers in a notebook. Prepare: to discuss the article and your answers to the questions in class and participate in a related group activity. You do not need to submit this portion of the assignment in Canvas. Select and Read: one of the scholarly articles in Chapter 6 of WAW. These readings will be good practice for reading scholarly work rhetorically in your later classes, and you’ll probably have a lot to learn about how scholarly communities work to do the assignment well.
Write: an essay that explains your interpretations of what the writer meant the text to accomplish, and why. Begin with a summary of the article, which should be about one page. As you read your chosen article, take notes about these aspects of the text in order to be able to write an effective summary:
The territory the text covers and the niche it occupies, which may be its research questions or its thesis, if you can identify one
The text’s main parts or sections
The author’s underlying theoretical framework (underlying theories or principles it uses to study or interpret whatever it’s focused on) if the author shares this
Research methods, if the author shares these The author’s finding, main claims, main discoveries
The implications of the piece (which will be mostly in the conclusion and potentially in the introduction as well if they are stated directly)
Now that you know basically what the author is saying and how, you can move on to consider rhetorical elements. Refer to your knowledge about rhetoric as you have read and as we have discussed in class. Also, keep your Rhetoric Quick Reference Guide handy as you read and analyze. In the paper, discuss those rhetorical elements and devices you found. Historicize the text
Who wrote it? This might be in the article itself, although sometimes biographies are not provided. You can use a web search to learn more about the author. Who published it? The first page of each article provides this information or where you might find it. What journal or book did it originally appear in, and who published that journal or book? What can you learn about that publisher? What kinds of work do they usually publish, and what is the purpose of the journal or the book it appears in? Search the journal’s or publisher’s web page to answer these questions. Your analysis should demonstrate that you understood the text you read in a rhetorical sense, that you were able to find and interpret evidence about its history and context, and that you can clearly explain these things to readers and provide evidence to support your claims.