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Imagining and speaking So you are supposed to write an essay. Maybe your instructor gave you a writing assignment. Or perhaps you are taking a test that has essay questions. But sometimes you feel like there is no point to writing something that nobody, or your teacher, or only a few people will read. Maybe…
1. Introduction: Composition theory, linguistics, and improving student writing. 2. Review of approaches in composition studies. 2.1 The cognitivist approach. 2.2 The expressionist approach. 2.3 The social-epistemic approach. 2.4 Multiculturalism, the contact zone, and Bakhtin’s heterogeneity of voices 2.5 The context of written discourse: The rhetorical situation. 1. Exigence: The occasion and motivation for speaking/writing…
Structure/ Overall Organization of the content in your paper Is your paper organized to communicate your topic most effectively? You should aim to have high quality structure/ overall organization: your paper must be organized according to the purposes you have for writing. Structure/ overall organization means arranging the ideas and topics in your paper in…
Information Units: Core, descriptive, and interpretive elements How much information are you giving your audience in your paper? What kind of “information units” are you using? Skillful writers use and arrange three kinds of information units in certain ways. The three different kinds of information units are: 1a) Core (narrative) Eventives [CoEV]: indicate actions that…
Speaker-voice: What’s your identity / role / position / attitude / tone and voice? Just as you must consider your audience’s identity, position, assumptions and values, you must also think about your own identity, as a speaker-writer, and how your identity shapes your speaker-voice. But to answer this question, you first must go back to…
Audience: Who’s listening to your speaking-writing? How do they influence it? Many writing teachers say it is important to imagine an audience when you write. This is because writing is for readers, not just for a grade. When you are speaking to someone, for example, and they give you a confused look, you usually sense…
What’s the Occasion for your writing? What motivates you to write? Imagine that you are writing to solve a problem, or to answer a complicated question, or even to help others by providing them with information. The question “Why do you write?” is a question about occasion. The idea of occasion is all about a…