Journal 6

What does Bitzer not mean by “rhetorical situation”? In other words, how does his view differ from past views that readers might compare to his?
Bitzer does not mean ignoring who you are or what you feel, what your way of life has been, and overlook who your spectators are in your writing. He does not want you to lose focus when you are writing and what is the reason you are even writing anything at all. He wants you to shun writing without purpose and to write as if you can make a genuine difference.

What does Bitzer mean by “rhetorical situation”?
What Bitzer means by “rhetorical situation is to acknowledge a viewpoint that is a commonplace but fundamental. It is a mode of altering reality by the creation of discourse which changes reality through the mediation of thought and action.

Explain what “exigence” is. Give your own example of an exigence someone could respond to in writing.
Exigence is what the person is trying to prove or somehow interpret in their writing. For example; persuading one to change a certain belief.

Specialization - Journal 5

The debate over the problem of specialization is a topic that I found quite interesting. I learned that some scholars’ feel that it is more important to have individuals specialize in and expand a great deal of comprehension in certain areas while others feel that it takes away from the general learning of subjects. There has been specific proposals for curricular reform that Stephen North describes; secession, corporate compromise and fusion. If specialization became too advanced we won’t be able to have any meaningful conversations with colleagues. There has been a debate between linguistics and literary critics because they value either the objective analysis or subjective critique and in this case it has caused much conflict.

Journal 3

When Bartholomae says that students must “invent the university” when they write in colleges is he feels students need to learn to speak our language, to speak as we do, to try on the peculiar ways of knowing, selecting, evaluating, reporting, concluding, and arguing that define the discourse of our community. Or perhaps the various discourses of our community, since it is in the nature of a liberal arts education that a student, after the first year or two, must learn to try on a variety of voices and interpretive schemes.
Bartholomae suggests for insiders to extend themselves into the commonplaces, set phrases, rituals, gestures, habits of mind, tricks of persuasion, obligatory conclusions, and necessary connections that determine the “what might be said” and constitute knowledge within the various branches of our academic community. He feels colleges and universities, have failed to involve basic writing students in scholarly projects, projects that would allow them to act as though they were colleagues in an academic enterprise.
The first essay not an elegant paper, but it seems seamless, tidy; and the discourse seems natural, smooth. The second essay was much more successful because she use “Creativity” as “original creation.” Bartholomae feels that it is better to write sentences one might not so easily control, and be convinced that it is better to write in a muddier and more confusing prose in order that it may sound like ours.

Workshop 1- Expertise & Interests

Expertise in:

• Facebook / Web Design
• Recreation
• Ipod / Music
• Shopping
• video games- Rollercoaster Tycoon & The Sims 1&2
• Cellphones
• Hair
• Abortion

Interested In:

• Cooking
• Language
• Film
• Traveling
• Drugs

Typical

http://www.dilbert.com/strips/comic/2009-01-05/

Claim: I feel that the comic strip is indicating that women don’t have the equivalent brain size as men, and implying that women are not as intelligent as men overall.

I feel that this claim is a type of value that men would have. A man tends to feel much more superior to a woman and in this comic, Dilbert is being stereotypical and implying that of course you are cold in the office your brain isn’t nearly as big as mine.

The appeal in this argument is Ethos, the personality of the author as well as the character “Dilbert” is sarcastic and it is evident that the woman becomes very upset from his comment and he doesn’t seem to acknowledge that what he said was insulting rather than an obvious true statement. Dilbert having a much bigger brain and involving it with the temperature of his body is completely irrelevant and it was just a simple way to insult her intelligence.