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Full-Text Articles in Rhetoric
One Quotation, Two Meanings: Quotation Analysis Exercise, Dan Gleason
One Quotation, Two Meanings: Quotation Analysis Exercise, Dan Gleason
Writing Bootcamp Unit
This challenging lesson gives students practice in analyzing quotations very closely. The exercise begins with the premise that quotations never “speak for themselves,” and that writers need to explain what quotations mean. To prove this point, this lesson shows students that specific quotations can in fact “mean” (or support) very different claims; in fact, students use a single quotation to advance almost opposite arguments. The goal of the lesson is for students to understand that quotations may be very malleable, and thus they always need clear framing and explanation. This lesson uses a short essay, “What is an American?” as …
The Headless Paragraph: Back-Forming Topic Sentences, Dan Gleason
The Headless Paragraph: Back-Forming Topic Sentences, Dan Gleason
Writing Bootcamp Unit
This exercise is designed to give students practice in creating and understanding topic sentences. Rather than asking students to create their own paragraphs headed with topic sentences, this exercise gives students the paragraphs and asks them to synthesize the topic sentences from the content provided. Such back-formation can help students grasp that a topic sentence does not merely start the paragraph, but also organizes and summarizes its key content.