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Writing Prompt Seven: Progress Thanks to Rhetorical Knowledge

Chloe L. Biggs

The University of North Carolina at Charlotte

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Writing prompt seven charges us to examine how far we’ve come in the semester long

topic and how. One of the methods driving our progress has been rhetorical knowledge. The

syllabus definies rhetorical knowledge as so:

Rhetorical knowledge is the ability to identify and apply strategies across a range of texts

and writing situations. Using their own writing processes and approaches, writers

compose with intention, understanding how genre, audience, purpose, and context impact

writing choices (Raymond, 2018).

This method of composing has overall heightened my awareness of why I am creating something

the way I am and pushes me to stray away from presenting information in the formats I am most

comfortable with. An example of this is awareness of my audience. For my semester long

project, my audience is mostly comprised of young adults like myself who are enjoying their last

year or two of teenagedom. I know that they don’t want a dry, colorless or overly formal

presentation from our group. Thus, we have made sure that our slides are clean, but still

intriguing, We have also included several interactive components. We plan to make some aspects

of our project feel more like a conversation than a lecture. Also, with a topic revolving around

medicine, audience is especially important to consider. We are aware that not everyone in the

class is a biology major or nursing major like my partner and I. I just finished the first draft of

one slide that attempts to explain the cause of cancer on a level that any college student,

regardless of science background, can grasp. This slide may warrant revision, but thanks to

rhetorical knowledge, this issue is on my radar.

I think that class discussions have challenged me to look at this project differently

because my classmates provide such diverse perspectives to my topic and ask questions that
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prompt me to dig deeper and broader. As far as sources, not one in particular has presented any

major obstacles to how I thought this project would go. Instead, the sheer amount of information

available and related topics that we could explore has made it hard to focus on a presentation

with a clear outline. All in all, my partner and I will continue to look back at the prompts and

discussions that have expanded our original inquiries and try to include as many as possible,

while adhering to the useful guidelines of rhetorical knowledge.

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References:

Raymond, L., Prof. (2018). ​1103 Syllabus Spring, 2018​[WRD].