Rock music is ideological both implicitly (in its intrinsic valuing of change, and resistance to authority, for instance), and explicitly (in political records from activist artists such as John Lennon and U2). The texts of the rock genre offer rhetorical experiences. A dialogic conception may help scholars to account for and describe the…

Biographical writing is highly imaginative writing and always has been. The task of the biographer is to weave a riveting story from the fabric of the subject's life. For example, a single pivotal incident in the lives of Percy Bysshe Shelley, the English poet, and Mary Godwin, author of "Frankenstein", at the grave of Mary's mother,…

Fifteen years ago, J. H. Rushing published a seminal article addressing the fragmentation within contemporary society and the ways in which myths (films) may address this exigence. The exigence of fragmentation is relieved, according to her analysis, by mediated recourse to the perennial philosophy of monistic holism that is found across the…

Outlines how technical communicators can use the five "W" questions approach--a core element of journalism--in the audience analysis phase of designing information to help ensure that the information meets the audience's needs. (SR)

Argues for the systematic use of patterns of arrangement to order and revise texts for a particular subject matter, purpose, and audience. Illustrates how writers mobilize textual patterns to some tangible effect and, as a consequence, how writing teachers and student-writers can overcome the pragmatic limitations ready-built into arrangement and…

Describes the author's experience working on a reader's theatre version of a radio play based on the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Reflects on how the grade 8 students created meaning for themselves and for their audience. Notes limitations of the script and format and her work within those limitations became the structure the group needed, a container…

Explains that the exercise "Pictures at an Exhibition" is designed to remind student actors of their responsibilities to the script and audience while simultaneously giving them a chance to employ the basic tools of the acting craft. Presents the activity in two rounds: (1) what do you see? and (2) painting by the numbers. (PA)

Illustrates key features of visual rhetoric as they operate in two professional academic hypertexts and student work designed for the World Wide Web. Considers how by looking at features like audience stance, transparency, and hybridity, writing teachers can teach visual rhetoric as a transformative process of design. (SG)

Presents a condensed method for involving students in the kind of theatrical problem-solving that transforms a script to a play. Describes how to incorporate a "human slide show" into the class. Notes that students must read plays not just to understand events, but to make artistic choices about how to stage the action so that an…

Notes that in rehearsals and performances, a jumble of silences are encountered. Discusses silence in the following situations: as frustration; as imposition; as invisibility; as power; as pleasure; as safety; as humility; as necessity; and as potential. Contends that when dramaturgs enter into conversation and break silence, they must carefully…

Outlines a dramaturg's process when working on three different plays. Contends that the myriad variations on the question "what will happen next?" serve as the basic architecture on which the dynamic relationship between the story/storytellers and the audience is built. Observes that the continual planning and answering of questions is…

Considers how inviting students to play Walker Gibson's "talk-back game" is an excellent way to bring the complications of appropriate tone to life. Describes three steps to incorporate Gibson's concept into the classroom. Notes that Gibson's concept considers the potential resistance of the reader. (SG)

Discusses rhetoric as mirroring psychology. Examines Aristotle's three "pisteis"--the pathetic, logical, and ethical proofs, paralleling them to Freud's id, ego, and super-ego. Explores an adequate feminine psychology and a corresponding rhetoric. Outlines two models of persuasive discourse, the rational world paradigm and the narrative…

Shows how grammar may be used conceptually to help students cultivate an understanding of the conventions of authorial presence in technical writing. (MM)

Analyzes "The Italian" (1915), an early "immigrant" film, examining its problematic relation to questions of working-class and middle-class audience composition. Shows how this film reveals that the creation of narratives suitable for diverse audiences requires continuous readjustment of an adequate mode of address. (MM)