Exploring multimodality and transfer from the perspective of transduction (a multidisciplinary term that describes a change in form as something moves from one state to another) reveals conceptual overlap between the two concepts. Transfer is fundamentally multimodal because anything moving from one "place" to the next must change its…

This article discusses the relevance and construction of the concept of 'literariness' within pedagogy for an effective engagement with works of literature and literary theory. By juxtaposing Mikhail Bakhtin's dialogic mode of understanding, with Bhartrhari's doctrine of the "dhvani" and the "sphota," this article attempts to…

Students rarely question the relevance of most communication courses. For example, most students realize that courses focused on improving public speaking and interpersonal skills will benefit them personally and professionally after graduation. Convincing them that a rhetorical theory and criticism course is equally empowering can be a bit more…

This essay claims that contemplative classroom practices can cultivate "kairotic" composure, which is an attunement to the dual aspects of the rhetorical concept of "Kairos"--a sense of timelessness or deep presence, and a sense for saying or writing the right word in the right moment. While theorists of contemplative writing…

Courses: Advanced Public Speaking, Argumentation Theory. Objectives: This activity aims to enhance students' ability to make statistics compelling and persuasive.

This article describes an activity in which students will be able to apply rhetorical theory effectively and critically from specific theorists throughout history to modern-day issues. Through a simulated trial of a current figure, this activity makes connections between rhetorical theories to current affairs, thereby inviting students to consider…

This article examines Donald M. Murray's ideas about what he considered the essential solitude of all writing and what happens within that solitude. Murray, a pioneer of the process and modern expressivism movements in composition, identified a number of forces that he felt were at work within his mind whenever he wrote; this complicated aloneness…

Although educational researchers predominately study complex, multidimensional problems, research findings and proposed arguments can sometimes be characterized as definite, simplified, and prone to particular types of answers or expected outcomes. The authors seek to problematize these definite and simplified notions of answers by looking at some…

Traditional rhetoric attempts to find the available means of persuasion in public assemblies, law courts and ceremonials and is grounded in cultural values and beliefs. Traditional rhetoric supports the development of social communities and posits education as a primary means of maintaining these communities. In contrast, contemporary alternatives…

Design is a rhetorical activity that requires creative thinking in response to difficult situations. That creative work ultimately builds new relationships and new contexts. Sustainable design can become an approach to composition that alters ways of thinking about writing situations, keeping ethical and contextual factors in focus, and…

For some time, it has been clear that students who are tutored generally learn more than students who experience classroom instruction (e.g., Bloom, 1984). Much research has been devoted to identifying features of tutorial dialogue that can explain its effectiveness, so that these features can be simulated in natural-language tutoring systems. One…

Walter Ong tells us that the noetic--the rhetorical characteristics of feeling, sensation, and intuition applied to a given communicative situation or act--stems from the oral tradition. The noetic contrasts with the print legacy of argument in which "teaching something is the same as 'proving' it'" ("Ramus" 156). Ong's sense…

The study of bullshit, what the author calls "taurascatics", has been making a splash of late. It was Harry Frankfurt who tossed the stone: his essay "On Bullshit" came out in "Raritan" in 1986, hit the "New York Times" best-seller list as a book in 1995, and has been adopted, adapted, and criticized across the academy since. The ripples spread…

Information design has practical and theoretical components. As an academic discipline we may view information design as a combined discipline, a practical theory, or as a theoretical practice. So far information design has incorporated facts, influences, methods, practices, principles, processes, strategies, and tools from a large number of…

Contrastive rhetoric studies the writing of second language learners to understand how it is affected by their first language and culture. The field of contrastive rhetoric is as multidimensional as second language writing is complex. It draws on the work of contrastive analysis, anthropology, linguistics, pedagogy, culture studies, translation…