Writing Rhetorically: Fostering Responsive Thinkers and Communicators

by Jennifer Fletcher

Overview

In Writing Rhetorically: Fostering Responsive Thinkers and Communicators, author Jennifer Fletcher aims to cultivate independent learners through rhetorical thinking. She provides teachers with strategies and frameworks for writing instruction that can be applied across multiple subjects and lesson plans. Students learn to discover their own questions, design their own inquiry process, develop their own positions and purposes, make their own choices about content and form, and contribute to conversations that matter to them.

Inside this book, Fletcher helps remove some of the scaffolding and explains how to put in practice some methods which can successfully foster:

• Inquiry, Invention, and Rhetorical Thinking
• Writing for Transfer
• Paraphrasing, Summary, Synthesis, and Citation Skills
• Research Skills and Processes
• Evidence-Based Reasoning
• Rhetorical Decision Making

Rhetorical decision making helps students develop the skills, knowledge, and mindsets needed for transfer of learning: the ability to adapt and apply learning in new settings. The more choices students make as writers, the better prepared they are to analyze and respond to diverse rhetorical situations. Writing Rhetorically shows teachers what it looks like to dig into real texts with students and novice writers and how it develops them for lifelong learning.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781625313881
Publisher:	Stenhouse Publishers
Publication date:	07/14/2021
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	7.62(w) x 9.50(h) x (d)
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

About the Author

Jennifer Fletcher is a Professor of English at California State University, Monterey Bay and a former high school English teacher. She teaches courses for first-year college students and future teachers and leads workshops on rhetorical literacy skills throughout the country. Her books include Teaching Arguments, Teaching Literature Rhetorically, and Writing Rhetorically.

Table of Contents

Foreword xi

Acknowledgments xv

Introduction: Understanding Writing as Communication and Problem Solving xvii

Chapter 1 Taking the Rhetorical Approach 1

Chapter 2 Teaching Writing for Transfer 19

Chapter 3 Preparing to Enter the Conversation 52

Chapter 4 Negotiating Different Voices and Perspectives 79

Chapter 5 Designing and Conducting Research 115

Chapter 6 Reasoning from Evidence 144

Chapter 7 Making Choices About Genre and Structure 182

Chapter 8 Revising Rhetorically 217

Conclusion: A Few Final Words 245

Appendix 247

References 281

Index 287

Editorial Reviews

If we want students to be engaged with school, if we want them to learn, they must be empowered. Writing Rhetorically does this by guiding both instructors and students through a process that results in students becoming writing ‘problem solvers,’ capable of tackling any fresh challenge that may come their way.
/ —John Warner, author of Why They Can’t Write and The Writer's Practice

Jennifer Fletcher expresses faith in young people’s ability to engage in productive struggle as they learn to craft thoughtful, passionate arguments. Writing Rhetorically will be a constant companion for writing teachers seeking to support students as they become informed, engaged, and openminded contributors to democratic discourse.
/ —Linda Friedrich, Director of Literacy, WestEd.

What if our students saw writing as the communicative dance that it is—as an opportunity for creativity, problem-solving, growth, and connection? That is the vision that Jennifer Fletcher pursues. This book comes from the heart of a teacher and the mind of a master. A must-read for any teacher of writing.
/ —Dave Stuart, Jr., author of These 6 Things

Jennifer Fletcher has helped answer the two most important questions that plague writing teachers: why do we teach the research paper? And how should I teach the research process? Every teacher who hopes to create independent writers should read this book.
/ —Tanya Baker, Director of National Programs for the National Writing Project

Writing Rhetorically is rich with guiding examples, templates, and a rhetorical voice that is warm and encouraging, though respectfully unrelenting on the best practices for teaching writing. This pedagogy not only helps student agency (I love this) but buttresses their authority and authenticity.
/ —Vershawn Ashanti Young, co-author of Other People's English

Jennifer shares practices and insights from her own teaching journey that help us feel as though we are part of a team, working together, helping students develop as writers. I have marked so many pages that my copy looks like an advertisement for sticky notes!
/ —Deborah Dean, author of Strategic Writing, Second Edition

This is a must-read for ELA teachers, curriculum specialists and all others interested in helping students think and write more fully and deeply. It offers a thorough discussion of the critical aspects of rhetorical teaching, and is packed with examples teachers can easily use and adapt to their own class needs.
/ —Judith Langer, the Vincent O’Leary Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Albany, SUNY

This book provides practical advice and suggestions for helping your students become independent, self-directed, and thoughtful writers. What a gift.
/ —Steve Graham, Regents and Warner Professor at Arizona State University and the co-editor of Best Practices in Writing, Third Edition

From the Publisher