Teaching Strategies for Eliciting an Awareness that Conventions Vary

Rhetorical Situation Analysis: Require students to analyze writing from two different rhetorical situations, facilitating comparison of the writing samples in a later reflective assignment.

Interview with a panel of writers from several disciplines

Repurposing a project for a different audience

• Students could re-compose a work for a different audience and/or purpose.
  • A formal academic paper à a summative memo for a supervisor à a presentation for a high school class, supported by a PowerPoint and a handout
  • A formal academic paper à a poster presentation for SURF
  • A Pendulum article à a feature piece for an admissions brochure
• Teachers can enhance these projects by requiring reflective essays in which students explain the choices they made for each form of the project. How are they appealing to their audiences? What did they add/cut and why? How did their use of evidence change? Etc.

Tags: conventions