• Focus on a purpose
• Respond to the needs of different audiences
• Respond appropriately to different kinds of rhetorical
situations
• Use conventions of format and structure appropriate to the
rhetorical situation
• Adopt appropriate voice, tone, and level of formality
• Understand how genres shape reading and writing
• Write in several genres
Rhetorical
Knowledge is learning all sorts of genres, entertaining your audience, setting
a tone and stating a purpose. Anytime you are learning to tell stories through
writing, you must state the purpose and make sure to keep the audience
intrigued by what you’re saying. It can be hard telling a story without getting
off subject. 3 questions I learned to ask myself before I started my story were
when, where and what so I could answer those questions in full detail then
creating a story cloud for my paragraphs. Formatting and structure are very
different than your normal everyday writing to a friend or family member. Structure
helps you stay on track with your writing and without it, you can drift all
over the paper like I did in a few of my assignments and like I've probably
done in my portfolio. My first paper I wrote this year was a food memoir. I
enjoyed writing it because I knew that a lot of people could relate since it
had to do with family and food. I learned a lot during the writing process of
my food memoir by learning the new format and creating the correct structure
for my memoir.
"My dad has always been really good in the kitchen creating different foods. He has always taken pride in his cooking and enjoyed teaching my brothers and me how to create many different meals from scratch. My dad would switch a few ingredients around in his twice baked potatoes which made them better and better every Sunday. My dad would bake the potatoes then scoop the inside of the potato out into a mixing bowl. He would then add ricotta cheese, other cheeses, minced garlic, horseradish and a variety of seasonings into the mixing bowl with the potato. Then, he would add the potato filling back into the potato shells and add a layer of cheese over the potato. They were ooey-gooey cheesy and rich. I loved the taste of the ricotta cheese because it has a thick texture. The potatoes could be paired with anything and would still be the main item on the plate. I always wanted to eat the entire tray of twice baked potatoes over anything else."
In my
memoir, this paragraph can catch a lot of different audiences’ attention since it’s
related to food and family. I wanted to make sure to capture the twice baked
potatoes so the audience could taste it. I also wanted to capture the love and
attention my dad gave my brothers and me. I also formatted and used good
structure creating my memoir. By learning how to use rhetorical knowledge I
succeeded in telling a story to a variety of audiences, capturing details of
that time in my life and I created a tone that showed how much this time in my
life meant to me.
