This is Rhetorical

C. Shackett | Hofstra University

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Welcome to An Analysis

I chose to apply Keith Grant-Davie’s article on the different aspects of a text to my reflection on my time at my high school for my school newspaper. I wrote this article at the end of my senior year in order to express my gratitude to the time and experience I had gotten from kindergarten to twelfth grade. It was important to me to let my hometown know what it had been like to truly be part of the Northwestern community (and also, I had to write an article for every month. By the end of my senior year I could only be bothered to write about things I truly cared about. You can read my article here).

Keith Grant-Davie’s article, “Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents”, is featured in Writing About Writing: A College Reader by Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. In his article, he dissects the different aspects of what goes into a text being written and how that affects various aspects of the text as well: the rhetor, exigence, audience, and constraints. Being “the rhetor” (which you can find more details on inside of this blog) of a piece of a text myself, I could apply what Grant-Davie discussed to my own writing.

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Ultimately:

After applying everything: my influence as a rhetor, my exigence, constraints, and expected audience, I had applied that so many factors come into play that bend and stretch even something as personal as a senior reflection. It came to show me that while in the process, I was the only one writing the piece, there were a multitude of reasons why the final product was as unique and specific to a single topic as it was. The rhetor (or rhetors) come together to create more than just a singular production of a text. The constraints can sway the way an audience views it, while the expected audience itself explains why the author chose to wrote the way that they did. Meanwhile, exigence is the basis of why a text was written to begin with. Behind each of Keith Grant-Davie’s aspects is an underlying method to how writing is a complex tool no matter how it is being used.

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The Girl Behind the Research

My name is Christina Shackett, and I’m a freshman at Hofstra University. This project is for my WSC class with Professor Efthymiou. It was fun getting to connect an aspect from my high school into this class. I’m from a small town in Pennsylvania called New Tripoli. Mostly, I tell people that I’m outside of Allentown or Dorney Park, whichever they know. Reading my essay about this town and the small school I went to brings feelings from home into college. It’s been a transition coming from the country to here, but all that I’ve been looking for nonetheless. As a Public Relations major and potential Dance minor, Hofstra has been the perfect combination for myself. In my time here, I’m part of Danceworks and Imani Dance Ensemble, both of which have helped me incorporate my love of dance into my college life.

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Keith Grant-Davies Article: My Source Itself

If you’re interested in learning more, here is where all of this helpful information came from. My work derives from this article.

Grant-Davie, Keith. "Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents." Writing About Writing: A College Reader. Ed. Elizabeth Wardle and Doug Downs. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2014. 347-361. Print.

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Thank You, Northwestern: The Article

One of my most vivid memories from my youth is a line from one of my elementary school teachers. “Don’t take your experiences here for granted,” she warned. “Because before you know it your time at Northwestern will be over and you’ll be wishing for all of it back.” Her words were wasteful, because for kindergarteners, 2015 seemed like an eternity away and the only longevity we knew was the length of a single day. Twelve years was unfathomable.

As a senior at Northwestern Lehigh now, and as my time as a tiger comes to a close, I can’t help but reflect back on this incredible phrase of wisdom. I never predicted how quickly my fourth grade graduation, my eighth grade formal, my first day of high school, or, more recently, my last football game, homecoming, and semester would speed by.

It’s hard to explain the beginning of my life at Northwestern. While my elementary years were nothing that I even thought to appreciate, it’s now that I wish I would have paid a little more attention. I let my time in elementary school slip away, because I never realized what those days as a Weisenberg Walker or the moments spent sitting on the stairs before school plays would mean to me in the future (even if at the time I wanted nothing more for the cliché play practices to end). Even at the end of fourth grade, when we finally got to sit on chairs instead of cross-legged on the floor at the end of year assembly, I had no recognition for what I would dearly miss in the future or what I had gained in my time there – because at Northwestern, the people I had become friends with in elementary school would grow to be my almost-family now.

While middle school sped by, I had no idea how quickly time would move by the time I got to high school. In my first weeks as a freshman, it was hard to comprehend that the unfamiliar halls I was currently in would be the last building I would spend my time in at Northwestern. And while everyone told me that my four years would speed by and that it was crucial to make every second count, it was easier to just pray for every week to end.

That’s the thing about high school that I’ve been told a million times: Don’t let your time in high school go by unacknowledged. I’ll admit, I probably didn’t spend every second the way I wanted to. There were times when I decided to stay at home during a school event or social outing, and here’s some advice to future tigers and even current ones: you’ll be able to get back those couple hours of sleep. But a homecoming dance, your last football game, that will never happen again. Looking back on my Tiger Pack pictures from the fall seems unreal, and let me tell you, when you walk away from that stadium in perfect silence for the last time, it will leave you wondering where all of your years went. You’ll hear it from the alumni and teachers, there is something so great about this high school that is more than just being able to know everyone and the small-town pride that comes with it. The atmosphere that comes with all of these events, even though I’m sure will stick with me, is something I’ll miss being a direct part of. And there are the infamous things about Northwestern I can’t say I’ll exactly miss, but will always serve as a fond memory. Honestly, the thought of never having to use the Potters again is liberating. Not needing to worry about first period gym is something I’m literally thankful for. And the fact that I won’t have to get stuck behind slow-moving freshmen in the hallway (seriously, pick a lane) or try to persuade underclassmen to give me their spare change just to get a snack at the school store gives me life.

But mostly, my time at the high school has included some of the most incredible moments of my life. It’s stereotypical, tedious almost, to be part of a high school student section. But I don’t think I would have wanted to be smashed together in unbearable humidity, pouring rain, and frigid temperatures with anyone else. There are the projects that take hours to complete and are normally only used for busy time, but without them I wouldn’t have had the study groups and gatherings that usually result in an excuse to get pizza. There were the high school dances that you spend months stressing over it – but I can’t emphasize enough how when it actually happens, screaming to “Stacy’s Mom” with all of your best friends will be worth it.

While these events have and will define the most prominent parts of my education, there are some indescribable moments I’ve had in my life in New Tripoli. Ones that are remembered out of the blue in quiet reflection, the ones that are brought back to life by a simple phrase or the song that comes on the radio. And while my classmates and I speak of our excitement for the years to come, we can’t help but to look to the future with bittersweet recognition of the school that has become our home.

Being raised in New Tripoli like most students here, I had little to no gratitude for the area that I lived in – the red barns that are dulled from age but stand out so prominently when the snow layers the ground, the sprawling fields without cease or seam except for the singular tree that seems to reside in all of them. It has become part of my background, but in detail, it has become so much more than that.

New Tripoli has been my ten o’clock Chinese food runs. My seven a.m. Bagel Bunch trips in groggy dazes, my thirty minute car rides to get anywhere besides a gas station and a Subway. It has been my moments spent sitting at the top of the Knob, looking over the valley where everything I love resides. New Tripoli has been the summer nights screaming to the music with my best friends, or being able to hear the marching band practicing for those Friday Nights from my backyard.

The thing is, when I leave for New York in the fall, and possibly move away as an adult, or even find a new location to fall in love with in the far future, New Tripoli (and with it, Northwestern) will always be home to me. I don’t think it’s possible to forget the little town that gave me life, raised me, and taught me to appreciate the littlest details. Because even after spending six months writing this reflection, it’s still impossible to put into words how my time here has affected me. Being a tiger has been the best thirteen years I could have ever asked for – and with that, thank you, Northwestern, for being my home. I wouldn’t have wanted to grow up anywhere else.

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The Rhetor(s)

Around January of 2015, my newspaper advisor started dealing out assignments for our last couple of writings of the school year. For the last issue of our school newspaper, which would be in May, I decided to write a reflection on the time I had spent in our high school. I was the primary rhetor of this reflection. Keith Grant-Davie describes a rhetor as “[...] as much constituents of their rhetorical situations as are their audiences [...] rhetors need to consider who they are in a particular situation and be aware that their identity may vary from situation to situation” (354). In other words, a rhetor is, most simply, the author of a piece or someone who influenced the final outcome in anyway. However, every rhetor in particular affects the text in a different way, aspect, and amount. The time I spent writing and editing it took up to probably around 48 hours, spanned out over four months. As a primary rhetor, I mostly wanted to take time to write how much my time there had meant to me as well as use this opportunity to express the importance of time as an author to others. There is this more expansive way I affected my piece, but also realistically, I was a newspaper writer with a deadline to meet. Ultimately, I am the primary author of my article because I supplied the most imput on the major discourse of the article. On second inspection, there is more than just my writing that contributed as being a rhetor. When you take a step back, my newspaper advisor, Lisa Opolsky, is also a rhetor considering that it was under her influence, decision, and editation that my article ended up being published in the school newspaper. When stuck at a tricky part or when I simply needed that final word, her comments combined with my writing make her a rhetor in this reflection as well. Even farther down the line, I had friends and other newspaper staff who also input their small opinions to my essay, which caused me to make small changes to my words. Ultimately, there are many rhetors behind every piece of text, who influence the way that an audience is reading the piece as it is published.

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Exigence

Exigence is the most complex term that Keith Grant-Davie explains in his article. Simply, it is the reason an author wrote about what he/she did. Grant-Davie states “[...] stases provide a natural sequence of steps for interrogating a subject. This sequence proceeds from questions of fact and difinition (establishing that the subject exists and characterizing it) through questions of cause and effect (identifying the source of the subject and its consequences) and questions of value (examining its importance or quality)” (351). The discourse, or reason, of a text is a large part of the exigence. However, it is a very expansive way that it builds up to exigence: the discourse affects it in many aspects. In regards to my article, Grant-Davie starts by “what the discourse concerns” (352). My article is a take on how my school district and town affected my time in kindergarten to twelfth grade. It is mostly concerned with the aspects of my life at Northwestern Lehigh and New Tripoli that made it special enough to write an article about in in our school newspaper. This brings us to another aspect of exigence, where Grant-Davie asks why the discourse is needed, or what caused the text to even be brought about (353).  Tiger Talk, which had been re-started that year and which I took a keen interest in, was right down my alley and interests. Since I was also in yearbook, and the advisor was Mrs. Opolsky for both clubs, I decided to get into the deadlines and writings for my senior year. We were required to write once a month, normally assigned but sometimes allowed to choose. When my advisor gave me the go-ahead to choose what I wanted to write about for our last article, I could only be burdened at the peak of my senioritis to write about something I actually cared about. At the time, that was my raging feelings about graduating from the only school I ever knew. So lastly, this brings us to the purpose of a discourse: for me, it was only to cope with these feelings by showing gratitude to my community. There was no better way than in a publishment that would reach not only my immediate teachers and peers, but maybe those who have never met me but still share these feelings (audience). My exigence -- or as Grant-Davie states, “the rhetor’s sense that a situation both calls for discourse and might be resolved by discourse” (351), boils down to an author’s motivation when writing a piece. Exigence can be realistic, such as a deadline, or can be trying to solve an unspoken feeling. However, it can also be to prove a point, or to answer a question. Mine was a way to express myself to more than just those around me, because I felt Northwestern was much more important to me than that.

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Constraints

Taking time to look back at what I had written and how my personal situation could have affected how my text was viewed, there in one point that could be both a hinderance and support. While Writing About Writing defines constraints as “factors that limit or focus the response to the exigence” (348), Keith Grant-Davie goes on to state that “[constraints] working either for or against a rhetor’s objectives” (357). Basically, a constraint could be something that either supported what you were writing about, or extracted from what you were trying to prove. For example, writing about why there should be free college for all as a college student could have both negative and positive constraints: one being that since you are a college student, you just don’t want to have to pay the money, or since you are a college student, you understand how incredibly difficult it is to actually pay for college.  I had attended Northwestern from kindergarten to my senior year. In this time, I had developed a love for the school that I attempted to explain in my article. Because of my longevity to the school, it could influence the text in two ways. It could be seen as a support. I had been at the school long enough to know the best parts of it. Meanwhile, others could see this loyalty as oblivion that anything else could be better than the only thing that I know. Also, the mere fact that I was writing for a school newspaper could be a constraint: meaning that the only reason I was writing the article was to meet a deadline.

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Audience

The audience for this piece was expansive, but regardless, all special to the piece itself. As Keith Grant-Davie states, “Audience as a rhetorical concept has transcended the idea of a homogenous body of people who have stable characteristics and are assembled in the rhetor’s presence” (355). Basically, when one thinks of an audience, it is just the people directly in front of them, who have tangibly shown interest in whatever piece or idea you have offered. However, when one more deeply considers what makes up an audience, there is much more to that body of people than those inside of a theatre: there are the ones who wished to have gotten tickets, those who plan on coming another way, or have watched it in a different format. Of course, in this sense, there are the people who I had physically shown my piece, and those who my text is directed towards, or who I think will read or discuss it. As Grant-Davie says, “A discourse may have primary and secondary audiences, audiences that are present and those that have yet to form...” (355). There are many audiences. A  more obvious, physical audience, and those who expand outside of your knowledge. My primary audience in this text was the people who I showed it to first-hand: some of my close friends, and my newspaper editing team, including our advisor. They helped me through the exhausting editing and revising stages, reading my text almost as much if not more. My secondary audience was the group of people I never actually saw. Since it was published in our school’s newspaper, assumedly students of Northwestern Lehigh were an audience, along with teachers, staff, and families of Northwestern students. Also part of this secondary audience was community members or alumni who still checked Tiger Talk.