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EN 595

Classical "Topoi" and the Academic Commonplace.

An investigation of the various ways the term "topos" is used in classical rhetoric reveals the limited range of invention strategies offered by academic discourse pedagogy. Donald Bartholmae's work on basic writing addresses the relationship of the commonplace to topical invention within academic discourse. Investigation of the history of rhetoric reveals five categories of topoi: (1) dialectical; (2) particular; (3) propositional; (4) common; and (5) predicable. The belief that composition students should have access to a wide range of invention strategies justifies investigation of any academic discourse pedagogy that focuses on the particular and the propositional topoi of a specific discipline at the expense of the variety of common and predicable topoi shared by all disciplines. Composition courses should offer students an introduction to the general means of persuasion under the genus "topoi." Instructors should also introduce students to the two species of general and specific topoi; and to their further sub-species, the dialectical, the common, the predicable, the particular, and the propositional. Students should move from the general to the specific, from a wide range of general strategies for analyzing whatever knowledge they discover and produce in any rhetorical situation in and outside academia to an understanding that specific discourse communities in and outside academia expect particular means of persuasion. (SAM)

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Desired Outcomes 6 media 2015-05-04T13:00:47-07:00
Based on the completion of my project, my desired outcomes are the following:

EMBODIED COMMUNICATIVE PRACTICE
- To bridge the gap between "actual" vs. "virtual" embodied visual communicative practice in recognizing the humanizing capacities emoji use offers both inside of a SMS space and in "actual" communication practice. In recognizing the exchange of emoji use as a relationship in which there is a recipient on each end, students expand their notions of literacy and etiquette in how to thoughtfully compose and interact with one another in a way that embodies their SMS composing practices.
A RHETORIC OF COMMONPLACE
- To create a topoi that seeks to allocate for a diverse perspective of student voices to be heard. The emoji is the topoi (or common place) in which students can create a better cultural awareness in the different rhetorical strategies and learn new ways of constructing narratives and stories based on inherently visual and socially practices that give students rhetorical agency
EXPANDED TECHNOLOGY LITERACY
- To gain a better understanding of the different cultural interpretations and applications of emoji use in particular social and discourse-specific context by expanding literacy in emoji use within the classroom.
MULTIMODAL COLLABORATION & CHALLENGE CIRRICULUM
- Based on the findings, to be able to infuse emoji use in multimodal projects within the composition classroom in such a way that aims to enhance the voices of our students that have been silenced due to a hegemonizing tradition of valued written discourse over visual.
My argument within this line of research is that this visual communicative practice is culturally-specific in rhetorical choices within the composition process. In not only adapting the hardware to be more racially inclusive, but also to seek to assert and understand the different cultural implications of emoji use within the composition classroom, students can begin to see visual rhetoric as an embodied practice which expands their technology literacy which can work to bridge the gap between "actual" and "virtual" composing.