4.1 Rhetoric
Figure 10.4: The Writing and Communication Program is the client for a senior design team project in the College of Computing. Here our Xbox Kinect Team adapts its technical information for a presentation to us in the Communication Center, explaining how avatars can provide feedback to people giving oral presentations. Photo credit: R.E. Burnett © 2012. Used with permission.
Our program is rhetorical at its core, giving attention to synergistic relationships that exist among factors such as content, context, purpose, audience, argument, organization, evidence, medium, design, and various conventions. A strong rhetorical foundation allows students and professionals alike to adapt to the conventions that differ in numerous modes and media.
How does space affect rhetorical situations for students?
The Writing and Communication Program offers instructors multiple spaces to give students opportunities to learn more about relationships between space and rhetorical situations. The Writing and Communication Program’s new home in the Hall Building offers several spaces that allow us to change students’ rhetorical situations in interesting ways. For instance, the Hall Seminar Room, which contains a single large conference table with twelve seats, offers an excellent simulation of a corporate conference room. In these spaces, students consider ways that such space affects interactions with their audience(s).
Classroom spaces and the technology in those spaces affect the rhetorical situations that we create for our students. All our classrooms are equipped, minimally, with a computer and a projector at the front of the room; in the Skiles laptop classroom and in the Hall Building, each classroom contains two projection systems. In the Skiles laptop classroom and in the Communication Center, students also have the advantages of Smart Boards as well. When students give presentations, they must plan ways to maximize the affordances of these technologies. Do they stand behind the computer podium or to the side of it, or do they use their iPad instead? During their presentations, do they use the computer to demonstrate some process or just to illustrate their claims? Figures 10.4 and 10.5 show students adapting to rhetorical situations in different classroom spaces.
Figure 10.4: Here students in Skiles 302 work in self-selected small groups to conduct a series of rhetorical analyses as they prepare for a public exhibition of their individual and small group digital photography projects. Photo credit: R.E. Burnett © 2011. Used with permission.
How does space affect rhetorical situations for professionals?
Rhetoric makes clear that professional decisions about communication—whether developing curricular materials or engaging in research—aren’t neat and easy. While digital technology isn’t essential for effective communication, in some cases, the space and the technology are virtually inseparable as in the Hall Building’s DevLab, the humanities equivalent of an R&D lab, as a space to experiment with high-end technologies for digital pedagogy and research. Postdoctoral fellows might use our DevLab to work with small groups of students, to engage in committee work, or to create their own professional presentations, ranging from podcasts to videos. The affordances of the Hall Building also enable postdoctoral fellows to engage in professional interactions in a space of their own for colloquiums, symposiums, guest speakers, presentations, and workshops—places to see rhetoric in action. For example, the Communication Commons in the Hall Building provides a large area for scholarly presentations; Figure 10.6 shows a regular programmatic colloquium session.
Figure 10.6. The Communication Commons in the Hall Building is the new space for the Writing and Communication Program’s Research into Teaching Colloquium. Photo credit: R.E. Burnett © 2013. Used with permission.