PREPARATION FOR 1/15 (GRANT-DAVIE & BAZERMAN)

Hello, Everyone:

I thank you for an engaging discussion today, as we just scratched the surface on what it means (or can mean) to analyze and theorize a whole discourse situation, taking into account text, context, intertext, metatext, and network. Next week, the fun truly begins, as we move fairly quickly into thinking about principles underlying the various spheres we will study, and how those principles are enacted through logic, language, and other things. As you work your way through Grant-Davie's discussion of "rhetorical constituents" and Charles Bazerman's demonstration of "intertextuality," try to be mindful of how they are communicating such abstract concepts to us. They work hard at it, and I think they make them fairly accessible.

Here are some discussion questions that may help you read in advance of Tuesday's class:

1. Grant-Davie seems to be interested in something he calls "causality," or "the extent to which the world is not chaotic, but ordered, a place where actions follow patterns and things happen for good reasons" (264). He also tells us that his preference -- as a writing professor -- is to help students develop "a stronger basis for making composing decisions" and for understanding the decisions of other writers (264). How does he argue for this, i.e., what can you locate as his main claims (or evidences)?
2. Why do you think Grant-Davie uses "constituents," and not "subjects" or "agents"? I imagine terminology matters in an article like this one. So I'll be interested in seeing you identify any new terms (to you), or terms whose usage in this article is unfamiliar to you. Look them up and try to understand their purpose in this article.
3. Bazerman describes six kinds of intertextual techniques (which is a pretty good list) (88-90). Thinking deeply about other texts you have read, composed, encountered, or edited, I wonder what other techniques you might add to this list? It's possible that your own examples would still be subsumed under his six techniques, but I'm curious whether we can imagine a text situation that inspires us to name a new technique, one not already thought of, or to describe its intertextuality in different ways.
4. Now do the same of what he describes as "levels of intertextuality" (86-88). What constitutes a "level"?
5. In the final part of his article ("Further Reading"), Bazerman names the theorists who have influenced the concept of "intertext," raising some interesting concerns about origins of ideas, authorship, readership, and audience construction. In class, I'll ask us to think about how these roles (and situations) can get complicated through intertextuality.
6. Does Bazerman's "intertextuality" in any way complicate -- or clarify -- the distinctions between Grant-Davie's terms (exigence, rhetor, audience, constraint)?

-Prof. Graban