We as teachers for the first time will have find ways to keep the students engaged and maybe even entertained. Not laughing all semester long, but hopefully enjoy working on the essay’s along with the paths we will be taking to get there. This weeks readings gives us tips to enable us to accomplish this feat.

Last week, I was kind of dinged about rhetorical argument. I did not mean that I was not going to assign one, but that it was going to be a softer one. I believe that 1101 is about practice and learning about rhetoric. That is the main reason I am looking forward to putting into practice Susan Kirtley’s version of Invitational Rhetoric.

Kirtley borrowed the idea from Lynda Barry in her book What It Is. Invitational Rhetoric is described as non-confrontational rhetoric, not an argument but rather a basis for understanding as a basis for a relationship in which the parties come to a self-understanding. This is the type of rhetoric I want to assign. This should be an easier paper to write in first semester since it will be more of an opinion piece instead of an argument.

Alexander Reid is the director of the composition program at the State University of New York at Buffalo. As I was reading about this school, it appears that UB is comparable to Kennesaw State in it student base, teaching staff, and community proximity as well as being a well known research school. Reid, however, dismisses the traditional pedagogies of first year composition. He adopts instead the idea that current students are writers in that they text and use social media. He also makes the statement that these same students must find their own motivations for writing. I agree with this somewhat. While I agree that this is writing, it should also be recognized that the types of essays to be written in first year composition should be followed since this will be laying the foundation of what will be taught and hopefully learned over the course of the college career.

Jody Shipka gives a detailed overview of Werstch’s tool kits for teaching first year composition. Shipka lists several materials needed for three different tool boxes which include