19.8: Portfolio- Everyday Rhetoric, Rhetoric Every Day
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Write reflectively about the process of creating a script for a presentation.
- Demonstrate how the composing process affects the final product.
Reflecting on your writing enhances the writing process by allowing you to deepen your understanding of the process of drafting, revising, and evaluating. Now that you have finished another writing project, it’s time to add another section to your portfolio. Think critically about the process you followed for this assignment, reflecting on how your writing developed over time, specifically as it relates to writing for an audience.
Reflective Task
As you reflect on writing for your presentation, ask yourself the following questions:
- How did you decide on the topic and subject of your script?
- How did the research process inform the development of your thesis?
- How did you organize your outline? Why did you choose this method of organization?
- What sources did you use to develop key points?
- How did you engage the audience in the introduction of your script? What methods of engagement did you use?
- How did you build credibility and engagement with your audience?
- How did collaboration with peers help you as you wrote and revised your script?
- What specific feedback was helpful in the revision process?
- How did you incorporate structural elements such as tone, parallelism, and repetition into your writing? How did they affect the text?
- What considerations for delivery did you make within your writing?
- Did you find writing for speech more or less difficult than writing a traditional paper? In what ways?
- What might you do differently if you were to begin again or write a different script?
- What insights about your topic did you gain from writing your paper?
Further Reading
The following titles are well-known examples of script within the genre.
Churchill, Winston. “We Shall Fight on the Beaches.” 4 June 1940. International Churchill Society , winstonchurchill.org/resources/speeches/1940-the-finest-hour/we-shall-fight-on-the-beaches/.
Gandhi, Mohandas K. “The ‘Quit India’ Speech.” 8 Aug. 1942. Mahatma Gandhi One Spot Information Website , Bombay Sarvodaya Mandal / Gandhi Research Foundation, www.mkgandhi.org/speeches/qui.htm.
Gehrig, Lou. “Farewell to Baseball Address.” 4 July 1939. American Rhetoric: Top 100 Speeches , www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/lougehrigfarewelltobaseball.htm.
Kennedy, John F. “Address to Joint Session of Congress.” 25 May 1961. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum , National Archives, www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/historic-speeches/address-to-joint-session-of-congress-may-25-1961.
King, Martin Luther, Jr. “I Have a Dream.” 28 Aug. 1963. “The 1963 March on Washington,” NAACP , www.naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/1963-march-washington.
Washington, George. “Washington’s Address to Congress Resigning His Commission.” 23 Dec. 1783. Founders Online , National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-06-02-0319-0004.
Works Cited
“About.” Disability Visibility Project , 2021, disabilityvisibilityproject.com/about/.
“Access Is Love.” Disability & Intersectionality Summit , 2021, www.disabilityintersectionalitysummit.com/ access-is-love.
Bates, Jefferson D. Writing with Precision: How to Write So That You Cannot Possibly Be Misunderstood . Acropolis Books, 1985.
“Chief Joseph.” Encyclopædia Britannica , 17 Sept. 2020, www.britannica.com/biography/Chief-Joseph.
Chief Joseph. I Will Fight No More Surrender Speech (1877) . apush-xl.com/DocumentsJOSEPH.pdf.
Churchill, Winston. “We Shall Fight on the Beaches.” 4 June 1940. International Churchill Society , winstonchurchill.org/resources/speeches/1940-the-finest-hour/we-shall-fight-on-the-beaches/.
Humphrey, Judith. “Writing Professional Speeches: Seven Steps for Perfecting Your Craft.” Vital Speeches of the Day , vol. 54, no. 11, 15 Mar. 1988, pp. 343–345.
KariO. “How Long Does It Take a Plastic Bottle to Biodegrade?” Postconsumers , 31 Oct. 2011, www.postconsumers.com/2011/10/31/how-long-does-it-take-a-plastic-bottle-to-biodegrade.
Kennedy, John F. “Inaugural Address of John F. Kennedy.” 20 Jan. 1961. The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy , Yale Law School Lillian Goldman Law Library, avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/ kennedy.asp.
King, Martin Luther, Jr. “I Have a Dream, Martin Luther King Jr. Full Speech Best Audio.” 28 Aug. 1963. YouTube , uploaded by Classical Media, 26 Jan. 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARvrvJV4th4
Koch, Arthur, and Jason Schmitt. Speaking with a Purpose . 9th ed., Pearson, 2014.
Lincoln, Abraham. “The Gettysburg Address.” 19 Nov. 1863. Abraham Lincoln Online , www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm.
“A Million Bottles a Minute: World’s Plastic Binge ‘AS Dangerous as Climate Change’.” The Guardian , Guardian News and Media, 28 June 2017, www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jun/28/a-million-a-minute-worlds-plastic-bottle-binge-as-dangerous-as-climate-change.
“Parallelism.” American Rhetoric: Rhetorical Figures in Sound , created by Michael E. Eidenmuller, www.americanrhetoric.com/figures/parallelism.htm.
Pulrang, Andrew. “Frequently Asked Questions.” #CripTheVote Blog , 27 Mar. 2018, cripthevote.blogspot.com/ 2018/03/frequently-asked-questions.html.
Rapp, Christof. “Aristotle’s Rhetoric .” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy , Stanford U Center for the Study of Language and Information, 1 Feb. 2010, plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-rhetoric/.
Roosevelt, Franklin D. “FDR’s Pearl Harbor Speech (December 8, 1941).” 8 Dec. 1941. YouTube , uploaded by Audio Law Library, 20 Jan. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHsCyxdfjvQ.