The Rhetoric of Social Intervention

An Introduction

• Because the overall purpose of this book is to instruct students in the theory and methodology of the rhetorical model of social intervention, the book focuses on explaining the model's concepts and illustrating how it can be applied; it emphasizes both the conceptual and practical aspects of the RSI model.
• The textbook is geared to promoting an interactive classroom environment that encourages students' self discovery and development of critical awareness of intervention.

The textbook will include the following components to augment the textual discussion:

• Vocabulary: Each chapter will include highlighted vocabulary words and a list of those words at its end. The vocabulary words will be defined in a glossary at the end of the textbook. This component will benefit the students because along with learning the model, they must learn the "language" of that model. The vocabulary lists at the end of the chapter will offer students immediate review of key terminology for classroom discussion and quizzes.
• Examples: To illustrate the RSI model's concepts, several contemporary texts (such as a film, a book, and an event) are used continuously throughout the textbook as examples of rhetorical interventions for analysis. These texts provide the benefit of concretizing the model's abstract concepts and maintaining the students' interest and attention. In addition, using the same texts in through the book will provide a unifying sense to the textbook. Examples of texts include: "The DaVinci Code," "Fahrenheit 9/11," speeches from the Rosa Parks memorial service.
• Chapter Exercises: Each chapter includes several exercises and/or texts for analysis and reflection. These exercises benefit students by reinforcing concepts discussed in the chapter. In addition, the exercises relate to students' everyday experience to further illustrate the relevancy of the theory to their daily lives. In addition, the exercises facilitate classroom discussion on the topic and some are geared toward in-class small group work.
• "How To" Chapter: The textbook includes a chapter that describes the process of writing a rhetorical critique using the RSI model. It includes four "How To" lists—one for "Naming" and one for each of the model's dimensions—"Attention," "Power," and "Need." These "How To" lists provide a series of specific questions that students use to conduct a rhetorical analysis and critique of a social intervention. Students benefit by having a clearly explained framework for conducting the critique.
• Case Studies/Further Thoughts: The second half of the textbook features several original essays that demonstrate how students have used the RSI model to analyze and critique a variety of communication situations. These essays illustrate need, power and attention intervention analyses. The essays provide a model for how the students should write a rhetorical analysis. Instructors will benefit from having easily accessible illustrations of the model's application. Each essay includes a box of "Further Thoughts." These thoughts include reflective questions about the essay and/or the author's comments about the writing of the essay.