Week 1 — Readings & Resources · The Writing Process & the Rhetorical Situation

Course: English Composition (ENGL 1A) · Silver Oak University (fictional sample) · Prof. Lindgren
Objective covered: Objective 1 — Analyze the rhetorical situation and approach writing as a recursive process.

How to use this page

Everything here is a link to an external resource — open it in your browser, the same way you'd open a YouTube link. Nothing needs to be downloaded, and there is nothing to buy.

This week's load is deliberately light: 2 short readings + 1 video, grouped by the two big ideas, plus one optional free reference. Read or watch one item per group and you're ready for the quiz; do all of them and you'll be very comfortable. Total time is roughly 35–45 minutes if you do everything, far less if you pick one per group.

Reading order that matches the lecture: ① the rhetorical situation (who/whom/why/what/when) → ② the writing process (invent → draft → revise → edit → reflect).

A habit to start now: before you write anything this term, ask the four situation questions from class — Who's my reader? What's my purpose? What genre is this? What's the occasion? — and remember that your first draft is supposed to be rough.

① The Rhetorical Situation

Maps to Lecture Segments 2 & 5. Every piece of writing has a writer, an audience, a purpose, a genre, and a context — and strong writers adjust all of their choices to fit.

Reading — "Rhetoric and Your Writing: An Introduction" (Excelsior OWL)
🔗 https://owl.excelsior.edu/blog/rhetoric-and-your-writing-an-introduction/
Why it's assigned: the cleanest plain-language introduction to rhetoric as "assessing a situation and knowing how to communicate well within it" — exactly the writer/audience/purpose framing we drew in class. (Excelsior OWL is a free, college-run writing lab.)
⏱ ~7 min

Optional companion — "Thinking Rhetorically" (Excelsior OWL)
🔗 https://owl.excelsior.edu/argument-and-critical-thinking/argument-analysis/argument-analysis-thinking-rhetorically/
Why it's here: a short walk through audience, purpose, and voice with examples — handy if you want one more pass on the situation before the quiz.
⏱ ~6 min

② The Writing Process

Maps to Lecture Segment 3. Writing is a loop — invent, draft, revise, edit, reflect — not a single sprint. The line to carry out of this week: revision re-sees; editing cleans up.

Reading — "The Writing Process" (Purdue OWL)
🔗 https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/the_writing_process/index.html
Why it's assigned: the standard, no-nonsense overview of the stages — prewriting (invention), organizing, drafting, and revising/proofreading — from the most widely used writing lab in the country. Notice how it treats revising and proofreading as different jobs.
⏱ ~8 min

Video — "The Writing Process | Rhetoric & Composition | Study Hall" (ASU + Crash Course)
🔗 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEe7WZnEj60
Why it earns the click: a lively, first-year-composition-specific tour of how real writers move (and loop back) through the process — formal and informal, messy and recursive. From the Study Hall Rhetoric & Composition series we'll return to all term.
⏱ ~10 min

Want the big-picture version first? The series opener — "Introduction to Rhetoric and Composition" (Study Hall) 🔗 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeGesJgnNH4 — frames why rhetoric is "all around us." Optional, ~9 min.

Optional one-stop reference (free online text)

If you'd like one optional reference to skim all term, the OpenStax Writing Guide with Handbook keeps its full text free to read online — a reputable, currently-available college writing reference covering the writing process, the rhetorical situation, every major essay type, and an MLA section we'll use later.
🔗 https://openstax.org/details/books/writing-guide
Why it's here: a free, returnable reference for the whole course — entirely optional this week. (Linked as a free reference; this course makes no open-license or copyright claim about it.)

Pick-one quick path (≈17 min total)

In a hurry? Do exactly these two and you'll be ready for the quiz:
1. Read "Rhetoric and Your Writing: An Introduction" (group ①).
2. Watch "The Writing Process | Study Hall" (group ②).

Heads-up (links rot): these point to outside sites that occasionally move or rename pages. If a link ever fails, tell Prof. Lindgren and use the free OpenStax reference above in the meantime. Nothing here is hosted by our course — these are all external resources, linked, not reproduced.