Because writing is a social act. By framing writing as a conversation,
Joining the Conversation helps students connect the writing and researching they already do online to source-based academic assignments and real-world writing projects. It enables students to become active participants in the exchange of ideas — with their peers, in the classroom, and in the world.
The first rhetoric to reflect how technology has fundamentally changed writing. For students, composing, collaborating, and doing research start online and constantly evolve, changing both how writing happens and what it looks like.
Joining the Conversation incorporates these new practices to show students how design, collaboration, and using sources are integral parts of the composing process.
Assignment chapters that focus on purpose and genre, supported by visuals and plenty of help for writing. - Each assignment chapter establishes a distinct writer’s role — the Observer, the Reporter, the Interpreter, the Reviewer, the Problem Solver, and the Advocate — to help make purposes for writing more concrete for students.
- Detailed, process-centered support for writing in each assignment chapter offers specific, accessible strategies for finding a conversation to join, gathering information, and preparing a draft.
- The opening spread of each assignment chapter, Genres in Conversation, juxtaposes three documents on the same topic and encourages students to analyze how genre influences design choices.
- Extended examples from a real student writer in each chapter suggest ways to approach sticky points in the composing process, such as coming up with a topic, outlining, and peer review.
An array of readings that mixes public and academic, traditional and multimodal. To illustrate the variety of genre, tone, and style within each writing purpose, assignment chapters include an inspiring range of selections, from essays to brochures, Web sites, and even video and audio (in the e-Book), by authors such as Rick Bragg, Wangari Maathai, Stephen King, and Virginia Postrel.
More digital choices start at the Joining the Conversation Student Center, bedfordstmartins.com/ conversation. In one convenient place, you’ll find free and open content — from activities to student samples and reliable research links — as well as our innovative premium media. Do more and pay less with the e-book that includes multimodal readings. Explore
Re:Writing Plus, our collection of premium media, such as
Video Central, with over 50 brief videos about writing. But if you want it all, along with assignment and assessment tools, check out
CompClass for Joining the Conversation at yourcompclass.com.