A unique focus on "real-world" examples. Chapter introductions offer numerous brief "everyday" examples of the nine classic rhetorical methods — such as a weather forecast, a restaurant review, and bilingual and pictorial instructions for installing drywall — that help students see how they are already familiar with and comfortable using these patterns.
Engaging classic and contemporary readings. The 65 textual readings, including at least one student essay in each chapter, have been chosen with an eye toward stimulating student interest with contemporary topics and writers as well as offering instructors traditional favorites by writers like M. Scott Momaday, Barbara Ehrenreich, and Malcolm X.
Sustained attention to visual rhetoric. More than 80 photographs, drawings, ads, screen shots, and other images feature prominently in chapter introductions, as accompaniments to text readings, and as readings in themselves. The book helps students learn to analyze visual elements critically and see how they can use them in their own writing.
More opportunities for writing and collaboration than any other rhetorical reader. Besides the questions and assignments that accompany readings, Making Sense provides prompts throughout each chapter introduction that ask students to begin writing as they are being introduced to a new rhetorical method. Many questions and assignments call on students to work with classmates.
An emphasis on issues of literacy. Building on Cheryl Glenn's research in this field, the book brings home to students the centrality of reading and writing in their lives both in and out of the classroom. Each chapter begins with a writing prompt to focus students' attention on literacy and includes at least one selection on a literacy-related topic.