by Dana Blair

Sometimes it can be hard for students to grasp the idea of the rhetorical situation. Writing happens between themselves, their laptop, and the screen, right? The rhetorical situation comes up in every composition class I teach, and each time I introduce the idea via this discussion activity:

The Rhetorical Wintergatan Marble Machine

Step 1:

Load the Wintergatan Marble Machine video and display it on the projector. Make sure the sound is working!

Step 2:

Before beginning the video, ask your students to watch for answers to the question: “What is making the music?” Maybe even write the question on the board. Encourage them to take notes as they watch.

Step 3:

Watch the video together:

Step 4:

After the video has ended, make a list on the board of the answers students found. Once they have exhausted their ideas, push them to think more broadly. What about YouTube? Binary code? Our eardrums? The musician’s elementary school music class? Etc.

Step 5:

Referring to a specific text, like the syllabus, erase the board and write the question: “What is making the text?” Ask the students to list ideas and write them on the board.

Step 6:

Discuss the idea of the rhetorical situation. I like to use the definitions found in Keith Grant-Davie’s article “Rhetorical Situations and Their Constituents.”

Step 7

Once you are finished, return to the list of answers and see if, as a class, you can expand it. Ask the class: Which of these items could be considered a rhetor? The audience? Exigence? Constraints? Why?

Let me know in the comments if you have any questions I can answer! My students always enjoy this activity. I made it into a team challenge once with a particularly quiet class, and they got competitive and  filled the whole board with elements of the rhetorical situation. I was just glad they were finally talking!

Happy teaching!

-Dana Blair

Dana Blair is a PhD student studying Rhetoric, Composition, and Literacy. When she is not teaching or in class, Dana and her husband can likely be found hiding in their room, binge-watching shows and eating ice cream, as their five kids and/or dog and cat try to break in.