Week 2 Journal

How are rhetorical situations and genre connected? What can our understanding of rhetorical situation and genre help us to understand everyday writing?

For a situation to be rhetorical it must have many different factors that make it successful. Of these the one factor that I find to be most relevant in connection to genre is when Bitzer says that a rhetorical situation must essentially be fueled by discourse, or by discussion and debate, insofar as that discourse provides a fitting response to the situation. In Dirk's, "Navigating Genre," he refers back to Bitzer, summarizing, "when something new happens that requires a response, someone must create that first response." Throughout Dirk's article, he references that genres are repeated rhetoric, and the situations that form the genre give them that rhetoric. Alongside of this, both Bitzer and Dirk both say that rhetoric, rhetorical situations, and genres should and ultimately do shape our everyday lives.

As rhetorical situations and genres shape our everyday lives, according to Bitzer and Dirk, there is no question as to whether or not they both will help us to understand everyday writing. Genres are essential to our world whether in the shows that we watch, the books that we read, or the Facebook posts, Tweets, and Tumblr posts, or any other type of everyday media that we encounter, because they help us to define what we like, what we don't like, or what is essential to understanding the world around us in our daily lives. Genres are defined by the rhetorical situation they are derived from as Dirk says. If it weren't for George Washington, the genre of the State of the Union Addresses wouldn't have been made. Now they are a part of our daily lives, once a year, and the rhetorical situations that each varying speech are made from come from the events (i.e. the pertinent situations from our world that we discuss and debate) from our daily lives. Everyday writing is a genre that is fueled by discourse that is derived from a situation that had become rhetorical in some sense and therefore we should be able to understand everyday writing if we learn to find the rhetorical situation and genre of the piece.