Mikhaila Mendoza Mr. Moberly Writing 10 February 5, 2013 Ch.

2 Reading Response Part 1: In the second chapter of their book, Writing Today, authors Richard Johnson-Sheenan and Charles Paine explain that identifying the topic, angle, and purpose of a paper is necessary to be able to write the paper. Johnson-Sheenan and Paine support this explanation by using charts and examples to show the process of developing the topic, angle, and thesis statement. JohnsonSheenan and Paines purpose is to teach collegiate writers how to develop the topic and angle along with identify the purpose in order to create a thesis and guide the organization and direction of the paper. Johnson-Sheenan and Paine use an informative tone with their collegiate readers who want guidance on writing a paper. Part 2: 1) What is new or has changed recently about this topic? (Angle) This is interesting to me because Ive never heard of an angle in writing. Ive heard of topic and purpose of course. Now I know what an angle is and that it goes along with purpose and topic. 2) Then, as you begin to run out of ideas, go online and enter some of the words from your map into a search engine like Google, Yahoo!, or Bing. This sentence caught my eye because it says we can use the internet to search for ideas. In high school, using the internet for ideas wasnt encouraged. Teachers usually just wanted us to use our own ideas only. 3) The genre that fits your purpose statement will help you make strategic decisions about how you are going to invent the content of your document, organize it, develop an appropriate style, and design it for your readers. This statement is interesting to me because it shows how important the genre is for the whole paper. Without an existent genre, a paper couldnt be written. The figure above this statement gives examples of purposes and their appropriate genres too. Part 3: First, the authors introduce the five elements of the rhetorical situation. Next, they introduce topic and how to develop a topic using a concept map example. Then, they introduce angle and how to use freewriting to find the angle. After, they introduce the purpose and how to identify it in order to create the thesis statement. They also define the four major types of thesis statements and examples of each. Lastly, the authors explain how to choose the appropriate genre, using examples in Figure 2.7 to help.n

Part 4: The medium is the charts and examples given. For example, Figure 2.2 is a concept map about the topic of dating and mating in college which shows how to get ideas out and onto paper. Figure 2.6 displays the beginning of a students paper in order to show a prominent thesis statement. The audience is college students who want to improve their writing. The purpose is to teach readers how to develop and narrow topics to respond to any writing situation, develop the angle, identify the purpose, and use the identified purpose to develop a thesis sentence. Part 5: I agree that the five elements of the rhetorical situation need to be considered to help get started on a paper because it needs a basis. I also agree that creating a concept map about the topic is helpful because it helps organize ideas and get them onto paper. The topic and purpose are basics for me. However, the angle is new to me. Therefore, I cant agree or disagree with any of the statements involving angle, but it does make sense to me that an angle is needed for a paper. I like that the chapter says to look for more ideas for the concept map on the internet because sometimes I cannot think of all the ideas relating to my topic.