Rhetorical Velocity: A Game of Strategy and Chance

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Assignment by L. Corinne Jones, Bedford New Scholar 2020

During the Bedford New Scholars Summit, each member presented an assignment that had proven successful or innovative in their classroom. 

At my university, GTAs use Writing about Writing, which uses complex writing studies texts to get students thinking metacognitively about their rhetorical choices. Sometimes, students struggle with the readings, so I try to ground some of the dense readings in in-class games. For this assignment, students read about the concept of “rhetorical velocity,” which broadly refers to how online rhetors strategically compose texts for rapid Internet spread and re-appropriation (Ridolfo & DeVoss, 2009). Importantly, rhetorical velocity is beyond the control of the rhetor, thereby disturbing the concept of the singular author. After a scaffolded discussion defining terms, students put the concept to use in a game. In the game, students get onto teams and select attributes which can add to the rhetorical velocity of their online compositions in fictive scenarios. However, when selecting these attributes, students are unaware of consequences of their online compositions, some of which lose their team points. After the game, students discuss the rhetorical velocity of their texts and the extent to which they had control (and responsibility) over those texts and their consequences. Once students understand the concept of rhetorical velocity, they can use it in their own literacy narratives or profiles of other authors.

Background

“The term rhetorical velocity, as we deploy it in this webtext, means a conscious rhetorical concern for distance, travel, speed, and time, pertaining specifically to theorizing instances of strategic appropriation by a third party. In thinking about the concept, we drew from several definitions:

• Rapidity or speed of motion; swiftness.

• Physics: A vector quantity whose magnitude is a body's speed and whose direction is the body's direction of motion.

• The rate of speed of action or occurrence” (Ridolfo & DeVoss, 515).

Ridolfo and Devoss ultimately claim that not only the composition, but that DISTRIBUTION and CIRCULATION are a part of the writing process.

Recall that they also talk about strategies that help rhetors circulate their messages.

They talk about file format (PDFs), remixes, and we all know that hashtags and images can “go viral” too.

“Remixing—or the process of taking old pieces of text, images, sounds, and video and stitching them together to form a new product—is how individual writers and communities build common values; it is how composers achieve persuasive, creative, and parodic effects. Remix is perhaps the premier contemporary composing practice” (516). Remixing CHANGES the meaning of the text.

Questions

Remixes are tricky because they mean that other people are involved in what we circulate. So, how much control do we have over what we circulate?

Furthermore, should we also think about the ethics of the content of what we share? Is a text credible just because it has been shared or liked a lot? Is it just a popularity contest? What if what we share if false information or it bullies  someone else?

Today, we are going to play a game to explore these questions!

Game Rules

Your team picks 2 of 4 possible attributes that will enhance your rhetorical velocity. You will order these attributes as Attribute 1 and Attribute 2 and write them in the tables provided on the next page.

I will then present you with a scenario in which 2 of the possible attributes come into play and affect the rhetorical velocity of your composition. Sometimes, attributes will help your rhetorical velocity and gain your team rhetorical velocity team points. Sometimes, attributes will hinder your rhetorical velocity and lose your team rhetorical velocity points.

Your team will take some time to decide on the rhetorical attributes which you want to use for each turn and write them in the tables.

Based on the Attributes that you listed and based on the scenario presented, your Attributes will either gain or lose your team points. Attribute 1 will gain or lose your team the most points. Attribute 2 will gain or lose your team fewer points. If you list attributes that are not involved in a particular scenario, you will neither gain nor lose points.

After each scenario, there will be a bonus points lightning round where you will have 30 to name the OTHER rhetors in each scenario. Your team scribe will write these on your board in the allotted 30 seconds. You will receive an additional half point for each of the OTHER rhetors that you identify in each scenario.

Attributes

1. You remix an existing text into your composition because you believe that your audience will recognize it.

2. You use an easily accessible file format that lets others easily share and re-circulate your composition

3. You attach a catchy hashtag that summarizes your argument to your composition.

4. You incorporate an image into your composition that you think will catch the attention of your intended audience.

Game Worksheet

Scenario 1
Attribute 1
Attribute 2

Other Rhetors:

Scenario 2
Attribute 1
Attribute 2

Other Rhetors:

Scenario 3
Attribute 1
Attribute 2

Other Rhetors:

Scenario 4
Attribute 1
Attribute 2

Other Rhetors:

Scenario 5
Attribute 1
Attribute 2

Other Rhetors:

Quick Write and Discussion Questions

• How much control did you (the rhetor) have over the rhetorical velocity of your compositions in these scenarios?

• Who else was responsible for the rhetorical velocity of your compositions?

• If rhetors share some ethical responsibility for the effects of their compositions, how is their ethical responsibility complicated by the fact that they do not have complete control over how their compositions are circulated?

• What are the appropriate ethical steps for rhetors?
  

Pedagogical Justification

Scholars have contended that circulation itself is a form of writing (Dieterle, Edwards & Martin, 2019). To this end, many pedagogues have begun teaching for “rhetorical velocity,” which is “a conscious rhetorical concern for distance, travel, speed, and time, pertaining specifically to theorizing instances of strategic appropriation by a third party” (Ridolfo & DeVoss, 2009). The ultimate goal, or telos, of rhetorical velocity is virality (Bradshaw, 2018, 480). Mirroring ancient concerns about both the ethical implications of teaching rhetoric, as well as the possibility of doing so (Isocrates, 1990), some scholars have troubled how pedagogues teach for rhetorical velocity. In particular, Sheridan, Ridolfo and Michel (2012) contended that though rhetors have ethical responsibility, circulatory agency is dispersed in networks of multiple agents, and rhetors must make decisions with limited knowledge. Furthermore, both Cloud (2018) and Chaput (2020) contended that the same circulatory practices that work for activists circulating positive messages also work for people spreading hateful messages. As such, scholars have more recently advocated for a model of circulation that values “rhetorical persistence” through “slow circulation” as a complement to the viral model implicit in rhetorical velocity (Bradshaw, 2018). Dieterle et al. (2019) ultimately call for teachers to consider how to teach for slow circulation as well (210). This assignment takes up their call. I have found that the assignment does prompt important discussions among students about their ethical obligations as people who write and circulate content both online and offline.

References

Bradshaw, J. L. (2018). Slow Circulation: The Ethics of Speed and Rhetorical Persistence, Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 48(5), 479-498. DOI: 10.1080/02773945.2018.1455987

Chaput, C. (2020). Affect and Activism in The Rhetorical Context of the Post-Truth Era. In J. Lee & S. Kahn  (Eds.), Activism and Rhetoric: Theories and Contexts for Political Engagement. (2^nd ed., pp. 149-156). Routledge.

Dieterle, B. Edwards, E. & Martin, P. D. (2019). Confronting Digital Aggression with an Ethics of Circulation. In Jessica Reyman & Erika M. Sparsby (Eds.) Digital Ethics: Rhetoric and Responsibility in Online Aggression. (197-213) New York, NY: Routledge

Isocrates. (1990). Against the Sophists. In P. Bizzell, and B. Herzberg (Eds.), The Rhetorical Tradition: Readings from Classical Times to the Present, (1^st ed., pp 43-49). Boston, MA:  Bedford/St. Martin’s Press.

Ridolfo, J. & DeVoss, Dànielle Nicole. (2009). Composing for Recomposition: Rhetorical Velocity and Delivery. Kairos: A Journal of Rhetoric, Technology, and Pedagogy, 13(2). Retrieved from  http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/13.2/topoi/ridolfo_devoss/velocity.html 

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