Writing Moves is a comprehensive first-year writing text that guides students both in studying contemporary literacy practices and in building their own repertoire of strategies for writing effectively in many different contexts, both academic and beyond. The book’s title captures two of its central tenets. First, that writing effectively is a matter of making particular moves in response to dynamic contexts rather than applying static templates. And second, that writing itself moves, circulating through contexts and changing shape along the way.
With chapters organized around inquiry-based prompts, students engage in an ongoing investigation into the new literacies emerging in and being shaped by the digital practices of various private, public, and academic contexts. Through that investigation students learn and continue to practice the skills of observing new contexts and conversations and deciding from those observations how to successfully communicate in them.
Writing Moves constitutes a sustained inquiry into what it means to become a writer who is rhetorically aware and who can deploy a variety of strategies to compose effectively in the print and digital contexts of the twenty-first century.
Table of Contents
Part I: Local Contexts and Conversations
1. Navigating Changing Literacy Contexts
2. Narrating Digital Literacy Experiences
3. Reading Rhetorical Situations
4. Capturing Identity in a Profile
5. Building Knowledge Collaboratively in Online Communities
6. Connecting Local Practices to the Wider Culture
7. Questioning Community Conventions
8. Analyzing Discourse Communities
Part II: Publicly Circulating Compositions
9. Joining Public Conversations in Digital Contexts
10. Practicing Rhetoric in Digital Spaces
11. Building Public Knowledge through Online Articles
12. Evaluating Cultural Productions in a Digital Age
13. Analyzing Literature as Cultural Critique
14. Reading Visual Culture
15. Claiming Positions in Digital Contexts
16. Putting Data to Work
Part III: Researching in Context
17. Planning Research in Context
18. Finding and Evaluating Sources in Media-Rich Settings
19. Shaping and Synthesizing Research
20. Constructing a Portfolio
A Brief Guide to Citations
Part 4: Digital Tools and Resources