ntroduce Yourself!

Throughout this course, you will have many opportunities to respond to the opinions and comments of your classmates. Take this opportunity to introduce yourself and to learn about each other. Be sure to include your name, location, and something about yourself that you would like your classmates to know.

Discussion Overview

Topic 1:

Welcome to the first Discussion Board! This week, the Reading covered the basics of writing in college and effective persuasive communication. You learned about how writers can use persuasive models like the rhetorical situation to motivate an audience to take action or change the way they think about something. Students also looked at how John, Eric, and Alice might apply persuasive communication in their future jobs as a restaurant owner, nurse, and Crime Scene Investigator. After completing the unit Reading and Learning Activities for Unit 1, respond to the following questions in at least two well-developed paragraphs:

Introduce yourself by telling the class about your background with persuasive communication. What are you studying and how do you imagine you will use persuasive writing in your career?
Describe an example of effective persuasive communication that you have encountered and identify the different parts of the rhetorical situation. Who was the speaker and who was the target audience? What was the purpose of the argument? What setting did the argument take place in and how might the communication have changed if it were in a different context? How does this example illustrate the qualities of effective persuasive communication from the Reading this week?
Wrap up your post with at least one open-ended question for your classmates to consider as they help you dig deeper into the ideas you shared this week.
To earn full participation credit, you will need to respond substantively to at least two peers initial Discussion posts and show active engagement in the Discussion as described in the grading rubric. These responses should stay on topic and generate further discussion by asking questions, mentioning relevant examples, and referencing concepts from the Reading.

All Discussion posts and responses to peers should be written in complete sentences using Standard English. Before posting, proofread for grammar, spelling, and word-choice issues. Be sure to respond fully to every aspect of the Discussion.

When you refer to concepts from the units Reading, be sure to use a signal phrase like According to . . .[name of reading]. If you are directly quoting the Reading or another source, be sure to use quotation marks and cite the source using proper APA in-text citations and full references. See the Purdue Global Writing Center Using Sources for resources on APA citation formatting.

Discussion Board Rubric

Review the Discussion Board rubric your instructor will use to determine your Discussion grade.
Sample Discussion Post

You can review a sample Discussion post and response to a peer by clicking on the Unit 1 Sample Discussion Assignment.