Caminando el Rayo: BEAM illuminates Critical reading for Critical writing

This plan focuses on student empowerment, emphasizing there is no single correct way to interpret sources rhetorical functions; there is no single correct way to integrate sources into one’s own writing. There are a plurality of approaches to source integration which supports students’ academic inquiry through their own critical reading and writing.  

This instructional plan relies on Joseph Bizup’s rhetorical analysis asserting that all scholarly sources fulfill one of four functions: background, exhibit, argument, or methodology. Bizup contends that by focusing on how sources are employed by scholars in academic writing, we invite students to join us as partners in the process of inquiry and the scholarly conversation.

This information literacy instruction plan asks students to analyze citations in a source (assigned previously by their disciplinary professor) to investigate how the author utilizes rhetorical methods. It is best to utilize a previously assigned reading so students can focus on how scholars:

• Rely on Background sources
• Interpret Exhibit sources
• Engage in Argument with sources or,
• Enact a source’s Methodology