"Embracing Digital Literacies: A Study of First-Year Students’ Digital Compositions"

Students’ Knowledge of Purpose

Establishing purpose in writing situations falls under Beaufort’s domain of rhetorical knowledge. For Beaufort, this area of knowledge is more concerned with the primary rhetorical situation of a specific text. Beaufort (2007) notes that writers “must contend with the immediate rhetorical context of a specific text,” which includes defining the different layers of audience and purpose (p. 94). In acts of writing expertise, the writer must be able to write with rhetorical effectiveness to achieve her purpose for a specific task. During interviews, student participants indicated ways they adjust their writing to accomplish particular purposes. The following examples illustrate the range of rhetorical knowledge of purpose that I found among student participants.

Purposeful Writing and Social Media

Several students discussed how writing on social media should be purposeful, meaningful, and thoughtful. Emily views Twitter users who write with a strong sense of purpose as the most enjoyable to read. She says, “I like when people … use [social media] for a specific reason. Some people have a cause, people use it for those purposes … [I like] when people [use] it to have a purpose and not just to complain.” Her writings demonstrate some of her own specific reasons for using social media. For instance, one social media post advertises her childcare services: “Please forgive the corny automated message but seriously I would appreciate getting my profile shared so that maybe I could get into [some] nanny work : ) Thanks everyone!” Emily sees social media as the “most amazing tool” that can help her accomplish career and life goals.

Mike described how he finds online writing meaningful when he is able to share or read writing he views as thought-provoking or profound. For Mike, Facebook, Goodreads, and Twitter should be places where people only post things that they have strong opinions about, or are thoughtful in some way. This is a rule he closely adheres to in his own online writing, including his Twitter updates, which include frequent retweets of religious personalities that he finds inspiring and other introspective writings. One Facebook post considers the subject of responsibility and becoming an adult: “There is not a certain age at which you become an adult,” Mike writes. “You start being an adult when you decide to take responsibility for your life. You can do that any age.” Mike explains that “[his] goal isn’t sharing thoughts of [his] day with people on Facebook.” Instead his purpose is to “keep up with [his] friends and … comment on things that … [he has] an opinion about.” Mike felt strongly about the importance of purposeful writing on social media. He discussed how he does not care to read superficial content on Twitter and Facebook:

So why don’t I post stuff like that? Um, well, because I don’t really think people care. Um, and … I’m not really interested in putting everything, you know, about my personal life on Facebook. It’s a little too much for me … If I’ve got friends who … continuously are posting things like that, um, I usually remove them from my newsfeed, but keep them as a friend. That way, you know, I’m not getting everything.

Instead of only writing about his personal life, Mike tries to post writings that will encourage thought and discussion. Both Mike and Emily negatively regarded writing that seems to be purposeless and try instead to write with clear intentions in mind.