CONTENTS

MATERIALS NEEDED

LEARNING OBJECTIVES / OUTCOMES

INSTRUCTIONAL PLAN

ASSESSING FOR UNDERSTANDING

RESOURCES, REFERENCES, & PERMISSIONS

AUTHOR INFORMATION

MATERIALS NEEDED

MATERIALS NEEDED Lesson 3: Source Use & BEAM Lesson plan overview with administrator scripts “Training #3: Source Use and BEAM” PowerPoint, including directions for activity Example student paper for mock tutorial activity Suggested: Handout on BEAM method for tutors to reference during activity

LEARNING OUTCOMES/OBJECTIVES

By the end of this workshop, tutors will: 

• Understand Joseph Bizup’s heuristic for rhetorical source use, aka, the BEAM method.

• Develop their understanding and perspective on BEAM for how it can help them describe the role/purpose of a source’s use in a paper. 

• Practice identifying different types of source use, applying the BEAM heuristic to example texts.

• Reflect on their own practices and how the BEAM heuristic can help them as writers.

INSTRUCTIONAL PLAN

Introduction

This is the final training in the series. In Training #2, tutors thoughtfully attended to how the “scholarly conversation” works and how sources are a part of that. They also examined some of their own uses of sources, and reflected on how they had learned to think about sources. Now, tutors are primed to think more deeply about the role that sources play in a text. In particular, we want students to think rhetorically about source use: how the source is deployed is much more than only a check for appropriate citation style. Specifically, we want to encourage tutors to discuss the intention behind source use, and to develop writers’ reading-writing awareness as part of these discussions of source integration and use. 

As a reminder, we encourage you to consider your center’s demographics and tutoring population and to adjust or slow down this training series as fits your needs. We also recommend that you personalize the PowerPoint to fit your presentation needs. We’ve chosen to provide a PowerPoint that presents what we see as the “bare-bones” essentials of the lesson, so as to encourage flexibility and appropriateness to individual writing center populations and goals.

A Note about Timing

In the script below, we’ve included some suggestions for how you might consider the timing of the session. Of course, your own feelings about what you want to provide greater or lesser time during the session should take precedence. We merely wanted to provide some guide-posts for how we originally organized the experience.

• Warmup/free write (10 minutes)

• Activity (5 minutes)

• Says/does for Burke and Clancy paragraphs (5 minutes)

• “Source Use is Rhetorical” mini-lecture (10 minutes)

• Beam paragraph examples (5 minutes)

• Activity (15 minutes)

• Exit ticket (5 minutes)

A Note about Creating & Giving Handouts

You may create a handout for use during the lesson by removing much of the Administrator’s Script moments, and with some additional judicial editing for clarity and for your purposes. 

This training requires an example student text, and we also suggest you create a handout on source integration, and, particularly, the BEAM moves (we’ve provided one, but you might want to make your own instead).

Lesson Introduction

Note to Administrators Before Getting Started: Review the assessment from Training #2, so you have a good understanding of how students are thinking about source use and reading, as well as their tendencies as readers as a framework for your approach. You might even begin with a review of this and what you learned about the tutors as a group. Consider revisiting the exit tickets or have students call up their self-evaluations of their source use papers. 

Then, introduce the focus of today’s learning, with growing tutors’ attention to rhetorical source use. Specifically, by the end of the lesson today, tutors will recognize four rhetorical strategies behind source use. 

Should you decide to use your own example text, rather than the suggested example, we suggest that you carefully adjust the PowerPoint and example paragraphs accordingly. The example student text that we used can be found at: https://palmbeachstate.libguides.com/ld.php?content_id=71007867.

Warm-Up (10 Minutes)

Administrator’s Script: Remind tutors that the workshops are continuing to focus upon developing understanding of how rhetorical reading is an essential tool during consultations–both for them to use as they work with students, and for them to guide students in thinking more deeply about source use. 

Today, we’re going to focus upon a new rhetorical strategy for examining how a source is being used by a writer. Probably, you’re used to thinking about using a source based on the type of use: quotation, paraphrase, summary. You’ve probably also thought a lot about avoiding plagiarism—by avoiding patchwriting or poorly done paraphrases, and by citing sources correctly. These were some of the things we discussed in the last training, too. So today, we’ll quickly revisit how we learned about source use, and then we’ll learn a new rhetorical way of thinking about sources. We’ll practice applying this framework to examining an example essay. 

Free Write Instructions 

• How did you learn to use sources? 

• What rules do you follow, or things do you “always do”?

• How do you know if you’re using a source well?

Share Out: in partners or small groups → summarized group share. 

• Tutors share their experience learning about source use and their personal measures of success.

Body of Lesson

Review the Instructions in the PowerPoint

• The example text is an exemplary student essay published on a college website, with the student name changed for greater anonymity.

Overview 

This lesson and the example paper activity will help tutors recognize deficiencies in their normal strategies of evaluating source use. Usually source use is addressed mostly as meeting citation system expectations, but these are not sufficient to eradicate poor source use (e.g. slide #5). Introducing rhetorical moves that sources can perform gives tutors a new language for explaining what sources are doing and how they should function within student writing. They then need to practice identifying each move, and then using this knowledge to discuss an example student paper.

Activity [Slides 2-5]

• Hand out the example student text and introduce the imagined context for the student visiting the writing center. Intentionally, Jane’s situation is very similar to Shirley’s from Training #2. 

• Have tutors read just the first page (finish the paragraph on page 2) and get an initial feel for the paper (they can skim or survey it, as per their normal strategies).

• Develop discussion among the tutors for their initial thinking regarding the paper and Jane’s goals for improving source use. 

After getting a sense of the tutors’ approaches to the paper, look more specifically at the first two uses of sources (Slides 3-4). Guide tutors in deeply attending to the purpose of that paragraph, in terms of what it “says” vs what it “does.” 

• You can read more about the ‘says/does’ approach to interrogating purpose and reading rhetorically in Carillo’s A Writer’s Guide to Mindful Reading (2017). 

Slide 5 provides an opportunity for tutors to reassess their assumption about ‘good source use’ as always being citationally correct. Generally, after discussing slides 3-4, tutors should be primed to accept that despite the appropriate integration, citationally, of each source, the sources largely are lacking in a clear purpose. But, we also want to make sure we emphasize that this is clearly a student trying hard to ‘do something good’ with their sources. However, if they’ve predominantly been taught through the “4 step” process of a citation model, they may have had little opportunity to think critically about why they chose a source and the rhetorical purpose it serves in its placement within their writing.

Mini-Lecture [Slides 6-9]

Slide 6 Notes: Explain how and why source use is rhetorical. Explain that how we use sources is part of a connected reading and writing activity. We need to be intentional with purposes we bring to reading (awareness of them) and we need to be equally intentional with how we’re using our sources (awareness of goals and impact on our own readers).  

• There are additional notes in each slide here, to help guide mini-lecture.

Slide 7 Notes: Behind those 4 “rules” is actually A LOT of rhetorical reasoning.

1. Introduce the Source (author or title, mostly)  --- what does the audience/reader need to know or understand about the source and why you chose it!? For instance, I’m wondering if Burke and Clancy merely CITED another study that used these surveys, or if they were the researchers doing the survey. I’m also wondering what they argued for or thought about these statistics– how did they frame them?

   • It’s great to know it’s from a survey, but I’ve got some questions about the text that was read! 

2. Integrate (quote, summarize, or paraphrase material)

   • Why was quotation used here-- ? What was important about it the way that Burke/the source “said” that fact?

3. Citation (cite the source in-text and in reference page)

4. Connection (state why you included the source)

Basically, before the student even starts to write (or for the student to deepen engagement and use of source in revision) I’d want to discuss and ask them some of these questions. Leave the paragraph in front of us for the moment, and get at the “why” or purpose that the student has behind their source use. 

And a note of caution: these can be hard questions to answer!  The student might have been so focused upon looking for “quotes” to use (like these statistics) that they didn’t think about “the function of the source.” Or, behind “it’s a fact/evidence” to support my argument about gender bias. 

Slide 8 Notes: The “4 Rules” aren’t necessarily intended to create a paragraph that look the same, over and over again. But, we see that Jane has essentially applied these ‘rules’ in the same way in both paragraphs.

Slide 9 Notes: Early in drafts, writers are focused “inwardly” on their own thoughts and ideas. 

• Often, connection and purposes are more ”implicit” because “they know what they mean”

• This is fine (even normal) on drafts. 

• But as a draft progresses, writers need to start thinking more about their audience—and what their reader needs. (Writing Center work is all about externalizing that audience!)

• They need to make writing choices to create “reader-based prose.”

My use of the terms “reader and writer” -based prose comes from researcher Linda Flower (1981), and her article reporting the result of a study called “Revising Writer-Based Prose”. Now, Flower (1981) was an early writing studies scholar, who in the 80s and 90s was doing a lot of pioneering work to understand what happens in our minds when we write; this school of writing theory is actually known as the “cognitive processing model” of writing. Basically, writer-based prose is egocentric—meaning is focused upon the writer’s needs (not the audience’s) and often follows a narrative structure that is based on what the writer did/thought/experienced. 

• You might also see this sometimes connected with statements like “my first source” says…  where “first source” means the first source the author found, or perhaps, read, or the “first = best” source. 

• Now, our example student Jane doesn’t use that kind of introductory phrase; she’s integrating correctly with her quote, and uses the author’s name. but her lack of detail about “who” the source is and the context that makes them a useful source—so the reader can understand them—is a writer-based issue. 

• So you’re probably thinking: so what do I do to move students towards that reader-based prose option, hmmm?

[Slides 10-14]

Introduce Joseph Bizup’s (2008) heuristic, BEAM (also see handout) and explain each “kind” of rhetorical source use. Then, have students practice identifying a use of a source from example paper. 

Slide 10 Notes: Joseph Bizup (2008) did a rhetorical analysis of the ways that scholars write with sources– looking at the purpose the source served. He found 4 common purposes for using sources. 

• Background information—which is when we use a source to present facts or knowledge to our reader. 

• Exhibit—we use the source to illustrate an example. I think of exhibits like the things you go to a museum to see. There’s always those little placards that direct your attention to what you can see/understand.

• Argument—we hear about using sources for their argument A LOT when sources are talked about. You’re supposed to have a counter-argument, right—or discover someone who disagrees or represents an opposing viewpoint?  

• Method—sources that guide our approach or perspective. I think of this as a source that describes, say, the scientific method. If you followed those directions in your project, you could cite that you followed them. 

If you look at your Handout, you can see each of these explained. 

Slide 11 Notes: Remember Background = “materials whose claims a writer accepts as fact, whether these "facts" are taken as general information or deployed as evidence to support the writer's own assertions” (Bizup, 2008, p. 75). Beilock et al. is evidence for the claim that girls subconsciously take on negative attitudes about their math skills. Source is just positioned as fact (no analysis or explanation given).

Slide 12 Notes: Exhibit “refers to materials a writer offers for explication, analysis, or interpretation” (Bizup, 2008, p. 75). Exhibit sources provide an illustration/example and explaining how it works to show a point (we analyze exhibits). Seligman is an “Example” of someone who believes the stereotype and defends it. Source is used to represent this thinking. Notice that in this instance, Seligman’s claim is not being disputed per se, but held up as a model. 

Slide 13: Argument “refers to materials whose claims a writer affirms, disputes, refines, or extends in some way” (Bizup, 2008, p. 75). Sources that you are in a “discussion with”; you present their claims and emphasize the connection to your own argument. Here, Dweck’s claim is extended– an “application” for that claim is suggested (“educators can build upon…”) and the examples of what that could look like. Obviously, the author agrees with Dweck, but is not merely using Dweck as a ‘fact’ but is instead presenting Dweck and applying.

Slide 14: Method “refers to materials from which a writer derives a governing concept or a manner of working. A method source can offer a set of key terms, lay out a particular procedure, or furnish a general model or perspective” (Bizup, 2008, p. 76). These can be the ‘directions’ for how to carry out research in a field. Dweck is the “method” or “concept” that is used to interpret the statements from the interviewees. Dweck’s ideas guide attention to their statements.

Mock Tutorial Activity

Administrator's Script: Now that you’ve learned the basic definitions for BEAM, let’s get some practice in applying this knowledge to guide our work with a student who needs to deepen their use and integration of sources. Remember, just like we learned in the prior training, where we did the Alice/Shirley paper example, many times students don’t really understand the scholarly conversation or how source-use and integration is a huge part of showcasing their voice in that conversation. So, as you work with Jane and her paper, keep that in mind as you think about her use of sources: Is she providing background information? Is she introducing an exhibit, to analyze and show her perspective? Is she building off of, or contradicting, the argument of another person? Is she introducing a source and using its ideas as the method that guides her attention or perspective? 

Instructions & Link to Text 

Allow students to practice their source use identification, and to think about how they’d discuss source use in a consultation with this fictional author. 

A note: Slide 15 provides a “practice the instructions” moment with students. Doing so, can help ensure that students understand the goal of the activity. 

Discussion:

Administrators will need to guide the discussion of Jane’s paper. In particular, students often rely heavily on what is essentially “background” source use. This kind of “setting the stage” or providing commonly accepted and foundational knowledge is important in papers. However, “background” information is appropriate as a heavily used kind of source-use only when the goal is to report on information. Because academic disciplines view writing primarily as a way to communicate new knowledge with one another, students need to be pushed to think about source use as more than a ‘data dump’ showing that research was done. Especially, encouraging students to more obviously position their “argument” sources, and to contextualize how that source connects to the project, will particularly help them move forward towards a more academic construction of an argumentative perspective in the essay they are writing. 

Guiding Questions 

Let’s look at the example together. 

• What is the rhetorical move used [BEAM source use] here? (for each use of source)

• How did you try to determine the intention behind the use? How successful was the integration attempt?

• What might we encourage Jane to do, to strengthen her source use in this paper?

Debrief 

Administrators should point to how discussing source use relies upon some of the meta-knowledge of reading, as well as rhetorical reading skills that have been practiced across the last two trainings as well. Much like Shirley in training #2, Jane has written a paper that struggles to articulate a perspective—her sources should be helping her to engage in a “scholarly conversation” and demonstrate her perspective, but they more showcase that she’s done research and read some things. Essentially, Jane’s created merely writer-based prose (really, we might consider this student-based prose as it reflects that perspective best). 

Jane’s paper particularly helps us to see why/how effective source use must be rhetorically strategic, as citationally, she’s appropriate integrated sources. Introducing Jane to deeper attention as to “why” she chose that source, and “what/how” she wants the source to impact her reader, will encourage more rhetorical approaches. Using the BEAM method provides language and a common framework for “how” sources are often used.

Wrap-up & Reflection

Note to Administrators: 

It’s common for students to feel a bit uncomfortable with identifying “types of source use” naturally during tutorials. It's important to remind them that this is a skill like any other and requires practice to develop confidence and comfort. Particularly because rhetorical deployment of sources is a high level skill, we often see papers at the draft stage that are “moving towards” rhetorical source use. In tutorials, tutors need to draw on their reading skills— their sense of how a text works based on their “meta-knowledge” of reading—as well as using rhetorical strategies and questions to help students deepen their integration and understanding. 

It is likely that the learning outlined above will take the full hour we’ve identified for it; however, we want to emphasize that having tutors return to their own paper (from Training #2) and identify rhetorical source use (or notice that their rhetorical purposes were not clear, but knowing what they were). Such activities can help students to grow as writers, as well. Moreover, sometimes, students have better insights on how they might ask after rhetorical source intentions, because they can draw upon their own experience with identifying those intentions. We believe that you could substitute the more drawn-out attention to the text, with returning to the tutors’ own papers, should you wish to do so. 

Reflective Discussion About Training 

• What are you still thinking about when it comes to reading and writing center tutorials?

• How do you think about source use as rhetorical? How has that changed over the course of our training around critical reading and source use? 

Ticket Out

• What do you feel like you need more practice with (either as a tutor or a writer) related to rhetorical source use? 

• What did you learn about source use today? What are you thinking about how you might discuss source use differently in tutorials, after today’s training?

• How does thinking about BEAM to describe source “uses” work for you? What’s useful, difficult, etc?

ASSESSING FOR UNDERSTANDING

• Ticket Out

• Participation in the activities

EXTENSIONS AND ADAPTATIONS

• Additional or fewer slide options 
• Choose accessible texts (texts can be used by a screen reader for example or through speech to text); 
• Access to example paper in advance 
• Have students read Bizup’s article in advance
• Provide more detailed handout for heuristic/examples
• Print and digital copies of texts
• Physical and digital activity participation options (also think about if training is happening online). 
• BEAM Activity where tutors look for BEAM source use in their own writing that they worked on from Training #2 could be substituted for the other activity or used in addition to Training #3.

REFERENCES AND ADDITIONAL RESOURCES

References

Bizup, J. (2008). BEAM: A rhetorical vocabulary for teaching research-based writing. Rhetoric Review, 27(1), 72–86. https://doi.org/10.1080/07350190701738858 

Carillo, E. C. (2017). A writer’s guide to mindful reading. WAC Clearinghouse. https://doi.org/10.37514/PRA-B.2017.0278 

Flower, L. (1981). Revising writer-based prose. Journal of Basic Writing,3(3), 62–74. https://doi.org/10.37514/JBW-J.1981.3.3.07

Additional Resources & References 

Bean, J. C., Chappel, V.A., & Gillam, A.M. (2014). Reading rhetorically (4th ed.). Pearson.

Shanahan, C, Shanahan, T., & Misischia, C. (2011). Analysis of expert readers in three disciplines: History, Mathematics, and Chemistry. Journal of Literacy Research, 43(4), 393–429. https://doi.org/10.1177/1086296X11424071

AUTHOR INFORMATION

Carolyne M. King & Megan Boeshart Burelle

Old Dominion University

Carolyne M. King is an assistant professor (English-Writing Studies) and also the director of WAC/WID and STEM Initiatives for the Writing Center. Her research focuses upon the reading-writing connection, specifically, seeking to understand how students read and work with sources as they write source-based papers. She particularly encourages attention to making reading perceivable—using methods like screen-casts of reading behaviors in action—to explore texts' materiality as part of reading. 

Megan Boeshart Burelle is a senior lecturer and Writing Center director at Old Dominion University. She teaches general education writing courses. Her research interests include writing centers, online tutoring, and multimodal feedback. She is currently working on her PhD in English and her dissertation is about online writing tutoring and asynchronous screencasting feedback.

King & Boeshart Burelle, Center Moves, no. 4, 2025.