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1.  Each of us is a rhetorical creation. Out of an inventive world (a past a set of capacities, a way of thinking) we are always creating structures of meaning and generating a style, a way of being in the world. pg 262

2.   The kind of work we are suggesting involves what Krista Ratcliffe calls rhetorical listening, a practice that urges us to fundamentally alter how we hear and respond to the discourse of others.  pg 265

3.  let us consider, for instance, echolalia, a characteristic kind of language use among autistics, in which they repeat stock words and phrases verbatim that they have heard other speakers use. pg 265

4.  If we can come to see our autistic students through the lens of rhetoric more than through a stock and overdetermined lens of autism, we might come to better appreciate what they have to offer instead of fixating on what they do not.  pg269


1.  This to me is saying that we all have a distinct voice, our own way of speech or writing. That all people are different in the way we interpret what others say or do.

2.  Krista Ratcliffe, in my opinion, is trying to get people to take time and actually hear what someone is saying not only in actual words but in body language as well. Maybe this would help us to better understand more than what we have been taught from a young age.

3.  This passage kinda reminds me of the movie Rainman when (tom cruise) gets Raymond (Dustin Hoffman) to say that K-Mart sucks.  I also think that this is the way we have been taught to think of autistic people.

4.  This to me means that you shouldn't judge the book by its cover. That just because you are autistic doesn't mean you cant function in society. There are cases, so Ive come to realize, that some people with autism are very much a big part of society.