The Assignment: For your first assignment, you will perform a rhetorical analysis of a short piece of persuasive writing. Choose either a newspaper/news web site's editorial (make sure you okay your selection with me before beginning!) or one of the following articles from Everything's an 'ligament:
Freedman, "Are Engineered Foods Evil?" 630
Stretten, "Appropriating Native American Imagery Honors
No One but the Prejudice," 522
Solove, 'The Nothing-to-Hide Argument" pg 734
Tannen, "Why Is `Compromise' Now a Dirty Word?" pg.145
How to Succeed: Read your article carefully and attentively.
Read it again. Open yourself up entirely to what the writer has to say; look up words that you don't understand. Then, in a unified, well-developed, evidence-supported, thesis-driven essay, answer the following question: "How does this piece make its argument to its particular audience?" Components of your answer will include:
- What is the author's thesis? What are his/her reasons?
- What is the audience here? What assumptions does the author make about the audience? How does the author choose an argument and evidence that will best appeal to that audience?
- How does the author use ethos, or the construction of his/her own credibility and persona?
- What kinds of emotions does the author appeal to? Why are these emotions going to be the ones that this particular audience has?
- What is the logic of the argument?
A possible opening (with thesis) might look something like this:
In his public "Letter from Birmingham Jail," Martin Luther King Jr. argues to two different audiences-one directly addressed (the clergy of Birmingham, Alabama) and one implied (the general public of the South in particular and the U.S. in general)-that direct action to combat segregation is necessary and timely. King emphasizes his credentials as a Southerner and a pastor to his clerical audience while grounding his argument in philosophy, religion, and American history to his wider audience. He uses this carefully constructed ethos as a reasonable, thoughtful, devout man to argue, in the end, that even civil disobedience is justified in these circumstances.
For the purposes of this assignment, I am not interested in your stance on the issue in question or in your evaluation of the efficacy of the argument. (You will have the chance to argue these positions in later papers.) In fact, if you emphasize on your stance on the issue, your paper will almost certainly be weaker, for you are attempting to sound like an unbiased analyst. Please keep in mind that just because you disagree with something doesn't mean that it's poorly argued. Also, do not bring in facts or ideas that don't occur in the argument; stick exclusively to the text. Finally, the most important skill this paper must demonstrate is that you can differentiate between SUMMARY of the article (telling me what it says) and ANALYSIS of the article (telling me how it makes its rhetorical
appeal to its particular audience).
Additional Requirements: The paper is to be 4-5 pages long, stapled, typed or printed neatly, proofread, and generally produced with professionalism. A rough draft will be due