writing

Building upon the analytical skills learned in the previous unit, the rhetorical analysis asks students to consider the persuasive elements or structural features used to create or enhance textual meaning. In other words, this assignment shifts the analytical gaze away from textual interpretation and toward the rhetorical conventions that help to make meaning. In this essay, students will analyze how two different authors (writing on the same topic) appeal to ethos (values), pathos (emotion), and logos (logic). You will compare and contrast the authors' opposing views. Who does a better job and why? What rhetorical devices / argumentative appeals does each author successfully (or unsuccessfully) use? This essay will allow you to decide which author used the best "ethos" argument, which author used the best "pathos" argument, etc. Additionally, this essay will help you consider what makes a successful and/or unsuccessful argument when you work on your Unit 4 essay.

Ideas: topic, thesis/central idea, focus, purpose, audience: 20%

Ideas should be clear, insightful, thought-provoking, and focused so that they consistently support the topic, thesis, and audience for the paper.

Development: details, evidence, examples, logic, arguments: 20%

Development should be fresh, with abundant details and examples that arouse audience interest and provide relevant, concrete, specific and insightful evidence in support of sound logic.

Organization: structure, coherence, unity, transitions: 20%

Organization should be coherent, unified, and effective in support of the paper's purpose, and should consistently demonstrate effective and appropriate rhetorical transitions between ideas and paragraphs.

Mechanics: sentence structure, word choice, tone, grammar, spelling, punctuation: 20%

Style should be confident, readable and rhetorically effective in tone, incorporating varied sentence structure, precise word choice, and correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation.