Week Four: Critical Reading and Rhetorical Choices

1. Week Four: Critical Reading and Rhetorical Choices How we identify the assumptions and rhetorical choices an author employs in support of a particular audience and purpose in their text.

2. Class Overview • Reading Quiz • Review of Summary and Paraphrase Conventions; also, MLA citation format • Brief Assignment #3 • Critical Reading: What is it, and how do we use it to develop a rhetorical analysis over a particular text? • Rhetorical Appeals: How do they relate to the choices an author makes in their text? • Rhetorical Choices: How do we identify a narrow choice that connects to the author’s persuasive purpose and audience? • Group Activity: Using outlines and critical reading to narrow your scope of a text’s purpose and audience. • Review of Materials

3. Reading Quiz #2 Please respond to open-ended questions with complete sentences. • Name the Top Twenty error in the following sentence: The East German police were infamous for their austerity, research indicates that their members frequently wrote and enjoyed jokes about government. • Write a corrected version of the above sentence. • True or false: ethos, pathos, and logos are specific rhetorical choices an author might use in support of their purpose. • Which one of the following speeches was included in last week’s reading from the BSM e-handbook: a) Obama’s BP Oil Briefing b) G. W. Bush’s Post-Katrina Speech c) R. M. Nixon’s Checkers Speech d) Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address • What is an assumption?

4. Grading Scale for Participation Assignments • Because our participation assignments vary in content from week to week, you will receive marks on the following scale: • Check Plus: 100%. Student followed directions and formatting appropriately and displayed exemplary understanding of the assignment. Writing contained few or no mechanical errors. • Check: 80 %. Student followed most directions but did not fully develop their response. Writing contained few mechanical errors. • Check Minus: 70%. Student completed the assignment but did not demonstrate a full understanding of the text or directions. Writing contained several errors or was missing crucial elements. • Minus: 50%. Student attempted the assignment but did not follow directions or develop their responses. Writing contained many errors and ignored standard writing conventions. • Zero: 0%. Reserved for students who did not follow directions and did not complete the assignment as directed.

5. Review: Summary, Paraphrase, and Citations • For the anthologized works in this class, use the following format from Ch. 16d of your St. Martin’s Handbook: Gee, James Paul. “Situated Meaning and Learning.” What Video Games Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy. Rpt. in First-Year Writing: Writing in the Disciplines. 7th Custom Edition.Boston: Pearson, 2013. 547-51. Print. • In your BA2 summary, did you remember to introduce the author and text? • In-text citations: use MLA format for the appropriate text. Generally, one includes (author page number), as in (Gee 45). • Did you include in-text citations and a work cited entry in MLA format? Review Ch. 16 d of your St. Martin’s Handbook.

6. Brief Assignment # 3: Identifying Rhetorical Choices • Purpose: To demonstrate your ability to identify specific rhetorical choices made by a writer • Description: The major essay in this course is a rhetorical analysis. In order to write a rhetorical analysis, one of the first things you will need to do is identify some of the rhetorical choices made by the writer that you can examine in your analysis.  Remember, a rhetorical analysis focuses on how a writer makes meaning. A rhetorical analysis looks at the devices or tools that a writer uses to persuade, inform, and/or entertain his or her audience.  A writer, for instance, may choose to use technical jargon in a text. In a rhetorical analysis, you would examine the use of and effectiveness of that choice to use jargon.  However, to determine the effectiveness of the writer’s choices, you must first determine what the writer’s purpose is and who the writer’s audience is. • For this brief assignment, using the text you will analyze for your Draft 1.1, please do the following: • Identify the audience and purpose of the piece. Be as specific as possible and support your identification with a brief explanation (100-200 words). • Identify and list at least five rhetorical choices the writer employs to reach this audience and achieve his or her purpose. Give at least one example of each.

7. Brief Assignment #3: Identifying Rhetorical Choices • Reminder: our class may only choose from the articles by Birkerts, Borgstein, Budiansky, and Rosenberg included in the back of your FYW textbook. • Specific directions featured on Raider Writer. • In your identification of audience and purpose, please be sure to open with a sentence introducing the author and title of their article. Short works like articles, essays, and excerpts are labeled in quotation marks (e.g. “The Ethnobiologist’s Dilemma”). Your reader needs to know this information! • When listing rhetorical choices and examples of those choices from the text, please include an in-text citation after identifying the example. • Model your listing style after the example on pp. 567-7 in your FYW textbook: present the examples in clear, complete sentences that connect the rhetorical choice to the author’s purpose and audience.

8. BA3: Continued • As always, make sure your sections (audience & purpose; rhetorical choices) are clearly labeled and organized for your reader. • Reread “Questions Rhetorical Readers Ask” in FYW p. 11 • Please include a Work Cited entry at the bottom of your assignment. Follow the formatting we covered in class. • Important: the article you select for Brief Assignment #3 should be same one you plan to use for your rhetorical analysis (a.k.a. Draft 1/Essay 1) • As mentioned in week two, you may select from one of the following: • Birkerts, Sven. “Into the Electronic Millennium.” FYW pp. 226-33. • Borgstein, Johannes. “The Poetry of Genetics.” FYW pp. 234-7. • Budiansky, Stephen. “Lost in Translation.” FYW pp. 238-44. • Rosenberg, Tina. “Everyone Speaks Text Message.” FYW pp. 267-71.

9. Opening Questions: Rhetorical Choices • Why did Lincoln use the phrase “Four score and seven years ago” in the Gettysburg Address? What is a score? Was this the sort of language the citizens of the United States used in 1863? • Which U. S. President is famous for using the phrase “trust, but verify”? During what world conflict was this used, and why? In what language did this phrase originate? (Hint: it’s not English).

10. Critical Reading • What does it mean to read “critically”? What elements do critical readers examine in a text? Why? Do we read instruction manuals and poetry in the same manner? • Do texts convey only one meaning? Do they address only one audience? • Ideology: “unconscious” ideas and assumptions that make up our “worldviews.” • Assumptions: “unstated beliefs that the writer expects readers to accept without question” (First-Year Writing 72). • What assumptions does James Gee make regarding his audience in “Situated Meaning and Learning”? How might we use these assumed values to pinpoint a specific audience and corresponding set of rhetorical choices?

11. Critical Reading: Application • To identify purpose, audience, and rhetorical choices, one must question the text and read critically: ask questions and test them against the text. Look for meaning beyond “main ideas” and information. • Audience: is there only one specific audience for a text, or can it be layered? Was Bush’s Post-Katrina audience singular or layered? • Look for “signals” indicating a specific audience (few texts, if any, have a “general reading public”). These might include: • Specialized diction or jargon (e.g. technical terms associated with a field, experience, or trade) • Dated (from a particular era in the past) references to culture and events • Method of explanation: how is information presented? Does the author break down complicated ideas or use analogies to simplify the subject matter? What might this suggest about the audience’s familiarity with the subject? • Greater Context : when was the text published? What does the author’s background suggest about their approach in their article? How was the text published? Was it a book, or was it featured in a journal or magazine with a particular readership? • Assumptions the author makes about “shared values” or beliefs (think of G. W. Bush’s Post-Katrina speech!)

12. Critical Reading: Application (continued) • The “main idea” of a text is related to but different from the author’s persuasive purpose. • Ask: what does the author want the audience to do? What effects do you think the author intends to invoke in their audience, and how do they do this? Rhetorical choices are employed to cause or invoke a particular reaction from a specific audience. • The “appeals” are effectsbuilt by these choices: • Ethos: the persuasive power of the author’s credibility or character • Logos: the persuasive power of the author’s reasons, evidence, and logic • Pathos: the persuasive power of the author’s appeal to the interests, emotions, and imagination of the audience • Which rhetorical choices build these effects? Can a rhetorical choice build more than one appeal? (Hint: Yes.)

13. Response: James Gee’s “Situated Meaning and Learning” • How would you characterize your own background as a reader? What are your beliefs about games? Education? How did these affect the way you read the article? • How familiar were you with the terminology Gee uses in his article? For instance, what does Deus Ex mean or refer to? What sort of conceptual knowledge does Gee demonstrate in his text? • How would you characterize Gee’s communication with his reader? Formal? Conversational? Pedantic? What word choices indicate his particular tone? • Break down and define these terms: situated understanding, embodied understanding, semiotic domain

14. Group Activity: Identifying Rhetorical Choices • In groups of four or five, decide on a persuasive purpose for Gee’s article and an audience that fits that purpose. Have a group member write this out on a piece of paper containing all of your names at the top. You will turn this in for participation credit at the end of class. • Then, using your participation assignment (due today), compare your outlines and rhetorical choices, and decide on the three rhetorical choices you feel best fit the purpose and audience. We will share these as a class. Have a group member list these three on the chalkboard (in a reasonable amount of space!) • Decide amongst yourselves: how effective were Gee’s rhetorical choices? Why?

15. Rhetorical Choices: How broad is “too broad”? How narrow is “too narrow? • Diction, tone, syntax, and structure (meaning word choice, manner of expression, word order, and organization of ideas) are features of every text. Alone, they mean nothing more than the above. Every author uses “words,” but not every author uses the same sort of words as the next. • Remember: not every rhetorical choice can be characterized by a single term or word. • So, what sort of diction, tone, syntax, or structure might connect to a certain audience? What intended effect might come from an aggressive or belligerent tone? • Look for patterns: how frequently does a rhetorical choice appear in the text? How prominent or connected is it to the author’s purpose? • In describing a rhetorical choice, specificity is your friend, but be careful not to misconstrue terms: metaphor, simile, and analogy are not interchangeable, nor are they prevalent (or effective) in every text.

16. Participation Assignment #4 Read: All texts assigned for Raider Writer for Week Four. This should always be completed before you proceed with any homework, be it a participation assignment or Raider Writer Brief, Critique, Draft, or Review. Also, be sure to reread your article of choice for your rhetorical analysis essay with a critical eye for patterns, rhetorical choices, and the author’s assumptions. Write: Using our standard participation assignment formatting, please create an outline for the article you have chosen for your rhetorical analysis: note main ideas, define difficult terms, and consider the structure of the content. Label this 1.) and the following section 2.) : In 150 words or less, please define the persuasive purpose and audience for the text. Please include an MLA-format Work Cited entry and appropriate in-text citations (if necessary). You will only receive half credit if you do not include a Work Cited entry.

17. Review • MLA citation format contained in Ch. 16 of your St. Martin’s e-handbook. • Rhetorical choices are not the same thing as the rhetorical appeals. Learn their relationship and do not confuse them. • Critical reading questions assumptions in texts and examines the meaning of the text in relation to the author’s purpose, audience, and rhetorical choices. Critical reading involves attention to detail, engagement with the text, and research. • Broad rhetorical choices that could apply to any text or purpose are not useful for a rhetorical analysis. A choice should be tailored to a specific purpose and audience. • Complete Brief Assignment 3 on Raider Writer, and bring your typed participation assignment to class.