English 1301 5 th week

1. English 1301 5th week Section 15/16

2. On BA2 and BAs in general • For those who did NOT follow the instruction on our course website • 1) you need to send me an email once you compose BA2 • 2) I’ll remove your BA2, so that you can submit a new one. • 3) Wait until you get my email • 4) Due is this Saturday, 22nd. • This kind of compensation won’t happen again.

3. Approaching rhetorically • What claim is an authormaking about the topic? • What good reasons support the claim? • Whatbackup evidence can you find for the claim? • In what ways does the authorqualifyhis/her claim? • What valid underlying assumptions support the reasons for the claim?

4. BA4: Writing a thesis statement • Objective: To develop new strategies for writing a thesis statement. • Purpose: One key to writing a successful essay is to develop a focused thesis statement. This assignment will enable you to do so.

5. BA4: Writing a thesis statement • Description: For your draft 1.1, you will write a rhetorical analysis. See the description of Draft 1.1 for a discussion of what a rhetorical analysis is and what you will be expected to do. • In this assignment, you will continue your preparation for writing your rhetorical analysis by writing thesis statements suitable for it. • Using three texts (Your choice out of four articles in FYW’s chapter 12) • 1) identify the audience and purpose of each text and explain what those are in about 75- 100 words. • 2) create a thesis statement for a rhetorical analysis of each text. • Remember that to successfully create your thesis statements, you will need to read these texts carefully (and, usually, several times) so that you thoroughly understand the audience, purpose, and content of the texts.

6. Writing a rhetorical analysis paper • Don’t get caught up with the content. You’re not arguing whether the article is right or wrong; rather how an author presents his/her idea. • Take an example of our previous discussion about Obama That I Used to Know, we did not discuss whether the political statement made in the film is right or wrong, agreeable or disagreeable. • The content of an article (or in the case of Obama That I Used to Know, political statement) is NOT what you analyze.

7. Thesis Statement • Your thesis statement is your claim. • It highlights what you do in the rest of the paper. • For rhetorical analysis, your thesis statement should focus on HOW an author tries to convince the audience for WHAT reasons. • It has to be 1-2 sentences. • Absolutely no quote.

8. Thesis statement for rhetorical analysis • A thesis statement is a statement of what you do in the rest of the paper. • Again, your analysis must not be about a content of an article. • Your thesis needs to address • what kind of rhetorical choices author uses. • For what reasons an author uses such rhetorical choices (purpose). • You need to lay out those information within one or two sentences.

9. Template for a thesis statement of rhetorical analysis • [Author] uses [rhetorical choice1], [rhetorical choice2], and [rhetorical choices3] to persuade [audience] to [purpose]. • Audience may require some creativity here since you want it simple. If necessary, you need to just put “the audience.” The point here is to make it as terse as possible.

10. Thesis statement • From ST. Martin (3-c) • Specificity • Is your thesis statement specific about what you do for the rest of the paper? • Interesting • Can your thesis statement draw reader’s attention? • Manageable • Is your thesis statement about something you can discuss within a given page limit?

11. An example of BA4

12. Writing thesis statement (Group Work) • Come up with a thesis statement for Diamond’s “The Ethnobiologist’s Dilemma.”

13. Rhetorical choices • Oxymoron • Euphemism • Litotes • Moral reasoning

14. Assignment for Next Week • Reading assignment St. Martin's Handbook: Chapters 8 and 13 First-Year Writing: Chapter 6 pp. 114-146 Write two thesis statements. Type it! Choose the two articles that you are not thinking for a paper (Budiansky, Rosenberg, Jaschik)