Essentials of College Rhetoric

1. Essentials of College Rhetoric Week 6: Ms. Lowery

2. Class Overview • Quiz • Recap • Thesis Statements • Review

3. Differences in Rhetorical Appeals and Rhetorical Choices Ms. Lowery, I didn’t come to class today because I was sick and I want to ask you if I can have an excused absence. -Student 1)Appeal to pathos- My head felt like someone took a jack hammer to it and I couldn’t stop vomiting. 2)Appeal to ethos- I come to class everyday, I’m never late, and I’ve made 100’s on every assignment 3)Appeal to logos- You should excuse me because out of the 23 students in my class, I am ranked in the top 10%. This unexcused absence may cause me to drop below that.

4. Rhetorical Choices • Student uses imagery to show how immense the pain in her head was (jack hammer). This helps her argue that because the pain was so horrid, there was no way she could have payed attention in class. • Student uses past experiences to demonstrate her credibility. She shows how good of a student she is. • Student uses statistics to show her rank in the class and how an unexcused absence may keep her from being in the top 10% of her class.

5. What goes into a thesis statement? • For BA 4: The name of the author and the title of his work • The author’s purpose • Asserts your conclusion and takes a stand on the author’s rhetorical strategies • States what techniques you will be analyzing, and the impact of these techniques on the effectiveness of the text.

6. Thesis Statements (con’t) • Typically a thesis statement is one sentence, but if you need two, that is fine • When thinking about your thesis statement, consider the scope of your rhetorical analysis. • For example, do you plan to analyze three rhetorical choices? How should your thesis reflect that? • Do you plan to show how effective some rhetorical choices were, but also show the fallacy in the author’s argument?

7. Gee Thesis Statements

8. Activity Part 1: • Look at your thesis statements and compare. Does it have all the elements of a thesis statement? Is it the best fit for the scope of the RA? Which thesis statement best fulfills the requirements for BA 4? Part 2: • Based from your results from the believing and doubting game, come up with a different thesis statement that argues against your first.

9. BA 4 • 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 from Ch. 12 that I assigned at the beginning of the semester 1) identify the audience and purpose of each text and explain what those are in about 75- 100 words, and 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. • Include a Works Cited! Texts for your thesis statements: • Stephen Budiansky: "Lost in Translation" pp. 238-244 • Scott Jaschik: "Winning Hearts and Minds on Plagiarism" pp. 261-266 • Tina Rosenberg: "Everyone Speaks Text Message" pp. 267-271

10. What Graders Are Looking for: • Criterion 1 – Issue Identification and Focus Does the thesis clearly present the paper as a rhetorical analysis rather than a descriptive paper or a summary?  Is the thesis sufficiently focused for the scope of the assignment? • Criterion 3 -- Sources and Evidence Does the student identify the author and purpose of the text being analyzed?  Does the student offer a reasonable interpretation of the central purpose of the text as well as support for the identification of the audience? • Criterion 5 – Own Perspective Does the student present a clear claim about how he or she will analyze the text?  Does he or she list specific rhetorical choices the author of the text uses to achieve the purpose?  In this section, you will want to be sure to examine the selected rhetorical choices carefully.  How specific are the rhetorical choices?   • Criterion 7 – Communication How well does the student do all of the above in regard to tone, style, word choice, and other writing conventions?  Does the student communicate his or her purpose and perspective clearly to an intended audience?

11. Review • What goes into a thesis? • BA 4 due this Saturday (Include a Works Cited) • Be thinking about how you’re going to organize an outline for the article you choose to write your RA over. (Remember the assigned readings from Ch. 12) • For the in-class assignment for Week 7 do the following to James Gee’s article: Begin by writing your working thesis at the top of your paper. Then, select a minimum of three quotations from the article that you will use as examples of particular rhetorical choices (sometimes referred to as rhetorical devices). Write a brief assessment of why each quotation would be useful to you in composing your draft. Your assessment of each quotation should include your answers to the following questions: • Where will this quotation fit in your organization? • How does it demonstrate the points you are trying to make about the author's writing? You may either write or type your assignment. Bring it to class with you.