Week 4: Brief Assignment 3 Rhetorical Choices

1. Week 4: Brief Assignment 3 Rhetorical Choices ENGL 1301 February 5, 2014

2. Important Stuff • Any comments on BA 2? Questions? Issues? • Issues on BA 2: incorrect citations,no citations, not following directions, etc. • Office Hours • BA 3 Preparation! This is the most important brief assignment for the rhetorical analysis!

3. What is Rhetorical Reading • What the text says vs. what it means • How true, useful, and important is what you read? • Evaluate and interpret what you read • Should everything be read the same way? • Notice context and organization and determine the audience and purpose • Determine what is important – main ideas • Engage the text (annotate, highlight, etc.)

4. Introducing Rhetorical Choices • How did you react to your chosen reading? • Why did you react this way? What did the author do to elicit this reaction? • What are rhetorical choices? Why do they matter? • How can you identify rhetorical choices? By reading critically.

5. Group Work: Interview What effect is this text trying to have on me? What kind of change does the writer hope to make in my view of the subject? Before reading this text, I believed this about the topic: ____________________. But after reading the text, my view has changed in these ways: ______________.

6. Interview - Although the text has persuaded me that____________________, I still have the following doubts:____________________. The most significant questions this text raises for me are these: ____________. The most important insights I have gotten from reading this text are these: ______ ____.

7. Rhetorical Choices in the Texts Identify and list at least five ways (rhetorical choices) the writer employs to reach this audience and achieve his or her purpose. For example: expert opinion, multiple points of view, compare and contrast. DO NOT use: diction, ethos, pathos, or logos, syntax, or tone (you CAN use language for tone because you can talk about specific words and phrases if you use “language”). Do the best you can. If you don’t know a term for something, simply describe what you see happening in the writing. • Discuss some of the rhetorical choices each of you identified. Pick three to present to the class. • Describe the choice in terms of “how, why, and the effect.”

8. How do you know the audience? • There is no such thing as an “average person” audience for this assignment. • Textual cues • Education/experience level • Relationship to the author: power differences, familiarity • Beliefs about the topic • Audience can be layered • Research! • Certain time in history • Certain periodical or publication • AUTHOR

9. Audiences are defined by traits: common ones include… • Power level (often = money or rank) • Knowledge of the topic (expert, novice) • Readers of a certain text: e.g., the New York Times, Technical Communication Quarterly, i can has cheezburger, National Enquirer, etc. • Certain time in history: CONTEXT • Certain beliefs, values, and life experiences • Relation to the author or the author’s topic

10. Worksheets: Purpose & Tone • In groups, complete the worksheets. • Let’s go ‘round the room • Discussion of worksheets • What kinds of rhetorical choices have we found, now? List them (take notes).

11. BA3 – 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.

12. BA 3 - Assignment Directions • Example: the author 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.  (What is the purpose of the technical jargon? How does using technical jargon aid the author’s overall purpose? ) • 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. (and what major persuasive points in the text support the purpose)

13. BA 3 - Assignment Directions • 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).

14. BA 3: Assignment Directions • Identify and list at least five rhetorical choices the writer employs to reach this audience and achieve his or her purpose. • Each discussion should discuss how the author uses the device, why, and the effect of the choice. (Create a separate paragraph for a discussion of each of the five choices. Each paragraph should be 150-200 words).

15. Condensed Directions for BA 3 • First paragraph: Audience and purpose. 100 – 200 words. Be sure to reference the author and title in your first sentence. BE CLEAR AND PRECISE IN THIS PARAGRAPH. • After paragraph, a LIST (1-5) of the five rhetorical strategies. Each item on the list should follow this format (they’ll probably be around 150-200 words EACH): • The first sentence should name the strategy AND be specific (e.g., "formal tone" instead of just "tone"). • The paragraph should give a specific example with an in-text citation.  • Each item should end with a discussion about how that strategy fit the audience and the author's purpose, and how effective that strategy might have been WITH THEIR AUDIENCE. • Include in-text citations where needed – MLA! • Include a labeled Works Cited at the end of the BA 3.

16. Use one of these texts: • 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. Remember that this text will also be the focus of your 1.1 and 1.2 rhetorical analysis.

17. BA 3: Your BA 3 should: • Have two sections (one on audience and purpose and one on rhetorical choices) • Use correct MLA formatting (use textual citation and create a Works Cited list entry) • Help you prepare for the upcoming rhetorical analysis

18. The text you choose for BA 3 will be the one you will use for your Rhetorical Analysis!