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Purpose of the Assignment: To practice using rhetorical theory as a frame for textual analysis. To practice using rhetorical theory to find the intent and exigence in sources.
Intended Audience: Classmates. Instructor. Writing Teachers. Individuals interested learning more about writing and rhetorical theory.
Assignment Description: *NOTE: It’s a good idea to print this out and keep it nearby as you work on this assignment. There is a lot of information in here that will be directly helpful to you as you work through the process.
Step 1: Locate a text, and remember that a text is a broad term in this assignment, and identify and analyze the rhetorical situation of that text. A text can be defined broadly, but for this assignment, you’re going to choose from either of these two categories:
a) choose an assignment that you were given by your teacher or professor in a class that you have taken within the past six months. You must have the original document that came with the assignment and supporting materials such as the class description, the class syllabus, and other information about the context within which you received the assignment.
b) choose a written communication that you directly composed for professional or personal reasons in order to solve a problem. This text must be significant. It could be the text you wrote about for the Writing to Solve Problems assignment if that seems like it will provide enough substance and interest for you to analyze. By significant, I mean that you had to go through multiple stages to get this text written and sent; it must have had a strong exigence (reason) and you had an important argument to make, and you went through stages of a process to compose and create it rather than simply writing it in a few minutes and sending it. Think carefully about this option.
c) if you can’t find an example within either of these categories, you must make an appointment with me to discuss an alternative option before beginning your writing process for this assignment.
You have to have an authentic copy of your text for this assignment; this constraint will factor in to your choice of a topic. You’re going to need to attach the text to the end of your assignment so that your reader can refer to it as they read your analysis, so make sure you have a copy of it that is shareable and that you have permission to share. Work e-mails can be sensitive, for example, so if you chose that option, then do what you need to do and consult whom you need to make sure it’s shareable. If it’s too difficult, then it would probably be best to choose a different text.
Think about the text you intend to use for this assignment and make sure you fully understand how to apply the theory of the rhetorical situation to that text. Don’t choose a text that is too difficult to analyze or has very little content or substance. Choose a text wisely, and make sure the text you choose has plenty of rhetorical content to address and examine so you can demonstrate your knowledge of rhetorical situations in the paper. Watch this video by Kyle Steadman to help you understand what rhetorical analysis is and how it works:
Step 2: Now create rhetorical data to examine and use to write the paper. This will take some time. Use the following questions to help you generate content for the analysis. The goal is to learn as much as possible about the details of the text before writing the paper.
- What is the exigence and purpose for the text? Why was it made? What is the text reacting to?
- What is the main argument the text is trying to make? Where is the argument set up and established in the text?
- Who are the intended audience(s) for the text? How do you know these are the audiences?
- Who stands to gain something from the arguments and information in the text and who does not stand to gain? Why?
- Who are all the rhetors responsible for making the text? The writer, sure, but what about the academic department, the educational institution who created the requirements and learning outcomes for the class? Or if it’s yourself writing an e-mail, for example, did you have anyone else look at it before you sent it? Was it critiqued by anyone else? Try to identify all of the individuals responsible for shaping the text. Those are the rhetors. There can be a main rhetor, but there are always contributors to a text.
- Does the text have a picture or image? Who made the image(s)?
- What types of constraints existed for the rhetors?
- What deadlines and limitations did they face? How did that limit the text?
- What advantages did they have? Did they have a strict timeline to work around?
- Did they only get to use a certain amount of words, pages, or images? How did these issues constrain the work?
The answers to the questions above will serve as a way to collect rhetorical data. The more complete and comprehensive the answers to those questions are, the more rhetorical data you have to examine and analyze for this assignment.
Step 3: Once you’ve answered some of these questions, start to shape a central statement about what you’ve learned. Use the “Backpacks and Briefcases” article to set up terms and ideas and to support and elaborate on your rhetorical analysis. Collect quotes from “Backpacks vs. Briefcases” that connect to your own ideas in your paper and that you can use as support for your ideas in your paper, like you are having a conversation with the author Laura Bolin Carroll in your paper.
To craft your thesis statement, think about this questions:
What did the rhetorical information you collected about the text teach you?
What did you learn about the text after examining its rhetorical data? You looked at the text rhetorically. How did that frame for examining a text provide you a different perspective of the text?
What did you learn about the text from studying is rhetorical components? How did rhetorical theory help you see below the surface of the text?
Step 4: Draft your paper. In your own words, tell us how the text is rhetorically situated using your data and the articles from the course about rhetorical situations. The final assignment must be 750-1000 words and follow a citation format like MLA or APA carefully and accurately. Please use a handbook or Purdue Owl (Links to an external site.) to guide you.
Here is a general guide for organizing your paper:
Introduction: Give us some background about your text. What is it, why did you choose it for this assignment as an example of a rhetorical situation? End the introduction with a thesis statement that synthesizes all of the elements of the rhetorical situation into a clear analysis. The thesis statement should be the answer to a question, or a combination of the questions above–in general, how did you come to see this text differently by using the concepts of rhetorical situations to analyze it? Your thesis statement must be a single sentence.
Body: Write several paragraphs. You can write one paragraph about each of the elements of the rhetorical situation, starting with the exigence and argument, audience, rhetors, constraints. Use the questions above to help you fill in the details. Each body paragraph should start with a topic sentence that states the main idea of the paragraph, which includes the topic of the paragraph and what you’re going to teach us about that topic in the paragraph. The topic sentence has a direct relationship to the thesis. You can think of it as a leg that the thesis is standing on. The body of the essay breaks up the big idea/central statement/thesis statement into smaller, digestible parts that each get their own paragraph. Each paragraph speaks for one part of the thesis. That should be very clear in the paragraph. It takes multiple revisions to get it as clear as possible, so expect to keep reading and re-reading your drafts as you work on this assignment to try and make this connection as clear and obvious as possible for your reader.
Then, after the topic sentence, introduce your idea in your own words; bring in an example from your text that illustrates this idea; explain what this example means and how it connects to your idea, in your own words. Then bring in a quotation or paraphrase from “Backpacks vs. Briefcases” that is in conversation with your idea. Introduce that quote or paraphrase in your own words, with a signal phrase like “Carroll states in “Backpacks vs. Briefcases” that [insert quote or paraphrase here] (page # from the article where the quote appears). Then explain in your own words how that quote relates to your idea.
Finish the paragraph with a sentence that reminds us what you wanted us to learn in this paragraph! That’s a sentence like the topic sentence, only it’s even clearer and uses different words.
Conclusion: Summarize your main points from the paper again in new words. Restate your thesis in new words. What should we take away from this paper and keep thinking about? This can be a recommendation, a prediction, or an opinion about the big idea of your text.
Works Cited: You’ll need to include MLA or APA* citations for Laura Bolin Carroll’s article as well as your own text. I don’t think you’ll be needing any other citations for this paper, but if anything comes up, I’ll be sure to announce ti.
Your text: copy and paste the text into the last pages of your paper.
* If you have a good working knowledge of how to use MLA or APA or a strong preference for either one, you may use it. If you are new to these style formats and citation, please use MLA for this paper, which I am providing examples of. I’m happy to help with citation and formatting, and you should also make an appointment at the TCC Writing & Tutoring Center to go over your paper and get additional help if you think you need it.
Look over some of these examples for the assignment:
- Links to an external site.
- Example Paper #2
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