- Read essays and articles and determine the methods of development.
- Write essays based on personal experiences, observation, and/or assigned readings.
- Demonstrate the ability to edit writing to eliminate jargon, choppiness, dullness, and incoherence to produce a smooth, vivid style appropriate to the subject and the audience.
- Demonstrate the ability to proofread writing to eliminate sentence structure errors, verb and pronoun errors, punctuation errors, and spelling errors.
Overview:
In this paper, you are going to consider one of the below articles and will write a rhetorical analysis in which you explore how the author conveys a thesis, theme, or meaning to his/her/their audience.
The focus is not on whether you agree with the author, rather, focus on what strategies the author is using to create a meaningful or effective piece. This does not mean that you have to take everything the author says at face value. If the author seems to over-emphasize emotional appeals, ignore counterarguments, or rely on faulty data, you are free – indeed, encouraged – to call them out on it.
A couple salient features to really consider when reading:
- What is the rhetorical situation the author is writing in? Try to examine these concerns:
- What is the historical context of this text?
- Who is the audience?
- What is the purpose of the text?
- What disciplines or discourses does the author draw from?
- How does the author use rhetorical proofs (appeals to emotion, authority, and reason) to make their case?
- Where does the author seem to make concessions or address counterarguments?
When you find a feature, or multiple features, that you want to focus on in your analysis, make sure that you do all of the following:
- Show the reader how the author uses this rhetorical strategy
- Discuss the effect that the use of this strategy has on the text, the argument, or the reader.
You do not need to spend a lot of time summarizing the original text. You can assume your reader has already read it. Imagine that your job is to discuss points about the author’s strategies that the reader may have missed.
Whichever essay you choose, please consider the following guidelines:
- Your essay should be about 750 words in MLA format. You must include a works cited page.
- You may quote and paraphrase from the text as well – indeed you should quote or paraphrase when doing so will illustrate the point you are making.
- This essay will be due at the end of Learning Unit 9
Rubric:
60% of your grade depends on you completing the assignment to the specified length and it being on time.
The rest of the grade is determined by how proficient you are in four domains (10% each)
Reading
Demonstrates thorough comprehension of the source text. Shows an understanding of the text’s central idea(s) and of most important details and how they interrelate, demonstrating a comprehensive understanding of the text. Is free of errors of fact or interpretation with regard to the text. Makes skillful use of textual evidence (quotations, paraphrases, or both), demonstrating a complete understanding of the source text.
Analysis
Offers an insightful analysis of the source text and demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of the analytical task. Offers a thorough, well-considered evaluation of the author’s use of evidence, reasoning, and/or stylistic and persuasive elements, and/or feature(s) of the student’s own choosing. Contains relevant, sufficient, and strategically chosen support for claim(s) or point(s) made. Focuses consistently on those features of the text that are most relevant to addressing the task.
Writing
Is cohesive and demonstrates a highly effective use and command of language. Includes a precise central claim. Includes a skillful introduction and conclusion. The response demonstrates a deliberate and highly effective progression of ideas both within paragraphs and throughout the essay. Has a wide variety in sentence structures. The response demonstrates a consistent use of precise word choice. The response maintains a formal style and objective tone. Shows a strong command of the conventions of standard written English and is free or virtually free of errors.
Format
Follows the conventions of MLA format, including double-spaced text, heading, proper font and margin size, and correctly formatted works cited page and in-text citations.
Student Models
Sample Student 5 on Jasani.docxSample Student 1 – on Devos.docx
Tips on Writing the Analysis Essay
1) Choose an article that you find interesting – even if you don’t agree with it.
A savvy analysis shouldn’t just lavish praise on how brilliantly the author makes an argument – nor should you just dismiss the author’s claims outright without a close inspection at the arguments that the author is relying on. You will find, however, that being interested in the topic may make a close reading and inspection of the author’s claims more worthwhile.
2) Read both “at” and “through” the text.
Johnson-Sheehan and Paine describe “looking through” a text as reading to understand the central points, understanding what the author is saying – not necessarily how the author is saying it. When you read to understand an author’s argument, you are “reading through” it.
Looking “at” the text is closer to what you might describe as “reading as a writer.” In this exercise, you are putting yourself in the writer’s shoes, considering what the writer is trying to accomplish and trying to figure out what choices the writer made in order to accomplish them.
At this point, you might think about the different patterns of development, such as process, comparison, contrast, definition, argument, classification, cause, effect, exemplification, and analysis.
Your effective analysis will require both an understanding of what the writer is saying and how the writer is saying it.
3) Form a Thesis Statement
Use a thesis statement to help you decide what belongs in the paper and what does not, what you need to focus on and emphasize, and what needs to be de-emphasized or even cut out. If you have gathered your details effectively, you will have plenty of decisions to make.
4) Make an Outline or Write a First Draft
Make an outline or write a first draft to organize your ideas and to fill out the details of the development. Remember to check the rhetorical modes and decide what method you are trying to use. Be sure that your topic sentences for each body paragraph grow out of a clear, strong thesis statement, which has been placed at the end of the introductory paragraph or paragraphs.
5) Write a Draft and Revise
At this point, you should begin considering your paper’s organization. Again, consider your audience, purpose, and context to help you make decisions.
Next, use coherence techniques to help make clear to the reader the relationships between ideas. Evaluate your use of transitional phrases, repeated keywords, synonyms, parallelism, and consistent pronouns, and think about how these techniques can help make your thesis clearer.
You will revise not only your body paragraphs but also your introduction and conclusion. Be sure to consider the strategies in this Learning Unit for help with creating strong introductions and conclusions.
Share your draft with other students in the class and ask for advice; give your own advice to other students since doing so will help them as well as you to develop analytical skills.
6) Edit and Proofread
Finally, once you have revised your paper for content concerns (unity, development, organization, and coherence), consider sentence style, and then grammatical and mechanical correctness. Use what you have learned about sentence structure to help you make decisions.