1. After you set up your google email account and email me introducing yourself and asking to be added to the class listserv, write a short introduction of yourself and send it to the class email list. You do this by sending an email from your gmail account to:
eng111summer2008reynolds@googlegroups.com
To make it easy for everyone to recognize a message from the list, include the following as part of your subject:
[ENG111Summer2008]
2. Read the introductions posted by your classmates. Find places where you "connect" to a message's author, and send a follow up email--again to the list--in which you briefly explain your connection. What you are doing is attempting to build connection or to get the sender to identify with you. Southerners play this game of connection whenever they get together. Little do they know, they are practicing a simple form of building ethos.
3. Identify three simple, separate rhetorical situations and write about them. As you write about each rhetorical situation, analyze them by using the terms from the reading this week. [Hint: keep the messages you analyze relatively short and simple. For instance: you might analyze an advertisement from a magazine or new paper.]
Begin each analysis by recording the message being sent, and then answer the following questions:
- Who was the author?
- Who was the audience?
- What did the author hope to accomplish? (That is, "What was the author's rhetorical purpose?")
- What appeals did the author use in crafting her message?
- Did the author use logos? If so, how?
- Did the author use pathos? If so, how?
- Did the author use ethos? If so, how?
- Was the author's message successful? In other words, "Did the author's message do everything they hoped it would do?
- What were the sources of noise? That is, "What prevented the audience from understanding and acting/believing/knowing in the way he author intended?
What you are doing here is learning to break down and understand some of the nuances of the rhetoric which surrounds you. As you develop and practice this skill, you will learn how others succeed (and don't succeed) in their efforts to communicate. Each time you observe, you are learning new techniques, sources of noise, what to do, and what to avoid in your own communication.
Post your rhetorical analysis to the class email list. If you create these in a word processor, copy and paste your analysis into the body of an email you send to the list. In your email, don't forget to include in your subject line the text, "[ENG111Summer2008]." Also, don't forget to sign your work with your name. [One of the skills you are picking up is getting used to taking public "ownership" of your opinion and analysis.]
4 comments:
When you say answer these questions, do you mean after I write each situation answer the questions? I don't understand what you mean.
Answer the questions about each situation. So,
1. Write down the message sent my the author to the audience.
2. Answer each question.
Do the above for three messages/texts.
Write if the assignment still isn't clear.
Can a t.v commercial be used as a rhetorical situation?
All communication--including TV advertisements--is rhetorical, so, yes.
Steve
Post a Comment