3.31 Rhetorical analysis!

Rhetorical elements
focus organization development position
ethos pathos logos
audience
purpose
TS/IS  academic language

Analytic process
1. Identify the problem you are trying to solve.
2. Identify and classify (describe what they do) the elements of the problem
3. orientation of the problem = how to look at, understand the relationships among the elements.  For the puzzle, we had to decide what direction to "read" the patterns.
3. Look for local patterns (relationships among the elements)
4. test/try out local patters to see if the "fit" into the larger pattern presented by the problem as a whole, and whether they will "work" to generate additional cases in the larger pattern
5. compare/look for existing patterns  or models which might "explain" your problem (for example - we used relationships among the counting numbers, 1,2, 3. .  as a model for the problem presented in the puzzle)
6. pose and test a global pattern or theory to answer the problem

Rhetorical analysis.
For rhetorical analysis, the problem you are trying to "solve" is located in the question: how does this essay work?   how does the author use each of the rhetorical elements to achieve his/her focus ?  which elements are successful?  How do all the elements work together?

To answer this question, you must first identify the audience and purpose of the writing.  This corresponds to understanding the "orientation" of the piece.  Who will be reading this essay?  What are their values and believes?  We need to know the audience and purpose of an essay so we can understand how the author's ideas, language and rhetorical moves will be received.

For next class:
Read: Zinczenko's essay "Don't Blame the Eater"
Write:  1) Finish your reflective essay and post it to the portfolio.  All writing for the persuasive writing unit is due on Thursday.

2) Write a paragraph by paragraph rhetorical analysis of "Don't Blame the Eater" and post it to your blog.

You did a great job on the analysis puzzle!  Good class today and see you on Thursday.

Writing due for persuasive essay unit

practice argument for King 2.26

practice argument (2 page minimum) 3.3

brainstorm persuasive essay 3.12

draft persuasive essay  3.24

plan to revise persuasive essay (3.26)

final persuasive essay 3.31

reflection on persuasive essay 4.2

3.26 Essays for Analysis Unit + Workshop on persuasive writing

We took a quick look at the assignment for the analysis unit - so that you had an idea what you would be writing about.  The assignment is a rhetorical analysis = where you characterize the audience, purpose and form of a text, and assess its effectiveness in terms of how well it "works."

We chose the following essays:
Zinczenko
Balko
Warner
Obama
Orbach

The rest of class was spent on your drafts for the persuasive essay.

Last class we reviewed the drafts in terms of focus, organization, and development.  For today's conferences we checked in on how focus, organization and development were working, and then considered your use of ethos, pathos, and logos; and made sure you met the particular requirements for this assignment.

I didn't spend much time talking to you about your use of academic language (there were enough other issues going on in your essays it seemed like it would be too much), so you should do a final read for language before you turn in your final essays.  Those of you who have developed your work through drafts are doing great work!   I can see improvement with every revision.

For next class:
Write: Post the final persuasive essay to your portfolio

Come to class prepared to write your reflective essay for the persuasive unit, and we will get started on rhetorical analysis.

3.24 Revision Workshop

We started class by talking through a revision strategy for Sample Persuasive essay 1 (posted to the right).  This discussion included taking a look at Ch. 7 in TS/IS where the authors point out the importance of presenting your argument in a way which answers the "who cares?" question.  After talking through the sample essay, we made a list of our general approach (listed below), and you spent the rest of class working on your essay.

Revision for focus

Establish the focus (by reading through entire essay with attention to the set up + conclusion)

Make focus more detailed => turn it into a thesis

Work on introductory paragraph

• Make sure set up answers the “so what” question
• Use TS /IS format (TS first= give background before thesis)
• Structure set up so that it maps out (sets up the points in the order you will make them) the essay in a general way
• Conclude set up with a clear state,ment of what you will argue

Go through the essay paragraph by paragraph to make sure each paragraph makes a point to develop the focus; if necessary:

• Revise/change focus of existing paragraphs
• Add material (to develop or show how connects to fgocus)
• Break one paragraph into two or more paragraphs
• Change order of the paragraphs

Revision for organization:

Go through essay again to make sure points are in the same order as the set up  and that the set up provides the BEST order

Revision for development:

Go through to make sure you have evidence for each point

Check with the assignment sheet to make sure you hit all the requirements (Ethos pathos logos, etc)

For next class:
Read: review the essays in the fast food unit so we can choose which ones to read for this unit
Write: post to your portfolio 1) plan to revise project 1; 2) any revisions you have made so far (so we can conference on your work for final revision in class on Thursday)

In class on Thursday we will choose essays for the analysis unit, and spend the rest of class on one-on-one conferences so you can finish your persuasive essays (project 1).

3.12 Organization + persuasion

During the first part of class we took a close look at the way Obama organized his argument to soothe the "white" outrage over his connections to Rev. Wright.  We noticed that he approached his topic by emphasizing the points of connection with his audience BEFORE dealing with the very conflicted material regarding his pastor's remarks.    As in any argument, his target audience was the people who disagreed with him = the people who were angry that Obama would not renounce the Rev. Wright. 

As we analyzed the organization and movement of Obama's moves, we noticed that he moved back and forth: from stories, illustrations, examples => to logical, straight forward discussions of how that material connected to his argument.  We also noticed that he used transitions when he moved from one focus to the following focus (as when he gave the story about the constitution, and then related it to what he would argue, and then pointed out how his personal story connected to what he would argume and so on). 

After the break, we reviewed the overall organization of a persuasive essay, and I spoke with each of you one-on-one about your plans for creating the draft. 

For next class:

Read: TS/IS Chapter Seven

Write: Draft for your Persuasive essay.  4 pages minimum.

If you did not post your brainstorming (written to the prompts posted on the 3.10 blog), you were assigned to post that work by the end of class.  

As you write your draft, do not worry about correctness or using the right language.   The most important thing for you to do is to get your ideas on the page.  If you find yourself repeating yourself => do some more freewriting, or go back to the readings for more ideas.

Have a great break and see you on March 24.

3.10 Preparing to write the persuasive essay

Today's class was focuse on moving us forward so you are ready to write your persuasive essay.  Your persuasive essay will focus on the American Dream as it has been discussed by at least one of the 4 authors in your text: King, Thomas, Herbert, & Obama.  I previewed the Obama essay, drawing your attention to the different kinds of moves he made (ethos, pathos + logos) and the order in which he made them.  I did this in a general way - and you will be reading the essay more carefully and noting the order of his moves in more detail for homework.

Before we got into today's work, we had some general talk about how the form each of the authors used for their argument connected to the genre they were writing for, and the identities of their audience.  We noted that King's essay was the most like an academic argument, that Herbert + Thomas were journalists and journalists often write for an audience who is mostly onboard with their views (readers/listerners often choose radio/newspaper/online site that match their views), and that Obama's piece was a talk to the American people as a whole.  These are 4 essays in the textbook were produced for very different audiences = and the form each essay took reflects the expectations of those different audiences.  One way to thinkabout how best to persuade a particular audience is to analyze the rhetoric  (the moves the author needs to make to be convincing) that will get them to "hear" your points.  This is called rhetorical analysis - and we will talk about it more in the next unit.

Reading and assessing the assignment.
We officially started class by taking a look at the assignment sheet.  We paid particular attention to the description of the assignment + the list of criteria (requirements) for the essay.  We then grouped these requirements under the criteria for the writing rubric.  Our list of features for assessing this essay was as follows.

1. Genre (30%)
focus is set up in terms of the TS, and presented after a discussion of context
effective use  if paraphrase and quotation
each supporting point connects to the overall focus and the TS
language choices from TS/IS text
uses academic moves in terms of referring to TS (other authors) for authority
uses ethos, pathos + logos

2. Focus (25%)
clear statemtn of position
claims which related to that position also clearly stated => each paragraph develops the focus in a different way
the organization (logic of the discussion) develops the fous
the author states the connections between the claims (points to develop the focus) and the development (references to research, personal experience etc which illustrate the points)

3. Organization (20%)
establish context/background FIRST (TS first)
then state focus
then develop a series of points, each of which connects to the focus
naysayer/counter argument, if appropriate (after point countered is presented)
conclusion

4. Development (25%)
connect to at least 3 readings
show/illustrate points

You then looked at the sample argument (posted to the right) and used the criteria above both to evaluate the essay, and to formulate some feedback for what the writer would need to work on to write a stronger essay.  You did a great job on this - and your reasoning for why you took points off and what you would suggest the author to work on was excellent.  In general, I took off more points off for focus and for organization that did most of the groups - and we had some discussion about why,

After we talked about how to give feedback to this essay, we talked about using Writing rubric categories as a guide for revising draft essays.  In general, it is a good idea not to evaluate/or work too hard on "improving" your writing while you are in the drafting stage.  After all, it is hard enough to get ideas on the page!   So for the draft - just get your ideas out there  Once they are on the page, I suggested that you revise for focus, [development, organization] & finally for the language moves/features that will make your essay into "academic writing"   = in THAT ORDER,   [the brackets suggest that you can switch around development and organization - or go back and forth].

I strongly recommend reading through the entire essay in terms of each category (focus, organization, development, genre) one by one.  This will allow you to work on the specific issues in each category without getting overwhelmed.  I suggest focus first = because you can't work on much of anything else until you know what you are writing about.  It is true that you might go back and do some more work of focus after you have spent some time on development - and that is OK.  This is not a rigid list, but rather a kind of general plan.

After you have a clear statement of your focus in the set up, in the conclusion - and as the "frame" for the discussion of your points, you can work on organization and development.  For development you will want to do some more brainstorming and drafting, and for organization try out different sequences for your supporting points, look at the internal organization of paragraphs, check for transitions, and so on.  Finally, after you have the flesh (development) and bones (organization) of your essay in place => you can make sure they have on the right clothing (genre => language moves etc).  We will work more on this as you begin to revise your essays.

Quotation + paraphrasing
We read quickly through the handout (posted to the right) on Quotation & Paraphrase.  The important thing to remember is to use quotes sparingly and for a particular focus.  The handout identifies the appropriate uses of quotation.  For everything else = you should paraphrase.   I didn't spend much time on formatting (we didn't have much time!) but fortunately, The Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab) has the answers to just about any question you could ask.   If you can't find what you want to know there - the Kean University Writing Center has some excellent writing coaches who can talk you through.

Thomas & Herbert
We didn't get to talk throug/review Thomas - so we will catch up with this on Thursday as you get ready to write your draft.

For next class:
Read: Barak Obama's essay in TS/IS.  We talked through the main points and identified some of the major ethos, pathos, & logos moves he makes.  As you read, notice: where he makes each ethos, pathos + logos move.
Write:  Brainstorm ideas for your persuasive essay.  Post your brainstorming to the persuasive essay page on your portfolio.
Suggestions for brainstorming process:

1. Start with freewriting or something to open you up/turn off your editor.  Freewrite about the different readings, points from the readings that interested you, anything you think about the american dream, connections between your ideas and the readings, your experiences/observations related to the american dream, and so on.  Anything you can think of.  You don't need to be coherent or have good punctuation = just get it on the page.  If it comes out as a list, that work, but try adding as many details as you can.  Don't correct anything and done delete anything.

2. Read through your freewriting and mark anything that looks interesting.  Make a list of ideas.

3. Go back to the readings to check what you remembered, see if there is anything else that interests you.  Add to your list.

4. Try out some thesis statements for a couple of the ideas on the list.  Write them a couple times in different language.  See what happens.

5. Identify your favorite ideas and think about which one would be easiest for you to write.
6.  List the points you would use to develop one or more of the ideas you have on the lsits from 4 & 5.

You will probably want something close to a page or more of writing in order to get enough material to work with.


In class, we will go over the analysis of Obama, check in on Herbert + Thomas, and review the overall organization for an academic argument.

You will spend the rest of class mapping out /planning your essay, and getting started on your draft.

3.4 Snow day (again)

Even though we are not having class today, I will be writing feedback to your practice arguments.  My comments are meant to provide you with a kind of roadmap for what to work on to turn the draft/practice argument into something that will work as an academic essay.  Read through these comments carefully, and take a look at the requirements for the persuasive essay assignment (also posted to the right under assignment).  After reading through the comments and the assignment sheet, write a list of your own for what you need to work on during this unit on writing arguments (post this list to your portfolio) - it will be due on Tuesday.

I know it might feel bad to be required to work for this class, even though it was cancelled - but realistically, we are behind in the time we need to work together - so let's hang in there and hopefully you can catch your breath over Spring Break.

Assignment for next class
Read: Cal Thomas, 568; review Herbert.
Write:  Keep working on your practice arguments:
1) Make revisions in light of comments to your drafts=> post your revised practice argument.

What we will do in our next class:
we will talk about paraphrasing versus quoting - when you should do what
go over the assignment sheet for the persuasive essay
review some sample arguments + rate them in light of the assignment sheet

3.2 Persuasive essays

You received your grade so far for the response unit.  If you have questions, be in touch and/or set up a conference.

Policy changes for turning in work:  
In the past, you were permitted to post missing work from past units and receive credit.  For the persuasive writing unit, any work that is not posted at the time the unit is graded will be marked as missing/not turned, with no make up.  You will still be allowed to revise work that is turned in for a higher grade.
Inaccessible work: For the first two units, if I could not access your portfolio or a particular assignment, I sent an email informing you that the work was not accessible, and we worked on it until I was able to access you work.  We have worked through this for two units.  For the remaining units, any work which is not accessible to me - will be marked as not turned in.

Work on practice argument:
You spent the first part of class writing a "practice argument" which addressed the issues stated in King.  The reason having you write out your ideas before focusing on the form (the "right" way to write an argument) is so that you could get your thinking down on paper without getting all tangled up in a long list of what you have to do to write it the right way.

We then worked on one of the practice arguments as a way to think about what you might need to do to turn your practice writing, into something that looked more like the form for an argument you would write for an academic assignment.  

The most important observations we made about how the first practice argument was set up were that, to make this practice writing into an academic argument, the author would need to:

1. make sure the statement of what King argues is clearly stated and accurate
2. make sure the argument directly addresses the main points set up by King 
3. make sure to define important terms

To work on this, we spent the first part of class after break analyzing King's essay to make sure we had a clear outline of his points.  This is a short version 

The next thing we did was to King says: American Dream is alive - because American people willing to re-define the dream

People can still achieve a level of success despite economic hardship brought on by recession + inequality issues

Government is making the right moves to keep the American Dream alive

                 Supports industry + jobs to provide jobs

                Not raise minimum wages provide programs that threaten company profits

Argues against Herbert (answers a "naysayer") 

Concludes by stating that Americans have faced challenges to the American Dream before (in the Depression) and the dream has survived, and it will continue to survive.

Some points to argue to AGREE with King's argument would be to point out that:

American's  can and do buy their own businesses + continue to move on

People owning their own homes ?  up or down? (check out the research/facts on this as evidence)

What do people believe - point out what people you know beliefe

Increase or decrease in homelessness? (check out the research)

Point out that other countries/places to live have worse struggles – US is in many ways better

 Some points to argue to DISAGREE with King:

Government is not making the right moves – needs to support middle + working class (use Herbert as evidence? or some other statistics from research)

Opportunities are not the same in reality as they are in the dream (connect to economic arguments)

Changes in the economy as a result of the global market have made the American Dream imposssible

The  American Dream is not only about economics - it is also about respect and equality and safety - which are not working out so well in the US for African Americans, Hispanics, LGBT or even for women

With each point you make =think about how you will tie it to KING

We then talked through a general map for the order of your points.

Introduction = Set up the issues

May be more than one paragraph

Set up the sides => then state your position in detail. Saying you "agree" is not sufficient.  You need to include the particulars that set up what you will argue (think back to the examples from class).

Have a series of points to argue which respond to/are in conversation with the texts you are arguing with

American dream on hold because of inequality gaps = connect to King

Unequal gap between social classes

Gap won’t close unless money stops going to rich

Plant a naysayer (King)

What needs to be done

Conclusion

equal gap between social classes

For next class:

Read: Chapter 8 in TS/IS

Write: Draft practice argument, minimum 2 pages.  

In class we will talk about revising the practice argument to include the language moves discussed in chapter 8, as well as the ethos and pathos moves we talked about on 2.26.