ENGLISH 1301: Essentials of College Rhetoric

Texas Tech University

Unit III: Understanding Perspective

Rationale for the Unit

This unit is meant to more thoroughly introduce you to rhetoric, which James Herrick defines as “the
systematic study and intentional practice of effective symbolic expression” (7). In this formulation,
rhetoric is two things: a study of effective expression, and an intentional practice of effective
communication. This unit will introduce you to rhetorical concepts so that you can better understand
how communication works effectively (or not) and in order to make decisions in your own writing to
communicate more effectively. Rhetoric can be helpful in responding to a variety of situations and
contexts—in academia, in civic discourse, and in your personal life.

During this unit, we will learn a variety of rhetorical concepts and put those concepts into practice by
writing a rhetorical analysis. A rhetorical analysis is a sophisticated academic argument about how a text
works for its audience: Is it effective at reaching its purpose or not? What makes it effective (or makes it
ineffective) at reaching its purpose? One goal in writing a rhetorical analysis is to practice your critical
reading and analytic skills at studying rhetoric so that you can apply those analytic skills in other
situations—whether you are reading a scholarly article, watching cable news, or reading an article
shared on Facebook—and understand how those texts work for their audiences, to hopefully help you
be a more critical citizen and a stronger scholar in your discipline.

But rhetoric is not solely the study of others’ communication: It is also a practice, and consequently
writing a rhetorical analysis is a practice in rhetoric. A rhetorical analysis is a formal academic genre, and
hopefully, by practicing writing a critical analytic paper, you will gain practice in some of the conventions
of other academic genres (though certainly not all), like writing a paper that supports a central thesis
and supporting claims with reasoning and evidence.

Additionally, in many of your classes, you will have to use the commonplaces—those phrases and words
that carry with them shared meanings within discourse communities—of a discipline in your writing.
And as you use these words and phrases, you’ll need to try to do so with sophistication even as you’re
learning what they mean and how to use them. Writing a rhetorical analysis in the language (or jargon)
of rhetorical studies, then, gives you practices using the commonplaces of a discipline.

Course Goals for This Unit

Rhetorical Knowledge
• Use key rhetorical concepts through analyzing and composing a variety of texts
• Develop facility in responding to a variety of situations and contexts (academic and
nonacademic) calling for purposeful shifts in voice, tone, level of formality, design, medium,
and/or structure

Inquiry & Research

• Incorporate work created by others in a variety of media (e.g., text, images, sound, video)
ethically and effectively for rhetorical purposes
• Summarize, paraphrase, analyze, and synthesize information from a variety of sources in their
writing

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 • Apply citation conventions appropriate for genre, purpose, and audience

Writing Processes & Craft

• Develop a writing project through multiple drafts
• Develop flexible strategies for reading, drafting, reviewing, collaborating, revising, rewriting,
rereading, and editing
• Evaluate the work of others, give useful feedback to others on their writing, and evaluate and
incorporate feedback from others in their own writing
• Assess accurately the strengths and weaknesses of their own writing, and develop individual
plans for revision and improvement
• Enact revision as substantive change

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 Unit III: Understanding Perspective

Project 3: Rhetorical Analysis

Prompt
Select a text from the options provided by your teacher and write a rhetorical analysis of this artifact.
Using a variety of rhetorical terms and concepts, assess the effectiveness of the author’s claims and
overarching argument, as well as their various choices and strategies throughout the text.

Further Explanation
This assignment does not ask for you to simply provide a litany of terms or a “grocery list” of interesting
rhetorical aspects of your choice. That is, you do not want to just “talk about” some rhetorical features
of your artifact. Instead, this assignment invites you to put your rhetorical knowledge to work by using
the concepts that pertain most meaningfully to your artifact to evaluate the effectiveness of the rhetor’s
choices and strategies.

In short, for this paper you will make an argument about the effectiveness of a text and how it works
rhetorically or has specific effects for a specific audience (or audiences) in its specific context(s). Your
argument may be that a text is effective, ineffective, partially effective, or effective for some audiences
but not others, because of certain rhetorical aspects of the text or ways it responds to (or doesn’t
respond to) the rhetorical situation.

Your audience for this rhetorical analysis is other rhetorical scholars. While your instructor will be
reading and grading this project, he or she will be reading it as a “general rhetorician.” Consequently,
you do not need to define rhetorical terms from class that you’re using, but you shouldn’t assume a
reader has intimate knowledge of the text you’re analyzing.

Rhetorical Terms You Might Deploy in This Essay

During this unit, we will introduce and cover the following rhetorical concepts, which you might deploy
in this essay:

Kairos
Identification
Situated Ethos
Invented Ethos
Rhetorical Distance
Pathos
Enthymeme
Logos
Arrangement
Mythos
Values
Cultural Logics
Ideology
(and others)

Expectations & Guidelines

This is an academic paper with some structural constraints. In order to earn a C, your project should
conform to these guidelines:

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 • Be 4-5 pages long with 1-inch margins, double-spaced, in a readable 11–12 pt. font
• Include an accurate and fair summary of the artifact you are analyzing as the opening
paragraph(s)
• Include accurate description of the aspects of the rhetorical situation or context as they pertain
to your artifact (this means identifying its purpose, audience(s), exigence, and relevant
information about the rhetor)
• Include a clear thesis that makes an evaluative claim about the artifact’s effectiveness (a
particularly effective thesis also helps readers by providing a “roadmap” of the essay)
• Use at least three rhetorical concepts in sophisticated discussions of the artifact’s effectiveness
(that is, concepts are not just deployed as a passing aside, but are instead integral to your
analysis)
• Have an effective title that is inviting to readers and helps readers preview the purpose and
subject of your analysis
• End with a conclusion that synthesizes your claims
• Use MLA to cite the artifact and any secondary research you’ve conducted, including in-text
citations and a works cited page
• Use clear language, and be carefully edited

In order to earn an A or B, your essay should conform to the following degrees of excellence:

• Your essay includes all the minimum requirements listed above. It thoroughly analyzes your
artifact, offering a rich description of it and its context, but more importantly, goes beyond the
superficial to analytically and critically explain the rhetoricity of the artifact.
• Your essay is organized in a fashion that is appropriate for your argument and logically and
carefully arranged.
• The claims made in the essay cohere in order to make a coherent argument (through the use of
transitions and linking back to the thesis).
• Paragraphs cohere, are clearly ordered, and transition smoothly. Paragraphs contain
appropriate analytic topic sentences, which are supported with clear, concrete evidence and
sound reasoning.
• The essay makes points clearly and succinctly, avoiding wordiness and empty sentences. The
essay’s argument is clearly stated in a thesis statement.
• The essay’s conclusion moves toward the “so what,” making the analysis not solely an academic
exercise, but an analysis that matters for readers.
• Sentences are interesting, varied in form, and fairly free of surface errors. Word choice and
sentences show evidence of intentional choices by you as a writer.