The Rhetorical Square from CSU Sacramento

Rhetorical Analysis Rubric

Appeals:

• Rhetorical Appeals
• Logos, Ethos, Pathos, and Kairos - handout pdf 
• Student rhetorical analysis of ads example - Old Spice 4:14
• Introduction to Argument and Persuasion - the Appeals  3:34
• Rhetorical Appeals 5:22 min
• Rhetorical Analysis Rap 4:18
• 212 The Movie

Videos:

• In Defense of Rhetoric - No Longer Just for Liars - 14:09
• Purdue OWL Vidcast - Introduction to Rhetoric
• TED Talk: Nancy Duarte: The secret structure of great talks - 18:11 

Articles:

• Definitions of Rhetoric
• Rhetorical Appeals
• Audience
• Understanding Your Purpose

PowerPoints:

• The Rhetorical Situation
• History of Rhetoric
• Audience and Purpose
• Rhetorical Reading
• Rhetorical Appeals  
• Kairos - Writing Commons  
• The Three Appeals
• Emotional Appeals
• Rhetorical Strategies.ppt 

Rhetorical Appeal Examples:

Health care reform ads:

   Pharma and Families Usa

   Americans for Stable Quality Care

   Funny Health Care Reform Commercial

   Health Care Reform; Marriage

   Peter Jennings reports on health insurance 40 min.

Mixture of print and visual texts to introduce rhetorical strategies:

• A collection of different kinds of print and visual texts can be useful to emphasize how authors use different kinds of strategies, even when the argument is the same. The following texts all make a similar argument about the Texas Board of Education's decisions to change their textbooks.
• "Texas Should Not Define Education." An editorial from SDSU's student newspaper, The Daily Aztec (March 22, 2010).
• "Don't Mess with Texas....Textbooks," by Chuck Norris. Human Events, March 16, 2010.
• Episode of The Daily Show. (The segment on the Texas Board of Education begins at 9:13 and ends at 14:15.)
• Segment from The Colbert Report, "I's On Edjukashun." (From March 16, 2010 episode). Features historian Eric Foner
• "Twisting History in Texas," by Eric Foner, The Nation, March 18, 2010.  Could be used to compare strategies - Foner on Colbert, Foner in the Nation.
• Cartoon: "Texas Schoolboard Bookburning." By Monte Wolverton, March 14, 2010. http://blog.cagle.com/2010/03/14/texas-schoolboard-bookburning
• Cartoon: On the Texas School Board of Education vote. March 17, 2010 cartoon published in the Atlantis Journal-Constitution by Mike Luckovich.

Nicholas Carr, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"

• Carr, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?"
• Carr's blog page and his wikipedia page
• Videos of Carr explaining his arguments: 1) video interview with Canadian host Steve Paikin ("Is the Internet Making Us Stupid?" 16 minutes)
  The Harvard Book Store presents Nicholas Carr: The Shallows - What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains (49 mins)
  Presentation at  the Commonwealth Club of California, "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" (60 minutes - you can select "chapters" from the talk)
•  Nicholas Carr & Stephen Fry on The Effects of Web Culture (9 minutes)

Responses, Extensions & Challenges to Carr

• Encyclopedia Britannica hosted a forum on Carr's text. Many prominent writers responded with some short, lively posts. Here, for example,  
  is Clay Shirky's "Why Abundance is Good: A Reply to Nick Carr." 
• Shirky, "Does The Internet Make You Smarter?" 
• Pinker, "Mind Over Mass Media" (html) and also as a pdf. 

Teaching Rhetorical Strategies 

• Into to rhetorical strategies, by Amanda Fuller 
• Materials for analyzing strategies. Includes definitions of strategies, framing, demagoguery, plus material for argument evaluation. List of short texts for analysis.
• Introduction to Rhetorical Strategies and analysis: there is an interesting blog called "Silver Tongue Times" that produces short rhetorical analyses of everyday things/texts. It's run by some PhD students at Carnegie Mellon. They try to make rhetorical analysis relevant to ordinary people (or as they say, "Rhetorical criticism for the engaged citizen.")  There's a new piece that examines a key analogy Jon Stewart used at his recent D.C. speech. It's very simple, and could be used for first year students as a way of introducing rhetorical strategies and their analysis.
• Intro to Strategies/Ways of Approaching the Teaching of Strategies (Powerpoint)
• PowerPoint file on visual rhetoric and argument. Contains terms for analyzing visual texts, plus examples and lecture notes. Likely to be far more than you'll need, but may contain some useful materials. Large file (4 mgb). Also this.
• Rhetorical Strategies - big collection of teaching materials, examples, discussion ideas. Needs some editing. 
• More on introducing rhetorical strategies
• Intro to rhetorical strategies in verbal and visual texts
  Visual texts to introduce rhetorical strategies:
• Photos of student election campaign signs - can be used to consider strategies and effectiveness
  Print texts to introduce rhetorical strategies:
• Parry's "The Art of Branding a Condition." Short text written by a medical marketer revealing some of the strategies used in drug advertising and marketing. Can be used to introduce rhetorical strategies 
• Discussion ideas, exercises, homework and group work that uses the Parry text.
• More activities and exercises that use Parry, and some class activities or homework
• Excerpt - strategy in-class exercise (Skloot).doc -Daniela Schonberger, Fall 2011 

Sample of a Rhetorical Analysis of E.B. White's "The Ring of Time"

Sample essays to analyze

Rhetorical Analysis Assignment of Argument:

Rhetorical analysis is a way of understanding and interpreting texts by examining and interpreting rhetorical devices used in a piece of writing. You are to find a piece of published work that is persuasive in nature; in other words, it argues a point. Editorials and pieces from opinion/commentary sections of magazines or newspapers will generally work the best. You may find these online at sites such as startribune.com or sctimes.com., or in an actual publication. The piece you choose should be at least 350-500 words in length. Choosing an article that is too short may result in not having enough to write about in your paper, choosing something too long may not fit the parameters of this assignment. Write an essay in which you in which you ANALYZE the author’s rhetorical effectiveness/ineffectiveness. How does the author appeal to ethos, pathos, and logos? 

Primary Audience: Educated readers who have not read the text you are analyzing.

Point of View: Objective

General Purpose: To help your readers understand the connections between purpose, audience, subject matter, and rhetorical techniques.

Things to consider when writing the rhetorical analysis:

• Take the time to find an article with a topic you can relate to. Don’t just choose the first article you find.
• Photocopy the article, because it will need to accompany all drafts.
• This paper is NOT a summary. One will be included, but it should be no more than one paragraph in length.
• Your focus is not to agree or disagree with the author’s article, but to analyze how effective or ineffective the author is in presenting the argument.

The Rhetorical Analysis of Advertising Assignment: 

Rhetoric is everywhere, it permeates all forms of media, and is the driving force of commercialism. The best defense against rhetoric is learning how it works, and being able to dissect it at a cursory glance. Doing so will also improve your ability to reason and debate with people around you, though with a much higher quality acumen. In an era when media bombards the general public with strobing colors and short-lived product lifespans, having an ally in your brain is an asset for everyday life.

General Requirements

Audience: Academics

Purpose: To analyze and determine the methods used in media rhetoric.

Length: 4-6 pages

Description: You will analyze a print ad; television, radio, or internet commercial, a billboard, or other similar form of advertisement. With the exception of radio, the advertisement must have a visual aspect to it. Infomercials and short magazine articles featuring new products are also acceptable.

Major Requirements:

1. You must select between 1 and 3 advertisements from the same company, preferably for the same (or similar) products or services.

2. You must explain in detail the strategies or philosophies behind the design (or wording) of the ad.

3. The paper cannot explore the social impacts or implications of the ad; this is not a “media in society” paper!

4. Must follow the proper formatting guidelines as listed in the syllabus.

5. You must have a proper introduction, body, and conclusion. This is an academic thesis.

Assignment:

Lesson Plans:

• Possible sequence of class plans/activites for unit 3
• Handout and lesson plan for teaching ethos, pathos and logos
• PROMPT, RUBRIC, TEMPLATE PHRASES, SAMPLE PAPER
• Drafting - template sentences for asignment 3
• Using Swales CARS model to discuss strategies identifiable in academic research writing (see also this article by Sutton, "Swales’s “Moves” and the Research Paper Assignment" that introduces Swales and connects to undergrad writing).