Academic Journal Rhetorical Analysis Assignment.

ENG 101 Rhetorical Analysis

Task

Assignment Description

This assignment asks you to thoroughly read a text of your choice (from the list on the next slide) and analyze that text, or examine it in great detail, according to elements of rhetoric. Your analysis should cover all of the elements of rhetoric we will discuss in class, including but not limited to exigence, rhetor, audience and argument. See slide 4 for a complete list.

An effective rhetorical analysis will demonstrate that you understood the text, that you were able to find and interpret elements of its rhetorical situation, and that you can clearly explain these things to readers and provide evidence to support your claims.

Texts for Analysis

For this assignment you will analyze an academic journal article. Therefore, you will learn not only how the elements of rhetoric work together to create a particular rhetorical situation, but you will also learn more about academic discourse—how texts are composed for academic audiences.

Choose one of the following articles to analyze for your writing project:

1. DePalma & Alexander’s “A Bag Full of Snakes: Negotiating the Challenges of Multimodal Composition”
2. Robertson, Taczak, & Yancey’s “Notes toward A Theory of Prior Knowledge and Its Role in College Composers’ Transfer of Knowledge and Practice”
3. Young’s “‘Nah, We Straight’: An Argument Against Code Switching”

Consider the journalist’s “5W & How” questions as they pertain to your text:
Who? Who wrote the text? Who published the text? Who reads this text?
What? What is the text about? What does the author(s) want?
Where? Where do readers find this text?
When? When was the text published? When did you read it?
Why? Why did the author(s) write this text?
& How? How is the text composed?
For every question, ask the additional question: How do you know? i.e., What evidence do you have to support your claims?

Audience

Think of me, your peers in ENG 101, and perhaps your peers in other contexts as part of your audience, but also consider—or determine through your writing—who else you are writing your analysis for.

Remember: the more specific you can be about who your readers are, the more effectively you’ll be able to write for them. Answers like “anyone” or “everyone who wants to learn more” are too broad. Really consider what kinds of people might be interested in reading your rhetorical analysis and why.

1. Choose one text from Slide 3 and read it thoroughly, likely more than once.

2. Analyze the text by describing how it uses each element of rhetoric from Slide 4.

3. Push yourself to analyze deeper by asking questions, using the Rhetorical Analysis Guide on D2L. Aim for at least one paragraph of analysis for each element of rhetoric.

4. Support your claims with evidence from the text, its source, and maybe other sources of information as you need them. Cite in APA with in-text citations and a References page.

5. Conclude with your thoughts about the text—what you gained or learned from reading it. The conclusion should be the only place in your analysis where you’re sharing your personal opinion on the text.

1. For an extended discussion of Du Bois, double-consciousness and racial schizophrenia in the context of African American English, see Chapter 6, "To Be A Problem," in my Your Average Nigga: Performing Race, Literacy, and Masculinity. For more on double-consciousness as a synonym for schizophre nia, see the insightful analyses of Bruce, Jr., Early, and Wells.

2. Thomas explains that in Plessey v. Ferguson the only justice to oppose the decision based his dissent in part on what he considered to be a legal irony: that although Chinese immigrants were ineligible for U.S. citizenship, they were not subject to separate but equal laws, while black citizens were segregated.

3. It should be noted that Wheeler and Swords' discussion of language has to do with pitting one language variety against another. When describing how they settled on using the unraced terms "informal English versus formal English," they report they considered "nonstandard versus standard'; "community English versus Standard English; Everyday English versus Standard' (emphasis in original, 19-20).

4. For an insightful critique of the way standard English and academic discourse perpetuate patriarchal relations, particularly the domination of women, see Bleich.

5. This discussion of standard language ideology is adapted from Chapter 5, "Casualties of Literacy," in my Your Average Nigga: Performing Race, Literacy, and Masculinity, 2007.

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