Essay Assignment
we practiced analyzing rhetorical situations, looking at how meaning is created by rhetors in various contexts. We’ve read academic texts by Keith Grant-Davie. For this assignment, you will be practicing your rhetorical reasoning skills by analyzing the rhetorical situations described in three debaters’ texts of your choice from The New York Times debate panel on “Can Writing on a College Entrance Exam be Assessed )” (http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/03/10/can-writing-on-a-college-entrance-exam-be-properly-assessed )
Once your texts have been chosen, you should proceed by analyzing the rhetorical situation created in each article. You can use the language introduced by Grant-Davie (rhetors, audience, exigence, constraints as well as the language in our textbook) to analyze the rhetorical situations, and remember our efforts to analyze rhetoric according to the four elements of situation, purpose, claim, and audience.
Consider: You can research the authors and think about their backgrounds. Based on any clues you can uncover in their texts or on the web, how may these backgrounds influence the perspectives of the rhetors (writers)? Look at the language used in each article. What do the speci?c words or metaphors used by each writer suggest about his or her perspective? If an article seems “neutral,” chances are that you are not looking closely enough. Consider all parts of the article and its background before presenting your argument. (You are practicing analytical reading: Where are the moments of disagreement and why are they there?) Think about the activities we did in class. What sorts of questions did Keith Grant-Davie ask as he examined the Best Western hotel sign debate out West?