For your second writing project, you will analyze one of the six speeches using the rhetorical elements and appeals we will discuss during this sequence. This assignment will enable you to practice your critical reading skills and your ability to analyze a text. As you begin drafting this project, consider revisiting pages 8, 27-29 in our textbook, your short summary, and our discussion of ethos, pathos, and logos. Make sure you print out the text of the speech and annotate it carefully. Use examples from text of speech to illustrate your points. Continuously link the ideas in your body paragraphs to your thesis. Your final draft should be 3-4 pages in length. You have two primary goals for this paper: 1.) Figure out what each writer is trying to accomplish. This is purely speculation on the writer’s aims, since you cannot get inside of the writer’s head. You have to base it on the product in front of you. 2.) Identify the writing tactics he or she is using to accomplish this. In other words, examine how each part works or doesn’t work to fulfill the writer’s purpose. In rhetorical analysis, you are mentally taking it apart. Ultimately, you need to address how the writer’s choices affected you as a reader. As you analyze your text, be sure to consider the following conventions of rhetorical analysis:
- identify the central claim of the text and consider the author’s occasion for writing it
- locate and evaluate any uses of ethos, the emotional appeals (pathos), and the evidence and logic used in the text (logos)
- describe the context in which the text produced (when, where, what was going on in this country to bring about speech)
- describe the audience(s) (both the real and the ideal (This includes their demographics, values, personal and political interests.)
- address the ways in which this text (and its author) represents its subject, what it includes and excludes, and what the combined effect of these choices has on the purpose of the text
Consider the following steps as you construct your rhetorical analysis: 1. Select one of the six speeches that I have approved for this paper. <www.americanrhetoric.com/top100speechesall.html> 2. Summarize the text. Offer readers a visual description of your text and/or examples of the author’s main ideas, supporting evidence, key terms, and other relevant information (tone, style, word choices). 3. As you prepare to analyze the text, look to your summary for help explaining the main ideas and organization of the text. Then, focus on its rhetorical effectiveness using the list above as a guide. 4. Absolutely, positively remember to cite and discuss examples from the text to illustrate and support your analysis. Do not assume that your reader is familiar with the text. Consider the ways the textbook demonstrates summary