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Rhetorical Analysis Intro

This document provides guidance on analyzing rhetorical choices and strategies in writing. It defines key rhetorical terms like rhetorical devices, rhetorical choices, and rhetorical situation. It then outlines the components of a successful rhetorical analysis response, including articulating the author's conceptual understanding of the rhetorical strategies used to achieve their purpose for a particular audience in a given context. The document provides tips for organizing a rhetorical analysis essay and analyzing different text types and their rhetorical appeals, choices, and effects.

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152 views4 pages

Rhetorical Analysis Intro

This document provides guidance on analyzing rhetorical choices and strategies in writing. It defines key rhetorical terms like rhetorical devices, rhetorical choices, and rhetorical situation. It then outlines the components of a successful rhetorical analysis response, including articulating the author's conceptual understanding of the rhetorical strategies used to achieve their purpose for a particular audience in a given context. The document provides tips for organizing a rhetorical analysis essay and analyzing different text types and their rhetorical appeals, choices, and effects.

Uploaded by

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Rhetorical Device: anything the speaker USES to construct meaning

Rhetorical choice: Anything the speaker DOES to construct meaning


- Purpose
- rhetoric
How do choices affect the purpose?

Rhetorical situation: exigence, audience, writer, purpose, context, message


(writing choices based on situations)

The analysis question:


- Analyze rhetorical choices
- Respond to prompt
- Evidence to support
- Relationship between the evidence and the thesis
- Understanding of rhetorical situation
Successful response:
- Articulates a conceptual understanding of rhetorical strategies used by the writer in an
effort to bring about…….
- A particular effect
- On a particular audience
- In a particular rhetorical situation
Don’t:
- Write a literary analysis
- List or description without connecting to the author’s purpose
Tips:
- Find two to three choices/strategies
- If text is a speech or essay meant to address a specific issue, think about SPACECAT
- Clear sentences
- Don’t throw in big words to sound smart
- Organize your essay
ORGANIZATION
Introduction:
- Explain the text, use spacecat, don’t use elements that don’t apply
- Define the speaker, purpose, and audience
- List rhetorical strategies and their overall effect on the audience
A note on appeals:
- You can’t use ethos, pathos or logos. They are a result of your choices, not the choices
themselves.
Body:
- Each strategies in separate paragraphs
- Provide a couple specific examples
- What specific strategy is being used to boost ethos? What specific strategies make the
audience feel a certain way?
- Say why each strategy works and why the author uses it
Conclusion:
- Recap. Address why and how the author uses strategies
- Think about the specific audience
- Think about possible significance of an occasion and how it suits a purpose

Devices vs. Strategies video

Rhetoric: using language to construct meaning.

Device: anything that a speaker uses to construct meaning

Strategy: anything a speaker does to construct meaning

Purpose: what the audience is supposed to understand and do after experiencing the text

DISNEY PROMPT - #2

In (Disney’s) (Tangled), (Princess Repunzel has been kidnapped, forced to live in a tower
for 18 years, and wishes to leave for her 18th birthday). (Mother Gothel) (compares
Rapunzel’s fragility to a flower), ( uses hyperbolic descriptions of the outside world), and
(uses repetition to emphasize motherly power) in order to manipulate Rapunzel into
thinking her actions are for her well being, ultimately moving (Rapunzel) to obey Mother
Gothel’s wishes of isolation.

VISUAL RHETORIC:

How do all the little parts contribute to the effectiveness of the creator's purpose?

Visual rhetoric: usa of an image to communicate a position offer evidence to support


Includes:
- Images as an argument
- Arrangement of elements
- Typography
- Analysis of existing image
How to analyze: HOW and WHAT
- Start with big questions before going into details
- SPACE
- Look for the CAT
- Characters, visual details, colors, symbols, fonts, titles, tag lines, date, author,
dialogue
- Positions of characters relative to surrounding
- Traits of characters or objects
- Significant images, repeating
- Position or size of details, exaggerations, focal points, emphasis
- Concrete items that may represent abstract ideas, contrasts of lightness and
darkness, color, shape, size

Challenge assumptions that photographs and videos represent truth that is absolute and not
subject to interpretation
Techniques in print text are also used in non print text

- Photographs: use composition lines, contrast, and color


- Political cartoons: exaggeration and symbolism
- Paintings: color, symbolism, allusion
- Posters: color, composition, symbolism
- Graphs: data that are easily represented, trends

VIDEO NOTES HOMEWORK:

- Don't use the word “use” when writing about rhetorical choices
- Make sure you convey your why in the topic sentence to demonstrate a clear
understanding
- The author- verb- what
- George repeats collective pronouns in order to unify the audience in their grief
-pay attention to the diction, how can we be more specific?
- you want to structure it in a way that people reading will be drawn to what you are referring too
- find the effect, they were angry, find a verb to describe
- “He reminds people of the terrible tragedy that happened that morning”
- don’t label the effect as the choice, label the choice and then tie it to the effect
Methods of development:
Narration- Narrates, chronicles, recounts
Description- describes, depicts, details
Exemplification- exemplifies, offers, presents
Compare/Contrast- Compare contrast, juxtaposed, likens
Class/ div. - classifies, divides, categorizes
Definition- defines, identifies

- Don’t skip over the background information


- What does the author mean to the audience, message of the part of speech
- Indicate you have knowledge beyond the basic background information
- Always loop back the things the author is doing to her OVERALL message, not how it
affects this small goal.
- Super objective
- Don’t do a checklist
- How does it work?
- Use what you know
- Add your own voice in the structure of the essay, a bunch of kids are writing on the same
thing this will help you stand out
- What are the most necessary obvious choices the author made
- Look for patterns instead of stacked up observations
- thesis= authors purpose statement

Writing Conclusions:
- Find 2-3 abstractions that the essay relates to
- Sentence establishing the relationship between the ideas in one
- For style, try turning the first sentence into a metaphor
- Move to a more universally applicable model, make the audience respond to ideas but
never ask a question.
- Try to add an applicable piece of text for an added BAM

Throughout the (genre), (Last name) (highlight connections between ideas of the author's piece.
(Don’t list rhetorical choices here).

Ex: Throughout his speech, Bush reminds the US of their resilient and patriotic spirit during their
time of suffering.
Style: throughout chapter 9, eric schlosser forces the american public to wade through the
cesspool that is the american meat packing industry.

Commentary:
- How you see the example in a way that's different from everyone else
- Explains the significance and relevance
1. Examine the importance- how is the choice seen? Why would the writer make this
choice? Why is it an effective choice? Explain the relationship between things
2. Relate to rhetorical situation: how is this persuasive to the audience? What does this
reveal about the speaker? What does this reveal about the message?
3. Connect to your claim: how does it relate to my argument? What is the main idea of this
example, how does it relate to the main idea of the paragraph?

Strive for at least 2 sentences of commentary for each piece of evidence

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