Due Monday, November 15th, by 11:59 pm, by email

Please write this assignment in a Word document and save it according to the following example: ENG2100_Last name_First name_Assignment 2

Word count

~ 1000 words (10% more or less) + rhetorical organizer

Description

For your second assignment, you’ll be making the crucial shift between observation to analysis. Putting on your critical lenses, as inspired by the readings we have done on rhetorical analysis, you’ll be analyzing one of the texts listed below using one of the rhetorical organizers offered.

This assignment is designed to build into your final research paper (Assignment 3). For now, you will be handing in:

• a detailed plan of your future research paper, including notes of your ideas and corresponding evidence (quotes or references to the text). All is in note form, except the introduction, which should be in full sentences. You will be able to tweak it later, for your final paper. Please also include a few lines of temporary conclusion after your plan (this is your argument at this stage; it may well evolve in your final paper).
• your rethorical organizer with the notes you took the analyze the text.

After you get feedback on your detailed plan and rhetorical organizer, you will be able to do further research and write out your final paper for Assignment 3. At that point, you won’t be able to change your topic, but you will be able to tweak your plan as ideas evolve to form your final argument.

You are not asked to use any external sources for this assignment. Instead, you will focus on one of the primary sources below and separate the analytical step from the research that is added in a full academic paper (Assignment 3).

Choose your text

Please choose one text from the list below to focus on for your rhetorical analysis. The themes, periods and genres are varied so that you can choose the one you are most interested in. Lengths are all similar so don’t let that be a factor of your choice.

Please choose well, as your final paper will be the finished version of this assignment.

• (News Article, Opinion): “Advice for Artists Whose Parents Want Them to Be Engineers”, NY Times, July 8 2021
• (Poem, Romantic Period): “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey,” by William Wordsworth, 1798
• (Fiction, Satirical): Babbitt, by Sinclair Lewis, 1922 (Chapter I, parts 1 and 2 only, from the start until “He escaped from reality till the alarm-clock rang, at seven-twenty.”)
• (News Article, Politics): “New Zealand’s Prime Minister May Be the Most Effective Leader on the Planet,” by Uri Friedman, The Atlantic, April 19, 2020
• (Essay, historical, 18th century): A Vindication of the Rights of Women, by Mary Wollstonecraft (1792) (Chapter I only)
• (Science article): “Landmark research integrity survey finds questionable practices are surprisingly common,” by Jop de Vrieze, ScienceMag, July 7, 2021
• (Song lyrics, folk-rock): “The Sound of Silence,” by Simon & Garfunkel (1965)
• (News article, financial): “Why China is cracking down on Bitcoin,” by John Xie, Voices of America News, July 6, 2021
• (Non-Fiction, Psychology/Philosophy): “How to Travel from your Sofa,” by Alain de Botton, March 17, 2020

Choose your Rhetorical Organizer

Please choose one of the rhetorical organizers below to organize your analysis (PDF softwares like Adobe or PDF Ink let you fill them in).

Build your argument and plan

1. Read the text without taking any notes.
2. Read the text again, taking notes in your chosen rhetorical organizer. Take as many observations as you can, and note anything that struck you. Underline/highlight the parts of the text you may later want to quote. Fill in every part of your rhetorical organizer as much as possible, but without trying to cover the whole text.
3. At this point, you will have an idea of what you want to say about the text in your essay. Write it out to yourself without overthinking, just dump it on the page in a couple of sentences. This is a crucial step to figure out for yourself what you want your essay to do.
4. Two or three main groups of ideas will stick out from your organizer. You will want to dedicate a part of your plan to each of these groups of ideas, forming your structure. Each part should contribute to the aim you developed in step 3.
5. Write out a temporary introduction with a little bit of context about your chosen text, the aim of your essay, and the structure you developed in step 4.
6. Give a title to each part of your essay. Below each title, use bullet points to write your ideas and the corresponding evidence (quotes and features from the text).
7. Write a temporary conclusion (this is the state of your argument at this point).
8. Proofread at least twice, use the spelling and grammar check, and submit your assignment.

Dos and Don’ts

• Don’t summarize the text in more than a couple of sentences. Your word count is limited, so keep it for your analysis.
  
• Do prove your point. When you take notes in your rhetorical organizer about what you perceive in the text, make sure to collect specific examples from the text and quote the line (just number the line on the text). For example, if you are making a point about the use of language in a poem or a newspaper article, you will want to quote an example of that in quotation marks and then indicate the relevant line: “….” (l. 5). Your specific examples from the text will support your analysis and interpretation of how the text produces a certain meaning.
  
• Do pay attention to the HOW, the WHAT, and the WHY (in that order) of the text you are analyzing. How does the text produce meaning? How is language used to make a specific effect on the audience? What‘s the hidden agenda? What is suggested through the text? Why does the text do what it does to the audience? Why is language used that way and not in another? You can also think about the text in terms of pathos (emotions), logos (logic) and ethos (cultural meaning). These questions will lead to your argument: this is how I think the text makes meaning, what I think it does, and why.
  
• Don’t try to cover the whole text in your assignment. That would be impossible and unnecessary. Instead, focus on a detail or two that particularly struck you, and try to understand why it stuck with you.

Checklist

You will receive individual feedback on your work. Here is an indicative, gradeless rubric for you to use as a checklist:

Analysis & Message Conveyed (Thesis)	How well does my plan inform the reader about some rhetorical aspects of the text (message/argument, audience, purpose, historic and political context, writing style, stylistic devices)? Have I started to draw conclusions about the significance of these rhetorical elements (the “so what” that I offer to my reader)? Do I use some names of rhetorical devices (metaphors, similes/comparisons, analogies, tone, hyperbole, etc.) as seen in the course readings?
Support of Argument	How well do I support my analysis with specific examples from the text, indicating the relevant line my example is extracted from? Do I use quotation marks when I quote directly?
Organization	Is my organization logic and coherent? Do I announce my structure in the introduction, and do the different parts of my plan transition logically into each other?
Grammar & Editing	Have I used the Word spelling and grammar check tool? Have I proofread myself at least twice to avoid typos and mistakes that would distract my reader from my argument? Is my document well presented? Is the layout easy to the eye (Font 12 Arial, Calibri, or Times New Roman, justified alignment, 1st line indent, etc.)
Overall Respect of Instructions	Did I respect all instructions on this page? Am I submitting a Word document, and saved as instructed? Did I respect the word count by 10% under or over 1000 words? Am I on time for the due date? If not, did I request an extension at least 48 hours prior to the due date?