English 2100 HMWB
Fall 2018
Professor Sylvor
Project #1: Rhetorical Analysis of a Visual Text
Length: 3-5 pages, typed, double-spaced, one-inch margins
Draft Due: Monday, September 24th in Class. Bring 3 copies of your draft with you to class together with one hard copy of your image. Black and white is fine!
Essay Due: Friday, September 28th by 11:00 pm. This will be an electronic submission, uploaded to turnitin.com.
For this first formal writing assignment of the semester, you will be offering a focused analysis of a single visual image of your choosing. Choose an image that offers a rich opportunity for engagement and analysis and that seems to you to be conveying a particular message.
Your job is not simply to describe the image or to agree or disagree with its message; rather you must offer an argument about the text. This means making an analytical claim about how the image works. Two strategies that might be helpful in generating your claim involve answering the following questions:
–How (through what specific strategies) does this image achieve (or fail to achieve) its intended purpose with its target audience?
–What important message embedded in this image is perhaps not as obvious as what we see on the surface?
Your analytical claim should be introduced in the first paragraph of your essay. Each body paragraph should focus on a single supporting idea that exemplifies, fleshes out, and provides evidence for the claim you’ve made in your introduction. Your conclusion should summarize your claim and point to the larger implications of your argument