I want you to write to the class as your audience and I want you to do that with two related forms in mind:

1. the genre of the blog post/online article
2. the medium of online writing

This form of writing assumes a stance of entertaining while also informing readers. So how can you both entertain us by making it clear there is something interesting about your analysis but also inform us about something meaningful about it?

Consider the following characteristics:

1. The way you open your piece (how do you grab interest?)
2. your thesis statement (how do you make clear what argument is about?)
3. the title of your piece (how do you grab attention while still being truthful?)
4. how you hyperlink to other information (how do you provide access to sources that inform your writing?)
5. how you incorporate visuals throughout the piece (what would be relevant to what you are writing about but also nicely positioned to break up the writing for keeping interest?)
6. paragraphing function and length (are your paragraphs clear on what you are doing in them? do you signal to your reader what they’ll be about and how they connect to other paragraphs? are they too long for reading experience of reading on screen?)

Task

Here are some examples that you can use as models…take notes on them and see what you want to try to imitate in relation to above characteristics in your revision!:

Baseball General Manager Billy Bean article from FiveThirtyEight.

Review of Armani Caesar’s album The Liz Tape on Pitchfork (which also qualifies as a rhetorical analysis!)

Analysis of AOC’s speech about harassment and misogyny from July 2020 (which uses rhetorical analysis!)

After reviewing these characteristics, reviewing the three example posts/articles above, and looking through your rhetorical analysis draft, do the following:

1. Choose a paragraph you’d like to revise (or write) in your Rhetorical Analysis draft.
2. Consider which characteristics of blogging and online writing from above that you’d like to apply to revising (or writing) that paragraph
3. Revise (or write) the paragraph or write what your plan for revising/writing is
4. Paste the paragraph into a comment below or paste your plan
5. Write up a brief explanation of what you wrote/revised or planned and why (no more than 100 words)

Comment below with #4 and #5 from above list

After commenting, click on the button below to continue:

Since the second draft of the Rhetorical Analysis assignment is due April 7, now is the time to start planning (and start doing) revision (or getting that first draft done!!).

As with the Literacy Narrative assignment, I’m going to ask you to consider (but not require you to submit) a Revision Plan. If you haven’t turned in your first draft yet, you can look over whatever you have done to think about your writing plan in general.

Here are those guidelines for formulating this plan:

1. It’s about love!!!! Ask yourself: What do you love about this piece? What do you want to return to and work on more? Why? Choose “love” and not “well, this was bad” or “well, this was pretty good.” Instead, what did you enjoy working on most? What is the most exciting part of this text? Why? How do you build off of that? Or, what about this text, generally, interests you the most? There will always be moments where you’ll have to revise something you don’t want to ever look at again. Still, even for something you rather not look at again (which will happen to you), finding something that attracts you to it, something that can make it a positive experience, will both motivate you and also help you to identify its strength.
2. Let yourself be guided. How can you let that excitement and energy guide you? What enhances that energy? What takes away from that energy?
3. Hear out others (including yourself). Part of (but not ONLY) what should inform you is the feedback you have received previously: my comments on your draft, peer response feedback, your old notes as you were working on the draft, etc.
4. Task list. Begin to develop some tasks that can assist you in addressing the above. (e.g., revise this paragraph, move this section up earlier and adjust it so it fits, add this supporting argument, do this analysis and see where it takes me, do more research for secondary sources). Consider what YOU want to do with the piece and the comments you received from others.
5. Be specific. As you write out your tasks, you MUST be specific. Why are you doing this task? As in, what about your writing has led you to think you should do x to enhance the essay overall? How will you do this task? As in, what specifically do you have in mind as some potential changes that would work to address the “why” of the task you chose. For example: I will add more examples or secondary sources to support the claim I make in paragraph 4, I need to show a more cohesive transition between section 3 and 4, my argument is too broad so I need to be more specific about the limits of my argument when I make the main argument early on, I want to incorporate my lessons on style to many of sentences that are a little harder to read.
6. Be a planner. Finally, if helpful, begin to develop a schedule of when and how you will work on your revision. Revison (or any aspect of writing!) benefits from work that is spread out rather than work that happens all at once. A fresh mind is an asset. Backwards plan. “This is due 3/8, what do I need done by 2/24? By 2/28? By 3/4? Etc.”.
7. Are there new constraints? Are there new things you have to consider now? For instance, in our Literacy Narrative assignment you have to: consider the Liao reading in terms of the sorts of things Literacy Narratives tend to do, you have to consider the genre of the piece and audience expectations for that genre, and you have to pay more attention to style (e.g., what sorts of words does your audience expect?)

Questions to Answer for Forming Revision Plan

1. What do you love about this piece? What do you want to return to and work on more? Why? Choose “love” and not “well, this was bad” or “well, this was pretty good.” Instead, what did you enjoy working on most? What is the most exciting part of this text? Why? How do you build off of that? Or, what about this text, generally, interests you the most?
2. What feedback will you incorporate do you think? Why?
3. How will you enhance or add analysis to your draft?
4. What might be a change to your thesis?
5. What are some changes that you’ll make to your draft to make it fit the genre of the blog post through the medium of online writing?
6. What about your word choice and sentence structure? How will you revise your style in a way that best fits what you want to do in your piece and in ways your audience would appreciate?
7. Write out ALL of the specific tasks you will take based on: what you love, the feedback you got, and the new constraints you have (Liao, organization, using examples, style)? Be SPECIFIC.
8. What is your schedule for getting this done? Consult your writing schedule that you did for today!

Task

I (strongly!) encourage you to address all 8 of the above questions, but, for now, just comment below with responses to 3 of the above 8 questions or instructions.

After commenting below, click the button to continue:

This week, we thought about:

• reflections about the Literacy Narrative Revision and goals for the course
• how to think about punctuation stylistically and rhetorically
• developing a thesis in rhetorical analysis
• making claims and linking them to evidence from texts in rhetorical analysis
• writing in the genre of the blog post in terms of expectations of audience for that kind of writing

Next Time

• Next week, you will meet with me for a brief meeting to see how things are going and talk through how the Rhetorical Analysis assignment is coming along. Sign up here if you have not signed up yet.
• By 11:59pm on March 17, submit your Rhetorical Analysis assignment to our course website (mark the category “Rhetorical Analysis”). For a refresher on how to do posts and mark categories, go here. As always, if you need extra time, let me know and that should be fine.

There are three ways I want you to think about writing a long-form blog post for your Rhetorical Analysis:

1. You are writing a rhetorical analysis. There will be some audience expectations to consider when you are claiming to do this work. We talked a bit about that here: 3-1-2021 Lesson Plan – ENG 2100: Writing I, Spring 2021 (cuny.edu)
2. Genre is both flexible and rigid. Thinking about genre is useful but will not answer all your questions about what you should write and what audiences expect. Genre helps us think about the kinds of formatting, word choice, paragraphing, content, etc. that audiences will expect to see. However, it does not help us come up with every single word, every single formatting decision, every single piece of our argument or narrative. It only guides us about some general points of things to include when we write in a specific genre. Furthermore, sometimes it is important to intentionally do things that do not follow genre conventions as a way to emphasize something, innovate, or to simply do the thing that you feel best communicates what you want to communicate or think through. We talked more about this in Learning Module 5 here: Genre and MAYA – ENG 2100: Writing I, Spring 2021 (cuny.edu). Returning to the Derek Thompson reading on MAYA can also be helpful.
3. Think about what you read online. The blog post is a genre to be found only in reading you would do online. What things do you have to keep in mind about paragraphing, spacing, etc. that can also be found in print as well as things you can do online that you can’t do in print writing (i.e., physically printed pages vs. computer screen)?

For your Rhetorical Analysis, you will be writing a blog post. There also certain expectations for this kind of writing. Some blog posts are shorter, so also consider you are writing a long-form blog post (see prompt for Rhetorical Analysis assignment).

When you write anything, please consider what the sorts of expectations your readers are likely to have! It is good to know in terms of giving readers something familiar to hold onto, but it can also be helpful to know so you know when you are might violate expectations for rhetorical effect (e.g., to make something stand out, to surprise). Look for examples of the kind of writing you are doing and see what is worth incorporating based on common moves.

Task

Do the following in a comment below:

1. In a comment below, list as many things as you can think of in terms of content you read online. Be specific in terms of publication/website as you can (e.g., The New York Times instead of “news sites”; SB Nation instead of “sports sites”). (think, too, of social media but beyond that…to the things you find yourself clicking through social media leading you to a website to read something)
2. Talk about things you notice that are common in terms of as many of the following that you can: formatting, spacing, size of paragraphs, indentation, how sources are cited, word choice, sentence structure, organization of material, use of images or video, placement of videos or images, etc.

After commenting below, click the button to continue:

Your thesis is goin to change as you write–this should happen.

Think of your writing of an argumentative essay (like a Rhetorical Analysis is) as a sort of motion of a tennis match. It goes back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. You write some analysis, you think about your thesis, you write up a thesis, you do more analysis, you change your thesis a little bit, you do more analysis, you tweak your thesis further. It is not a smooth process (like so much of writing!)

Ultimately: Analysis requires careful examination of evidence and as you become more acquainted with evidence you gather, your argument will likely change! Thus, you will likely tweak your thesis as you write.

Analysis is A Big Ol’ String of Claims and Evidence

Analysis requires the joining of claims to evidence.

A thesis is a large claim with the evidence being the entire essay.

The essay is full of smaller claims that are joined with evidence. In a Rhetorical Analysis, the evidence is parts of the text you are analyzing; the claim is what you think about that evidence. The real work is what happens in the space between claims and evidence–how you . You can quote parts of the text or describe them and you’ll do this to show them as evidence for something you are claiming.

The pattern is generally this when joining claims to evidence (the remainder of this section is adapted from Indiana University of Bloomington Writing Tutorial Service):

• State your claim (for a Rhetorical Analysis, this will usually be about how the text you are analyzing functions in respect to a specific perspective you have)
• Give your evidence, remembering to relate it to the claim. (the evidence will often be parts of the text you are analyzing in a Rhetorical Analysis)
• Comment on the evidence to show how it supports the claim. (an explanation of why you the part of the text you are analyzing is an example of your claim)

Example of “meh” use of evidence:

Today, we are too self-centered. Most families no longer sit down to eat together, preferring instead to eat on the go while rushing to the next appointment (Gleick 148). Everything is about what we want.

A better use of evidence:

Today, Americans are too self-centered. Even our families don’t matter as much anymore as they once did. Other people and activities take precedence. In fact, the evidence shows that most American families no longer eat together, preferring instead to eat on the go while rushing to the next appointment (Gleick 148). Sit-down meals are a time to share and connect with others; however, that connection has become less valued, as families begin to prize individual activities over shared time, promoting self-centeredness over group identity.

Using Models

In the Yablonovskiy essay, what do you notice about when Yablonovskiy mentions parts of Nu Pogodi? Look back and see how there are claims right near those descriptions of the text. How does Yablonovskiy join those claims and evidence? Use this as a model for your own writing.

You might also explore other Rhetorical Analyses in the Analysis section of our textbook. It is always good to use several models.

Task

Comment below on this page by following these instructions: make a claim about a text you are (or might be) analyzing. Join that to evidence from the text to your claim by following the state, give, comment formula from above to making claims with evidence.

After commenting below, click the button below to continue the module.

In the Rhetorical Analysis assignment criteria, there are a few things to really consider closely when it comes to argument:

1. You will use analysis rather than summary (unless you would like to provide a brief summary to familiarize your audience with the text).
2. You will use evidence from the text to connect to claims you are making about the text.
3. You will have a thesis in the sense of a main argument you are making about the text.

The big scary word here, I would bet money on, for you is what is in #3: The Thesis.

(The below is mostly adapted from Daniel Hengel’s chapter in our textbook, so go there for more information!)

Thesis: It Sounds Scarier Than It Is

A thesis is simply a statement that holds two pieces of information: the topic and the angle you have on that topic. You need to tell us what you are writing about and the perspective or main idea(s) you have in relation to that topic.

Let me say this very clearly: you should almost NEVER have a thesis before you start writing. A *hypothesis* makes sense to have before you start writing (though even then, probably not, because you are taking all sorts of notes and all kinds of preliminary writing before you get to a place where you have an experiment idea).

Before you even get to a thesis, you should have done something resembling the steps we did on the previous page. That way, you have been fully immersed in the text and you can start to think of questions to ask:

• What do you see?
• What do you make of it?
• Why does it matter?

For what you see, mention some words, characters, images, themes, etc. that grab your attention and interesting you.

For what you make of it, explore what you think about it. Try to move beyond value judgments like “I liked this” or “this is boring.” Really focus on how rather than only what. So, “I liked this because…” is a much better framing. Though, even better would be something like “This theme comes up a lot because…”

For why it matters, think about how your analysis reveals something somewhat new, interesting, important, etc. Questions you should ask: is this too simple? Would anyone already know this in a way that my analysis does not add anything more nuanced to that common knowledge?

For instance, if you analyzed Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and your thesis ends up being something like “This speech advocates for racial equality,” then this is a thesis that does not have a good answer to “why it matters.” Most would already know this! Now, perhaps you offer up an interesting or unique analysis that says something more specific about how racial equality is presented in the speech as a theme, but, generally, a thesis like that will not make for an insightful essay.

These questions can help you on the path toward eventually having a thesis, which, again is just presenting a topic with your take on that topic (which is then supported by your analysis of evidence throughout the paper).

Things to Keep In Mind on a Thesis

You should also be careful not to do something too broad. This can be tied to issues of scale that we talked about on the last page. Writing a thesis like “hip-hop is protest music” is not specific enough and is an easy thesis to argue against because it is not hard to find many examples of hip-hop that is not protest music. Be more specific or qualify claims to help you here.

A thesis can also be too speculative. Lots of things can’t be proven but can still be written about. However, some things are so hard to prove that writing about them really offers nothing new. A thesis about aliens or the existence of God, for instance, might be too speculative to write about.

A thesis can take many forms. It can be in the first paragraph. It can be in the second paragraph. It can be in the third paragraph. It can be at the beginning or end of a paragraph. It can be one sentence. It can be three sentences. Generally speaking: make sure it is closer to the beginning than the end of the paper, make sure it is small enough that it is an accessible argument someone can read (I would say 1-3 sentences is a good range). Make sure it covers what you are writing about and a claim you are making about that topic (i.e., your angle on it).

Think back to the rhetorical analysis you read for class: What do you think Yablonovskiy saw? What do you think Yablonovskiy made of it? Why did you think Yablonovskiy thought it matterered? What do you think Yablonovskiy’s thesis is? Is it specific enough? Does it offer a topic that is not too speculative? Where is it? How long is it? Use the essay as a model to think about your own thesis.

Task

Comment below by giving some preliminary answers to the three micro-questions of what you see, what you make of it, and why it matters for YOUR rhetorical analysis project.

Once you comment below, click the button below this to continue with the module.

I want you to read a collection of sentences I gathered from a book called Brothers and Keepers by John Wideman. The book is a memoir about Wideman’s relationship to his brother. Wideman and his brother are both Black but lived very different lives, growing up in different places. Wideman spends the memoir talking with his brother, who is in prison, to get closer to him but it also is a way to think about his family history and larger societal issues of race and class in the U.S.

Wideman’s style uses a lot of different punctuation in interesting ways. So, I thought it might be good practice for you to read through some of his sentences and to think about which uses of punctuation stand out to you.

1. The previous summer, 1980, a prisoner, Leon Patterson, had been asphyxiated in his cell.
2. People in Homewood often ask: You said that to say what?
3. Six years later my brother was in prison, and when he began the story of his troubles with Garth’s death, a circle completed itself; Robby was talking to me, but I was still on the outside, looking in.
4. The hardest habit to break, since it was the habit of a lifetime, would be listening to myself listen to him. That habit would destroy any chance of seeing my brother on his terms; and seeing him in his terms, learning his terms, seemed the whole point of learning his story.
5. Because Homewood was self-contained and possessed such a strong personality, because its people depended less on outsiders than they did on each other for so many of their most basic satisfactions, they didn’t notice the net settling over their community until it was already firmly in place. Even though the strands of the net–racial discrimination, economic exploitation, white hate and fear–had existed time out of mind, what people didn’t notice or chose not to notice was that the net was being drawn tighter, that ruthless people outside the community had the power to choke the life out of Homewood, and as soon as it served their interests would do just that.
6. The borrowed pen and paper (I was not permitted into the lounge with my own) were necessary props. I couldn’t rely on memory to get my brother’s story down and the keepers had refused my request to use a tape recorder, so there I was.

Task

After reading through these sentences above, comment below on 2 different uses of punctuation and how it had a rhetorical effect. 

Think to the last page where we talked about different punctuation is giving different lengths of time for pausing.

Why would certain lengths and types of pauses have a rhetorical effect? Why use punctuation in the way it was used, why not just use a bunch of simple sentences that end in periods? Why not a comma rather than a colon? Etc. Try to think that through by throwing out some ideas as you read and react to the above sentences.

To comment, mention:

• the sentence by its number in the list
• the type of punctuation for both usages
• what you thought was rhetorically significant about that use of punctuation for both usages

After commenting below, click on the button below to continue.

So far, we have talked about style in relation to: word choice, sentence length, and sentence type (keying in on using phrases and clauses). These choices help us think about tone, audience, readability, and different rhetorical effects depending on rhetorical choices we make at the level of the word and sentence.

On this page and the next page we will talk about punctuation.

The Punctuation Guide is a great reference for all of the different types of punctuation and how they are used in writing. There entry on commas can be especially helpful, as commas do so many different things in writing.

“Pausing” and Punctuation

On this page, I want you to start to notice different effects of different “pausing” punctuation, these being:

• Comma
• Period
• Semicolon
• Colon
• Parentheses
• Em-dash

For instance, when we talked about phrases, clauses, and sentence type in Learning Module 5 (with more here on phrases/clauses here), I used this example for how different sentence types can help keep information far apart or close together:

Very Far: It was a rough day for Melissa. She had to cover a second shift for her friend at work. And now she was stranded. Because her car broke down. Great.

Far: It was a rough day for Melissa. She had to cover a second shift for her friend at work. Plus, now she was stranded at work because her car broke down.

Close: It was a rough day for Melissa, especially since she had to cover a second shift for her friend at work. Plus, now she was stranded at work because her car broke down.

Very Close: It was a rough day for Melissa, especially since she had to cover a second shift for her friend at work; now she was stranded in her broken down car.

Very close with greater pause for dependent clause: It was a rough day for Melissa–especially since she had to cover a second shift for her friend at work; now she was stranded in her broken down car.

Very close with longer pause for rhetorical triplet: It was a rough day for Melissa: she had to cover a second shift for her friend, her car broke down, and now she is stranded.

Very close with a parentheses: It was a rough day for Melissa because she had to cover a second shift for her friend at work and now she was stranded on the side of the road (her car broke down).

Read through each of the above examples. When you read, how long are the pauses?

Task

In a comment below, rank each punctuation mark from shortest pause to longest pause you take while reading and explain why you ranked them the way you did:

• Comma
• Period
• Semicolon
• Colon
• Parentheses
• Em-dash

After commenting, click the button below to continue.

You did it! You submitted a revised draft of a major writing project for this course. Feel good about it.

Hopefully, you changed quite a bit to align with what you wanted to do better in the piece compared to what you did in the first draft.  I hope you also consulted the Revision Plan Guidelines (in the February 22nd lesson plan also in Learning Module 4) and feedback you got on the first draft.

Now that it is done, though, let’s take a moment to think about what you did and where you are going next.

Task

Respond to one of the following on the text channel “mar-10-literacy-narrative-reflection”

• Where did you focus your energy most? What were you trying to differently in the most drastic way of all the changes you made? Why? How did you do that? How did you feel about it?
• What do you love most about this revision? What are you most proud of?
• What helped you the most when revising? (e.g., the Liao reading or criteria, models of memoir essays, feedback from your Writing Group, a realization you had, how you structured a Writing Session). Be specific! (e.g., mention a specific comment from a person in your Writing Group)
• Talk about 2-3 goals that you would like to work on for your writing. Interpret this however you’d like. It can be related to anything about writing–style level concerns, organization, argument, using examples, your writing process, your writing practice, etc. Be specific!!!!!!!!! (say more than just picking 2-3 of the things I just listed and copy/pasting them)
• Respond to others! Read previous posts before you write your own post. If you notice someone has a similar post, comment directly to them and expand on their points if you had similar goals. Prioritize talking about your goals that way rather than formally listing all of your goals.

After posting to Discord, click on the “Click here to continue” button below.

Last week, you mapped out a schedule for writing sessions. Just as it can be good to be intentional with blocking out your time for writing, it can be good to be intentional about how the sessions of your writing are structured.

The advantage of a plan for writing is that you won’t be sitting around wondering what you might do. You will already know what you are gonna do. Helps get ahead of procrastination, which can sometimes be in response to feeling overwhelmed or feeling like you have a really large task ahead of you that you can’t get your head around. Having a realistic plan for a writing session can break your large writing task into a smaller one.

Assignment Instructions

Go to Blackboard>Submit Assignments>Process Writing and Reading Responses. Then go to “Process Writing: Writing Session Plan” to download the attachment “Writing Session Plan.”

Follow this plan for two writing sessions that you will work on for your Literacy Narrative Revision. That means, you will get started before the due date of March 7! So, fill this out and turn it in on Sunday (3/7) by 11:59pm. Wanted to give this to you now so you have time to schedule 2 writing sessions that you could both plan and reflect on.

Note to the resources on Distraction Management on Blackboard, too. Here it is: Distraction-Management-Sheet.pdf (cuny.edu). Can help with writing session plan.

Task

Please comment below if you have any questions. If no questions, please just comment with “I have no questions” so I can give you credit for having read this page.

After commenting below, click the button below to continue: