Doing a rhetorical analysis means saying something about a bunch of parts of something in order to make an interpretation about the whole. The act of analysis is to pay attention to details and think critically about how they add up.
But how might you analyze any given thing? It does not just happen from what feminist theorist Donna Haraway calls “the view from nowhere.” We all view something from somewhere. We all have our theories about how things work, and because knowledge can only ever be partial, we use theories to fill in gaps where we feel it is reasonable to do that.
In rhetorical analysis, these theories, or lenses, can help us think about texts in different ways. They help us think about a text from one perspective in a way another perspective would not let us see.
Task
In the chapter “Tools for Analyzing Texts,” you were introduced to a number of different lenses you could use to help analyze a given text. On pages 102-105 a number of lenses are described and on pages 105-108 there is a sample rhetorical analysis of a photograph using many of these lenses.
Revisit those pages (don’t forget to look over your annotations for these readings) and choose one of the questions asked about the photograph on pages 105-108 and use one of the lenses on pages 105-108 to answer that question in a post in the text channel #feb-24-lenses.
When posting in the text channel #feb-24-lenses, do the following:
- Put the number of the question from pages 105-108 in your comment (e.g., #3)
- Tell us the lens your are using.
- Provide your response in about 50-100 words.
If you notice someone used the same question you wanted to answer, feel free to respond to another classmate to add to their response if you have something new to add! Your response will be credit for the post instead of making your own post.
Also: there are 10 questions and 24 of you, so there will be repeats. BUT: try not to all do the same one so that we have some diversity in responses! (though, even doing the same one could produce different responses, of course).
After posting on Discord, click on the button below to continue.
