Rhetorical Analysis Essay

English 1101: Essay One

The Rhetorical Analysis

3 pages, Double-Spaced

Weighed as 20% of Final Grade 

Definition: A rhetorical analysis is an examination of how a text persuades us of its point of view. It focuses on identifying and investigating the way a text communicates, what strategies it employs to connect to an audience, frame an issue, establish its stakes, make a particular claim, support it, and persuade the audience to accept the claim. It is not, as we have noted, an analysis of what a text says but of what strategies it uses to communicate effectively. You must, of course, begin your analysis with what the text saysits argumentbut the work of the essay is to show how the text persuades us of its position.  You might think of the piece you choose to analyze as a particular kind of engine whose machinations produce particular results. An analysis of the engine examines all the parts, how they work in isolation, together, etc. to see how the engine does what it does, or makes what it makes.

Your task: 

• You must select ONE essay/text from a list of unnamed essays to analyze. 

• Your task is to produce a rhetorical analysis of one of the rhetorical concepts (or pair of concepts) listed below. Your goal is to show how the essays use of logos, pathos, or ethos attempt to persuade us of its/their point of view. 

• You must focus on ONE of these concepts in correspondence with our related key terms for the course. 

• Logos (Logic) : Stance, Purpose, Medium, Rhetorical Situation

• Ethos (Ethics, Credibility) : Author, Audience, Rhetorical Situation

• Pathos (Emotional Appeal) : Tone, Language, Genre, Rhetorical Situation

• In your essay you should have a clear (1) thesis of your own about the above (2) concepts you are analyzing and (3) supply strong textual evidence to support your thesis. I would suggest that before you begin you read the guidelines below and the Evaluation Rubric that we will use to assess essays in this course (in the Lesson 3: Rhetorical Essay Final || Submission Portal). There you will find the principle criteria for a successful essay.

The Form of the Essay:

• Format: MLA Format, 3 pages, double spaced 

• Introduction: Capture the attention of your audience, provide the context of the analysis you are making, and provide either your claim or your purpose (with the actual claim to come later). This is called your thesis or controlling idea. Your essay is always responsible for answering an invisible question with a controlling idea. This idea answers the question, how does the text persuade us of it’s point? 

• Body: Provide clearly organized paragraphs where you state the smaller claims from your thesis. Supply strong textual evidence to support the claims of your thesis. A total of three claimsno more, no less is required for each thesis. 

• Conclusion: Restate your thesis and findings. Finish with a strong overarching idea that leaves the reader thinking about your position. 

Choose ONE text to analyze from the following lists: 

• Mario Cuomos A Tale of Two Cities

• William Faulkner Nobel Prize Speech 

• Emma Goldman, What is Patriotism?

• Ta-Nehisi Coates A Case for Reparations

• Gloria Anzadas How to Tame a Wild Tongue 

• Martin Luther King Jr.s Letters from Birmingham Jail

Video Speeches: 

• Representative John Lewiss 2019 Commencement Address 

• Chadwick Bosemans 2018 Commencement Address

• Nora Ephons 1996 Commencement Address  &  Text 

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