Imagine that you have been approached by a high school teacher. She teaches high school juniors and seniors, and she wants to start teaching them about rhetorical analysis of different media and text genres. What she wants to do is give them a handout packet to read. She wants that handout packet to contain some information explaining what rhetorical analysis is, as well as three model rhetorical analyses for different kinds of media and text genres. Her students will read this packet to understand rhetorical analysis in general and to see examples of what written rhetorical analyses can look like. She has asked you to create this packet!
So your audience for this assignment is high school juniors and seniors, and your purpose is to explain what rhetorical analysis is and to provide several models of it that students can base their own writing off of.
How will this impact the organization of this assignment? The teacher says she is fine with two options. One, you could do a flowing document with paragraphs that transition between the explanations of rhetorical analysis and the different examples of rhetorical analysis. Or two, you could do a document with sections, maybe an introduction section and then individual sections for some of the other components. Either of these two options is acceptable!
Expectations for This Assignment
There are several things that you’ll want to include in this assignment. These are what I’ll be looking for when I assess this assignment:
A short overview or introduction explaining what rhetorical analysis is. This doesn’t need to be longer than about a paragraph or so (though if you want to make it longer, you can).
Remember, this is for high school juniors and seniors. They’re pretty decent readers, but they don’t necessarily have a clear understanding of what rhetorical analysis is. Consider how to make this explanation accessible to them.
A short statement discussing when and why rhetorical analysis can be useful. Again, this doesn’t need to be longer than a few sentences or a paragraph (though again, it can be longer if you wish).
A model rhetorical analysis of a movie clip. Imagine this model analysis as a mini-text inserted into this larger writing task. Your hypothetical high school student audience should be able to look at this analysis as a model, one that they could use to write their own analyses of movie clips. Use feedback on your first write-up from this unit to ensure you’re including a strong model analysis! (I have given feedback on all of your write-ups for this unit with this assignment in mind. 🙂 )
You will also want to make it clear to your students where the model text begins and ends. You could do this, for example, with a short introductory paragraph or a section header clearly identifying the model text.
A model rhetorical analysis of a nonfiction text. Similar to the model movie clip analysis, imagine this model analysis as a mini-text inserted into this larger writing task. Use feedback on your second write-up from this unit to ensure you’re including a strong model analysis.
Again, make sure to clearly indicate where the model text begins and ends.
A model rhetorical analysis of an academic article. Again, imagine this model analysis as a mini-text inserted into this larger writing task, and use feedback on your third write-up to ensure you’re including a strong analysis.
And, once again, make sure to clearly indicate where the model text begins and ends!
Some kind of concluding statement for this entire rhetorical analysis packet. Imagine what students might need as they continue to think about rhetorical analysis. Would they need some reassurances or a pep talk? Would they need a few extra tips? Would they need advice about where to go if they still have more questions? Something else? This does not need to be a lengthy segment of this assignment, but it does need to be there!
In terms of the order to include this information in, you’ll obviously want to introduce rhetorical analysis at the beginning and have your concluding statement at the end. But the when and why of rhetorical analysis, as well as the three models, can appear in any order you choose. Think about what organization makes the most sense for your information.
And again, you’ll notice that the three models of rhetorical analysis you need to produce are the three topics of your three write-ups. You are absolutely welcome and encouraged to use those write-ups for this assignment. But again, and this is important, please do review my comments on your write-ups. As mentioned, my feedback on those write-ups was meant to help you produce stronger models in this assignment.
For this assignment, you should aim to write a minimum of 1300 words. (If you find yourself going over this amount, that is fine! There is not an upper limit for this assignment, so don’t worry about having to cut down a longer analysis from a write-up to meet a lower word count.)
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