Assignments

1. Rhetorical Analysis: Using Paula Marantz Cohen’s “Too Much Information” as a model, write an essay in which you examine how some modes of communication, media platforms, or habits of thought are shaping the way you encounter the world. If that sounds awfully abstract, consider what Cohen discusses in her essay — everything from students’ use of Google to the star’s comments following an episode of HBO’s Girls. You might find a subject in your addiction to apps, your reliance on tweeting, or your grandparents’ inability to translate emojis.
2. Close Reading of an Argument: Browse recent news or popular-interest magazines or Web sites (such as Time, The Atlantic, GQ, the New Yorker, and so on) to locate a serious article you find especially well argued and persuasive. As Matthew James Nance does in “A Mockery of Justice”, study the piece carefully enough to understand the techniques it uses to influence readers. Then write a rhetorical analysis in which you make and support a specific claim about the rhetorical strategies of the piece.
3. Cultural Analysis: Identify a cultural phenomenon (TV talent shows), theme (men who won’t grow up), trend (divorce parties), or type of image (disaster photos) and examine the way it either influences society or reflects the way that people are thinking or behaving. Make the analysis rhetorical by focusing on questions related to audience, social context, techniques of persuasion, or language. Help readers see your subject in a new light or from a fresh perspective. Use J. Reagan Tankersley’s “Humankind’s Ouroboros” as a starting point.
4. Your Choice: Fed up by the blustering of a talk-show host, political figure, op-ed columnist, local editorialist, or stupid advertiser? Try an item-by-item or paragraph-by-paragraph refutation of such a target, taking on his or her poorly reasoned claims, inadequate evidence, emotional excesses, or lack of credibility. If possible, locate a transcript or reproduction of the text you want to refute so that you can work from the facts just as they have been offered. If you are examining a visual text you can reproduce electronically, experiment with using callouts to annotate the problems as you find them.