Required Length: 1000 words
Overview. For this essay, you will write a rhetorical analysis on a text of your choosing. A rhetorical analysis is an essay that breaks apart a text and makes the parts meaningful by looking at the text rhetorically. To look at a text rhetorically means that you do not focus on what the author writes, but instead you focus on how the author writes. See (Links to an external site.)“What is a Rhetorical Analysis,” (Links to an external site.) an external site, for more information. To do a rhetorical analysis, you look at the strategies the author uses to engage the audience.
Though you likely won’t write a rhetorical analysis outside of this course, rhetorical thinking is transferable across all writing and communication situations. Hopefully, you can already see how thinking rhetorically about these situations can prepare you to be a more effective communicator, whether you’re writing your own texts or reading others’ texts, both in and out of school.
Purpose and Audience. Your purpose is to evaluate how the author meets their purpose with their intended audiences using the evidence compiled in your answers to the Rhetorical Analysis Questions.
Your intended audience for this essay is your instructor, who will expect that you write a formal academic essay with a thesis statement, clear analytical claims, and textual evidence that supports those claims. Your instructor will expect that you write multiple drafts of your essay and that you edit it to the best of your ability.
You will be evaluated on the same things you are evaluating in your chosen essay
