Essay Three Assignment

First, choose a modern text on which to perform a rhetorical analysis--a text from the 20th or 21st century. The text may be written, oral, electronic, or a hybrid. That is, it may have been intended for a reader--a written text, intended to be read; or it may be a written text intended for oral delivery or an oral text subsequently written down. Or it may be a multimedia text--a video presentation, a web-delivered text, a YouTube video, a TED talk, etc.

Next, think about the rhetorical effectiveness of the text. How does it engage the rhetorical devices you’ve read about, from the Sophists forward? How, specifically, does it use tropes, figures, schema, etc, from ancient rhetoric--and how does it adapt those devices for modern audiences and media? How does it participate in the more recent adaptations of the ancients: Locke, Vico, Campbell, Whately, etc? And, especially, how and how well does it exemplify what you'd call modern rhetoric? Make notes here, getting down to a granular level as you try to understand the text, as well as the rhetorical knowledge that went into it.

Finally, write a 5-ish page essay in which you argue, from your own point of view, how this text exemplifies modern rhetoric--or not--and what rhetorical knowledge contributes to the ability to understand a modern text. In other words, analyze the text in order to develop an observation about rhetoric in the modern era.

Bring a draft to class on Thursday, November 17. The final essay is due in class on Tuesday, November 29.

Enjoy!