Effective Use of Rhetorical Strategies and Literary Devices: Analysis of an Article

Content Development

You are analyzing how effectively he or she used rhetorical strategies (ethos, pathos, logos, cause/effect, etc. or literary devices -conflict, setting, irony, etc.) By using the rhetorical strategy or literary device, was he or she able to effectively convey his or her message (your thesis statement) to his readers? You are explaining (with text evidence from the article, story, play, etc. ) if he or she did so or not and how. Please check your spelling, grammar, punctuation usage, sentence structure, etc. and ensure you use smooth transitions when moving between points.

You are required to use the mla format and provide a minimum of 750 words. Failure to do so will likely result in a failing grade. Keep in mind, you can use resources such as SmarThinking, the Learning Center,and your instructor. Remember, never summarize! You always need to conduct an author study-research his or her background and determine how it applies to his or her writing!!

Make sure your body paragraphs, and therefore ideas, are supported by textual evidence and research. Otherwise, your work may be perceived as a weak argument. To strengthen each body paragraph, add evidence from your research to support each idea. Make sure to cite your evidence and then to explain it and link it back to your thesis. I often use this outline: Main Idea Sentence (topic sentence) Evidence (Draw from the assigned text-article, story, etc.) Analysis (What does the evidence mean or show?

How does it relate to the Main Idea? How effective is the author's use of the rhetorical appeal or literary device? How does evidence connect to the real world?) Link (How does this paragraph relate to the thesis?)

Summary of Paragraph (in 2 sentences) When did Krisof write this article? Include details that identify his professional work andpersonal life as it relates to his article. If there are special historical circumstances surrounding the writing of this piece, what are they? Including these background details in your introduction will better prepare your readers for the rest of your analysis.

Objective (no first person or opinions unless in conclusion) Use Third Person For this essay, you need not include a Works Cited page; however, if you include outside sources (such as an author's bio page or other), you must include a Works Cited page The rhetorical analysis is not about the article's topic The rhetorical analysis is not about your opinion re: the topic. Write from the perspective of the learned student exploring what compositional strategies the author uses to convey his message: ethos, pathos, logos, cause and effect, compare, contrast, etc.

Remember: you are not likely the intended audience; think about who is the targeted audience.

One of my friends here, Rick Goff, 64, lean with a lined and weathered face and a short pigtail (maybe looking a bit like Willie Nelson), is representative of the travails of working-class America. Rick is immensely bright, and I suspect he could have been a lawyer, artist or university professor if his life had gotten off to a different start. But he grew up in a ramshackle home in a mire of disadvantage, and when he was 5 years old, his mom choked on a piece of bacon, staggered out to the yard and dropped dead.

“My dad just started walking down the driveway and kept walking,” Rick remembers.

His three siblings and he were raised by a grandmother, but money was tight. The children held jobs, churned the family cow’s milk into butter, and survived on what they could hunt and fish, without much regard for laws against poaching.

Despite having a first-class mind, Rick was fidgety and bored in school. “They said I was an overactive child,” he recalls. “Now they have name for it, A.D.H.D.”

A teacher or mentor could have made a positive difference with the right effort. Instead, when Rick was in the eighth grade, the principal decided to teach him that truancy was unacceptable — by suspending him from school for six months.

“I was thinking I get to go fishing, hang out in the woods,” he says. “That’s when I kind of figured out the system didn’t work.”

In the 10th grade, Rick dropped out of school and began working in lumber mills and auto shops to make ends meet. He said his girlfriend skipped town and left him with a 2-year-old daughter and a 4-year-old son to raise on his own.

Rick acknowledges his vices and accepts responsibility for plenty of mistakes: He smoked, drank too much for a time and abused drugs. He sometimes hung out with shady people, and he says he has been arrested about 30 times but never convicted of a felony. Some of his arrests were for trying to help other people, especially to protect women, by using his fists against bullies.