The Task:
Over the next few weeks, you will gather books, scholarly articles, newspaper pieces and other research materials about the “Southwestern” issue or conflict you are interested in exploring. You will use these sources to write a rhetorical analysis of one or two specific texts that treat this issue.  While you may choose any texts that you wish, it is often easier to choose texts that argue explicitly for one side or another (e.g., a newspaper editorial).  In order to do this, you must discuss the issue at hand, (in other words, what is being debated and by whom?). Furthermore, you must discuss the effectiveness of the position or arguments of each of those involved in the issue. This can be done by analyzing the strategies used by the author (e.g., statistics, experts, authority figures, facts, ethos, pathos, language, compare-contrast, etc.).  Remember, it is not enough to simply mention the use of these strategies, but rather focus on how and why they are used by the particular group or individual to strengthen their argument/position.

Some Ideas:
You might begin to think through your rhetorical analysis by answering the following questions:

1. What is the nature of the debate you are analyzing? Is there any background information about this debate that is important to know? What brought about this debate? Has it recently become an issue? Why? Or is it an old issue revisited?
2. Does this debate have two sides? Many sides? What are these sides?   How is the issue framed?  Does the debate rely on specific binary oppositions?
3. What is the context of the debate? (In other words, which multiple groups (people) are involved in the issue? Who are they?  What are their interests?)
4. What is the debatable question?  Are there several?
5. What is each side essentially saying about this question? What is their answer to this question?
6. How does each side attempt to sway specific audiences?
7. How does the performance or publication context affect these persuasive strategies?
8. Evaluate the effectiveness of each of these positions? (Which group seems to have the most effective position and why?)  Does the effectiveness vary with audience?
9. What are the larger social implications of this debate for the various groups involved?

Your Audience:
Write this analysis for college-educated people who are not familiar with the text(s) you have chosen to analyze or with any theorists you use to support your analysis.  This means some introduction & summary will be necessary.

Due Dates:

Topic Exploration: 2/3
Sentence Outline:  2/8
Conference draft:    2/10
Final paper:    2/22

The Task:

Your task in this assignment is to write a well-developed essay in which you clearly state your opinion on a controversial local topic here in the Southwest and support that opinion with detailed reasons. You must include opposing viewpoints in your discussion and have a clear sense of your audience. Within these criteria, however, there are various essay styles (listed below) that you may choose from in order to shape your arguments.
 

1. A position argument — The goal of such an approach is to express your position on the issue and then to justify it based on a review of relevant literature as well as your own personal experiences and opinions. Sufficient arguments and evidence should be provided.
2. A refutation argument — The goal of such an approach is to refute an argument against a specific viewpoint on an issue, in particular why one thinks that a particular view is unjustified and wrong. The refutation one furnishes should be based on rational reasoning and profound evidence.
3. A proposal —This approach aims at identifying a problem or a series of related problems and then offering a solution. Once again, the solution one offers should be justified; arguments should be furnished to show why that particular solution will be effective.
4. A cause-effect argument – This approach comprises two foci: one is to identify and argue for the causes of a problem (a sense of seriousness of those causes should be formulated); and the other is to argue for why those causes will have some profound effects on the society in general in the future.
5. A call-to-action argument – In this approach, the writer argues for attention to, or action on, a particular problem. Accordingly, he or she must provide sufficient evidence to justify why attention and/or action is needed.

Essay Requirements:

Your essay must be at least 5 typed, double-spaced pages in length. You must include at least 5 relevant and appropriate outside sources of information, some of which represent your opponents viewpoints. Your essay should follow the MLA format and include both a "Works Cited" page and an appendix of all print sources used (just the pages you've paraphrased or quoted) with the relevant passages highlighted and numbered according to the order of their appearance in your paper. Your final essay must be handed in on time with a complete portfolio in order to receive full credit.

Your Audience:

Write this analysis for college-educated people who are not familiar with the issue or text(s) or context(s) you have chosen to analyze & make an arguement about.  This means some introduction & summary will be necessary.

Due Dates:

Proposal / Abstract:     March 7
First Draft:                   March 21
Final Draft:                  March 30

The Task:

This assignment will give you an opportunity to examine the personal element in textual interpretation. If you think about your interpretations of a text, at times they may differ greatly from those of others. Why?  Because what you bring to a text - your "personal context" differs from what someone else brings to a text. For example, your life experiences, your background knowledge, your beliefs and values, culture & ideologies, all interact when you read or watch or hear a text in order to produce meaning.  Of course, your previous encounters with texts – your own history of past readings – are part of your “personal experience,” your “cultural background” that influences the way that you will react to the text at hand.   In other words, our experiences of representations construct our beliefs and values, our expectations and desires.  We in turn rely upon these cultural experiences when we read new texts or when we create new representations.

At the beginning of the class, we talked and wrote about how the “canon” of Western movies (or, say, Santa Fe style architecture) partially constructs our visions and beliefs of what the Southwest is.   Similarly, the poems, essays, short stories, longer historical fiction & movies that we have looked at this semester have all represented the people and places, problems and relationships here in the “Southwest” in different, perhaps more critical ways.  All of these representations of the Southwest – along with our in-class conversations & writings about them – are now part of the personal experiences that we bring to our readings of new texts.  Over the next few weeks, we will look at a few Southwestern movies – both popular & critical – and then you will write an essay that explains the way that your personal or cultural experiences affect the meanings and emotional reactions produced by these texts.  And vice versa:  how might these texts change the meanings you find in your past personal experiences, cultural beliefs and values about the people, places & problems here in the Southwest?  So you will have to discuss the relationships between representation, culture, and personal identity in a thoughtful, insightful manner in order to succeed with this assignment.

For this assignment, I am specifically asking you to consider questions such as these: In what ways does your personal experience affect your reading of a story? How have texts you have read this term (or otherwise experienced) made you think more critically about your own ideas, beliefs, and convictions about who you are and how you relate to this place that you live called the Southwest?  How has some aspect of your own identity been influenced by a text you have read? Begin by thinking about your own life experiences or significant events in your life that come to mind.  Reflect on these experiences and think about how specific texts we have looked at in class have changed the way you look at an issue or experience.

As you work through this assignment, choose texts that make you react strongly. Think about things that are important to you:  perhaps relationships, cultural/racial issues, a specific conflict in the Southwest, and so forth.  Develop a thesis that makes an analytical or critical assertion about the relationship between text(s) you have chosen and your own personal/cultural experience.  Make sure your topic is narrow and focused on a “Southwestern” text/issue in some way.  Organize your paper clearly and provide support in the form of quotes, paraphrases, and examples from your experiences and the text(s). Explicate this support by explaining how these examples show or illustrate or develop some aspect of your argument.  Don't just tell the reader about your topic, show the reader through examples & personal narrative.  Lastly, write in your own voice. You are critiquing your own relationship to your experiences of texts about the place you live; therefore, this assignment begs for some use of the first person.

Essay Requirements:

Your essay must be at least 5 typed, double-spaced pages in length.   Your essay should follow the MLA format and include a "Works Cited" page. Your final essay must be handed in on time with a complete portfolio for unit 3 in order to receive full credit.

Your Audience:

Write this analysis for college-educated people who are not familiar with the local Southwestern issue(s) nor with the text(s) that represent these issues.   Of course, your audience will also not be familiar with your own personal experiences that affect your responses to these representations.  This means some introduction & summary & personal narrative will be necessary in your analysis.   The trick is to smoothly integrate these different modes.

Viewing Dates:

Wednesday, April 5         6:00-8:15 pm     McClellan 207     Lone Star
Wednesday, April 12       6:00-8:15 pm     PAS 201             To be decided
By Thursday, April 13     you must have viewed Imagining Indians (available in the reserve room, main library)

Due Dates:
 
First Draft:                   April 13, by email!
Final Draft:                  April 27     (Note:  All revisions of earlier essays also due at this precise moment!)