No Blogs for Remainder of Semester

There will be no more blogs for the remainder of spring 2009 semester.

No Blog for Monday, April 13

Hi all, No blog for Monday. We are having our second intellectual exchange that day so please come prepared with your readings and your talking points.

Blog for Monday, April 6: Privacy Issues

Facebook, MySpace,Twitter: How do these sites relate to questions of privacy? How are they changing notions of private versus public, in your opinion?

Use the comment function below to respond to the questions above.

Legalization Annotations

Using the comment function, please post your annotations for your two articles in support of your position for our debate Thursday, April 2. Remember to double check to make sure your citations are following APA or MLA style (see the Hacker book or the OWL website). Also, refer to the annotated bibliography handout I gave you in class for guidelines for the annotations.

See you Thursday!

Housing Issues. Due Thursday, March 26

Based on the housing-related articles we read for today, which article do you think makes the most effective argument regarding minority or ethnic hoursing? Why? Directly reference the text.

Use the comment function to respond.

Six Word Memoirs. Word.

Best Paragraphs

Post what you consider your best paragraph--either from this class or from your career as a student. Explore/explain why this paragraph is so strong.Use the comment link below to make your post.

Advocacy Websites

--what are they advocating and who are they advocating for? What are their goals?
--how are they attempting change?
--do they have a timeline or a schedule that they follow or a list of goals?
--how are they recruiting people? Or, how can you get involved?
--who is their audience?
--how are they using (or not using) the rhetorical appeals (ethos, logos, pathos)?

Remember to give specific references to the organizations’ websites to support your answers.

Use the comment link below to create your posts.

Eckerd Brochures: Due Monday, March 2

Based on the points in the article ("What You See Isn't Necessarily What you Get) and your knowledge of Eckerd, analyze the brochure. Begin by describing the brochure or pamphlet you are analyzing, then explore the following questions: What image of Eckerd is the brochure projecting? Is it accurate? Who is the audience for the brochure? How might the brochure change is the audience changed?

Respond to this prompt by following the "comment" link below this post.

The Voice: For Thursday, February 19

Pick an author who you think has a unique voice and explain why or how that appeals to you and how you would characterize that voice. Give specific examples by directly quoting that author and integrating the quotes into your paragraph (show, don't tell).

To respond to this blog please use the "comment" link below the post.

Tropes and Schemes

" [...] [T]hat government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." - The Gettysburg Address

Lincoln used epistrophe here by using the word "people" to conclude three successive phrases, "of the people, by the people, for the people [...] ." The effect of this is to emphasize the United States government's uniquely democratic quality and purpose, something which Lincoln wants us to see as highly valuable, something whose preservation is worth fighting for.

"Mr Kakoshka, it just happened again/They struck the museum like a hurricane [...]"

These lines are from a Chumbawamba song called "On EBay", which is about the looting of Iraqi museums after the March 2003 American-led invasion. The second phrase employs a simile, "They struck the museum like a hurricane." The suddenness and fierceness of this wholesale looting is emphasized through its comparison to the strength of a hurricane.

"I love the java jive and it loves me"

This line is from a Manhattan Transfer song called "Java Jive," about the singer's obsession with the narcotic effect of coffee. It employs personification by attributing the emotion of love to the physiological side effects caused by caffeine. The point of this trope is to communicate the idea of an imaginary mutual attraction - the coffee and the drinker are a good match, in other words.

Tropes and Schemes: Due Monday, February 16

Pick two different tropes/schemes (from the handout available on the moodle) and find an example of each from pop culture (you can use any media--internet, movies, music, television). Be sure to identify the figure of speech, how it is used, and to what effect.

Please use the "comment" link beneath this post to submit your answer.

Rhetorical Analysis Choices

I have chosen to analyze a column by left-wing former New York Times journalist Chris Hedges that was published in the online magazine Truthdig. The column is titled "It's Not Going to Be OK" and is about how the current financial meltdown is not a temporary phenomenon but rather the beginning of, as he would have it, our empire's collapse. (It's posted here: www.truthdig.com/report/item/20090202_its_not_going_to_be_ok/)

Hedges' columns are consistently very moving and convincing to me, even more so than other columnists I like to read (from throughout the political spectrum). For this reason I have chosen to analyze the rhetorical techniques he uses in his writing.

For my visual text I have chosen a 22 January 2009 political cartoon drawn by The Economist's cartoonist, KAL. It is about George W. Bush's final attempts to save his legacy. KAL's cartoons tend to have much detail and always transmit their messages very clearly. I would like to deconstruct his cartoon to see why KAL is always so effective.

Rhetorical Analysis

I decided to pick Ronald Reagan's speech he delivered after the Challenger disaster January 28, 1986. I picked his address because i liked the topic of space and thought he was persuasive in helping people overcome their grief at the tragedy.

The second piece I chose to analyze was an advertisement for Calvin Klein fragrance because of the messages other than just selling a product that it promoted. I wanted to analyze two different types of media in order to get a better understanding of rhetorical analysis.

Rhetorical Analysis: Due Wednesday, February 11

What texts are you going to use for your rhetorical anlaysis? Why? How did you choose them?

To respond to these questions please click on the "comment" button beneath this post.

What is rhetoric?

Rhetoric is the art of language. Whether it is oral or written it is the ability to move and persuade an audience. In class we discussed that rhetoric is not so much what a person says, but how they say it. Rhetoric is the ability to use language effectively to persuade, inform, educate, or entertain. I love Jodi Picoult's books. In fact I used to hate reading, and my mother always used to push me to read but I never would. My mother is a writer and could never understand how anybody could not enjoy reading, let alone her own daughter. But one day she gave me a Jodi Picoult book and begged and pleaded with me to read it. Although I mumbled, grumbled and whined about reading it, I actually read it and found myself really enjoying it. Since then I have read a few more Jodi Picoult books and find them to be very entertaining. I would say that her ability to entertain, her ability to make readers laugh or cry just through the use of words is what makes her books rhetorically effective.

Will's HxC rap group

www.myspace.com/southernslaughta


Check it.

Rhetorical Effectiveness

What kind of writing do you do in your major (or minor)? What makes for rhetorically effective writing in your major (or minor)? What are the expectations associated with that writing?

Rather than creating a new post you can hit the "comment" link right under this post and leave a comment.

Welcome to the Blog

Welcome to the Blog for our Analytic and Persuasive Class this semester (spring 2009). We will use this blog as a way to start or to continue conversations started in class and influenced by our reading and in-class activities.

Blog posts are due by 9:00 PM the night before class and should be 250-400 words in length. The blog prompts are available on the blog itself and on the course moodle. Generally, you have a blog due before every class, except when you have another writing assignment due in class.

Keep up the blog and feel free to experiment with your posts. Feel free to add in links to other sites, videos, images. Make the blog and these posts yours.

First thing to do: suggest a name for this blog. Be creative!