Purpose and Goals
Power and Persuasion focuses on rhetorical theory and practice, revealed through analytical methodology. Rhetorical analysis includes a broad range of methods that are based on different theories of rhetoric. Therefore, your learning of methods will be informed by your learning of theories, and you will be inquiring into the ways that theories can change as they are put into practice, and how practice can challenge and enrich theory. The process of analysis will improve your close reading and critical thinking skills, will improve your understanding of what makes arguments effective and the ways that they are constructed according to purpose and audience, and will improve your writing by revealing the many ways that writers use language in purposeful ways.
You will choose one of the following as your subject of study for the semester: either a non-profit organization or a social and/or political movement, and you will analyze various communicative events that they create (including, but not limited to, signs, texts, speeches, protests, objects, interviews, advertising, fundraising, everyday practices–any rhetorical event). We will refer to these communicative events as “artifacts.” Throughout the semester, you will analyze different artifacts created by your subject through various lenses of rhetorical criticism.
Through analyzing your artifacts through multiple lenses in short (2-3 page) essays, you will learn to identify and understand the shifting modes that rhetoric can take in texts. You will also learn how to assess what makes one artifact more persuasive than another and how to choose an appropriate analytical methodology in a given situation. Through this work, you will be able to better assess the effectiveness of your own writing.