Texts and Rhetoric
Published on Aug 20, 2020
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PRESENTATION OUTLINE
Rhetoric is everywhere and can involve any kind of text including speech, written word, images, movies, documentaries, the news, etc.
For this class, a TEXT refers to any form of communication, primarily written or oral, that forms a coherent unit, often as an object of study.
A book can be a text...
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...and a speech can be a text...
...but television commercials, magazine ads, website, and emails can also be texts.
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Meaning can change based on when, where, and why a text was produced, and meaning can change depending on who reads the text.
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When evaluating a text, always remember to consider the Rhetorical Situation in order to make the most meaning.
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A simple way to think of a rhetorical situation...
A more complex way to think of a rhetorical situation...
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In Intermediate Comp, we use rhetorical/textual analysis and close reading skills to analyze the rhetorical situation and the meaning of texts and genres.
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Close reading is a necessary skill that will be very useful to you no matter your interests, discipline, or job.
Your classes, your work, and even your pastimes will require you to read or evaluate something difficult, to find hand and footholds in the material, and make sense of it.
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Basically, “close reading” simply means paying close attention to a text, analyzing a text very carefully—be it a photograph, a scholarly essay, an operation manual, a website, a tax form—and then drawing conclusions or making decisions based on your analysis.
Rhetorical Close Reading...
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...identifies the rhetorical features of a text but also goes on to analyze and argue something about how the author uses those features for a certain purpose.
In other words, a rhetorical close reading does more than describe what is in the text but how it is being used, why it is persuasive, and argues whether the text is rhetorically successful or not.
You might encounter a specific kind of rhetorical close reading based on the three, classical rhetorical appeals: ethos, pathos, and logos.
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HOW TO BEGIN:
1. Read/watch with a pencil in hand, and annotate the text. Take notes (in your reading journal!) while you read.
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"Annotating" means underlining or highlighting key words and phrases—anything that strikes you as surprising or significant, or that raises questions—as well as making notes in the margins.
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2. Look for patterns in the things you've noticed about the text—repetitions, contradictions, similarities.
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3. Ask questions about the patterns you've noticed—especially how and why.
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