Rhetorical Criticism of Film, Pop Culture, & Multimodal Texts

• The final requirement for our course will be a final post on your blog, responding to the following reflective prompt. This posting will need to present a minimum of 750 words and make up for 10% of the overall course grade.
• Please entitle this posting as follows: “Rhetorical Criticism – Final Reflective Blog Post”
• Create this reflective blog post on your own blog by 5:30 pm on May 6th. The instructor will be available for consultation online during the final exam period. Feel free to join the Zoom room by clicking the link that will be provided for the final.

Purpose: The purpose of our final blog posting requirement is to demonstrate your knowledge of rhetorical criticism, how your analytical skills have developed in ENGL 301, and how you will use your knowledge/skills in future rhetorical situations.

Task: To complete this blogging requirement, write a reflective argument on how you have accomplished or are still working on accomplishing our course outcomes.

Introduction

Begin your reflective argument with an overview of your experience this semester in learning how to analyze and practice creating documents, including a clear thesis about your development as a rhetorical critic.

Body Paragraphs

The body of your argument should present an accurate assessment of your growth of knowledge and skills (rather than to show only your previously existing strengths). Each body paragraph should open with a topic statement, which contains a clear and insightful claim about how you have fulfilled ­­­each learning outcome for the course:

1. explore historical and contemporary definitions of rhetoric;
2. gain an increased awareness of the relationship between the nature and functions of rhetoric;
3. investigate and understand how rhetoric acts to persuade us and/or shape our identities;
4. explore as your own effectiveness as a rhetor (writer, speaker, communication, persuader, etc).

Develop the body paragraphs with specific examples of the knowledge and skills developed through the course material, activities, and assignments. More specifically, you should support your argument by referring to some of the course texts (textbook chapters, handouts, or videos shown in class, etc), class discussion and activities, and all of the major projects (course blog and Critical Essays #1 & 2) that you have completed for ENGL 301 – Rhetorical Criticism.

You can also make direct references to parts of your own work (link to other blog postings, quote parts of your essays, etc) to inform your reader about the outcomes of these processes, discussing your use of rhetorical principles in your projects. In addition, you should add statements to explain—as specifically as you can—how you will use your current analytical skills in future course work, in your major, and during your prospective career. (Or you may save this discussion to the conclusion.)

Conclusion

A strong conclusion will not just re-state the introduction. It will leave the reader with an understanding of what you have learned as well as what you are still working on as a growing critic. Provide a look to the future.

*The rubric is available on Canvas.

Due by the usual class period on Wednesday, April 8th

*Please respond to blogging prompts in a new posting on your own blog. Please enumerate and entitle all of your blog postings in line with the posting assignment number and title.

For your Critical Essay #2, you may also choose to employ media-centered perspectives to rhetorical criticism. For this blog post, you will respond to the following prompts and perform a short analysis through media-centered perspectives.

1. For the artifact, you may locate an artifact that you could potentially analyze for your Critical Essay #2 and that is appropriate for media-centered perspectives. Ideally, the full transcript or a portion of your selected artifact should be available online so that you can include its link in your posting. If not, find another way to describe the artifact and include in your posting examples from the artifact’s content (a YouTube video, etc). State the full title of the artifact and its genre (film, etc).
2. Briefly describe the rhetorical situation of your artifact to inform your readers about its content, including its “overt story” (see p. 280 in our textbook).
3. Briefly examine (describe and interpret) your selected artifact through selected media-centered perspectives concepts/ideas related to your artifact (e.g., media ecology theory, media logic, commodification, amplification/reduction, social learning theory, parasocial relationship theory, or cultivation theory). Support your analysis with some descriptions, summaries, or quotations from the artifact content. You will provide a full analysis (should you choose to develop this blog posting) in your Critical Essay #2. This posting should just present some preliminary observations.
4. Based on your analysis, make a few statements to evaluate the potential implications of your selected artifact.

Due by the usual class period on Wednesday, March 30th

*Please respond to blogging prompts in a new posting on your own blog. Please enumerate and entitle all of your blog postings in line with the posting assignment number and title.

Another method of rhetorical criticism you may choose to use in your Critical Essay #2 is the Feminist Perspective. For this blog post, you will respond to the following prompts and perform feminist criticism.

1. For the artifact, you may locate an artifact that you could potentially analyze for your Critical Essay #2 and that is appropriate for feminist criticism (an artifact that somehow deals with issues of gender). Ideally, the full transcript or a portion of your selected artifact should be available online so that you can include its link in your posting. If not, find another way to describe the artifact and include in your posting examples from the artifact’s content (a YouTube video, etc). State the full title of the artifact and its genre (film, etc).
2. Briefly describe the rhetorical situation of your artifact to inform your readers about its content.
3. Briefly examine (describe and interpret) your selected artifact through one of the three feminist approaches discussed in our textbook, by supporting your analysis with some descriptions, summaries, or quotations from the artifact content. You will provide a full analysis (should you choose to develop this blog posting) in your Critical Essay #2. This posting should just present some preliminary observations.
4. Based on your analysis, make a few statements to evaluate the potential implications of your selected artifact.

Due by the usual class period on Wednesday, March 18th

*Please respond to blogging prompts in a new posting on your own blog. Please enumerate and entitle all of your blog postings in line with the posting assignment number and title.

One of the methods of rhetorical criticism you may choose to use in your Critical Essay #2 is the Neo-Marxist Perspective. For this blog post, you will respond to the following prompts and conduct a Neo-Marxist analysis. Please follow our course content and assigned readings on the steps for using various perspectives of analysis.

1. For the artifact, you may locate an artifact that you could potentially analyze for your Critical Essay #2. Ideally, the full transcript or a portion of your selected artifact should be available online so that you can include its link in your posting. If not, find another way to describe the artifact and include in your posting examples from the artifact’s content. State the title of the artifact and its genre (film, etc).
2. Briefly describe the rhetorical situation of your artifact to inform your readers about its content.
3. According to the discussion in our textbook, what is the goal of using a Neo-Marxist perspective to analyze a text (an artifact)? How is it useful for analyzing an artifact? How does this goal apply to your selected artifact?
4. Briefly examine (describe and interpret) your selected artifact through some of the major rhetorical concepts of Neo-Marxist perspective and by supporting your analysis with some descriptions, summaries, or quotations from the artifact content. You will provide a full analysis (should you choose to develop this blog posting) in your Critical Essay #2. This posting should just present some preliminary observations.
5. Based on your analysis, make a few statements to evaluate the potential implications of your selected artifact.

Be ready to share your findings if prompted.

Due by the class period on Wednesday, February 12th

*Please respond to blogging prompts in a new posting on your own blog. Please enumerate and entitle all of your blog postings in line with the posting assignment number and title.

A Dramatistic Perspective is one of the three methods of rhetorical criticism you may choose to use in your Critical Essay #1. For this blog post, you will respond to the following prompts and conduct a brief dramatistic analysis. Please follow our class meetings and assigned readings on the steps for using a dramatistic perspective of analysis.

1. For the artifact, you may locate any artifact that you could potentially analyze for your Critical Essay #1. This includes any of the artifacts you may have used for your previous blog postings. Ideally, the full transcript or a portion of your selected artifact should be available online so that you can include its link in your posting. If not, find another way to describe the artifact and include in your posting examples from the artifact’s content.
2. Briefly describe the rhetorical situation of your artifact to inform your readers about its content.
3. According to the discussion in our textbook, what is the goal of using a dramatistic perspective to analyze a text (an artifact)? How is it useful for analyzing an artifact? How does this goal apply to your selected artifact?
4. Briefly examine (describe and interpret) your selected artifact through a dramatistic perspective, by supporting your analysis with descriptions, summaries, or quotations from the artifact content.
5. Based on your analysis, make a few statements to evaluate the potential implications of your selected artifact.

Be ready to share your findings when prompted in class.

Due by the class period on Monday, February 3rd

*Please respond to blogging prompts in a new posting in your own blog. Please enumerate and entitle all of your blog postings in line with the posting assignment number and title.

Creative commons image posted on pixabay.com

A Narrative Perspective is another method of rhetorical criticism you may choose to use in your Critical Essay #1. For this blog post, you will respond to the following prompts and conduct a brief narrative analysis. Please follow our class meetings and assigned readings on the steps for using a narrative perspective of analysis.

1. For the artifact, locate a film, a mediated popular culture text, or any multimodal text that you could potentially analyze for your Critical Essay #1. Ideally, the full transcript or a portion of your selected artifact should be available online so that you can include its link in your posting. If not, find another way to describe the artifact and include in your posting examples from the artifact’s content.
2. Briefly describe the rhetorical situation of your artifact to inform your readers about its content.
3. What is the goal of using a narrative perspective to analyze a text (an artifact)? How does this goal apply to your selected artifact?
4. Briefly examine (describe and interpret) your selected artifact through a narrative perspective, by supporting your analysis with descriptions of or quotations from the artifact content.
5. Based on your analysis, make a few statements to evaluate the potential implications of your selected artifact.

Be ready to share your findings when prompted in class.

Due by the class period on Wednesday, January 29th

*Please respond to blogging prompts in a new posting in your own blog. Please enumerate and entitle all of your blog postings in line with the posting assignment number and title.

“The School of Athens” by Raphael, 1509-1511

A Neo-Aristotelian Perspective is one of the methods of rhetorical criticism you can use in your Critical Essay #1. For this blog post, you will use the rhetorical method of Neo-Aristotelian criticism to conduct a brief rhetorical analysis (3-5 paragraphs). Please follow our class meetings and assigned readings on the steps for writing a Neo-Aristotelian criticism. Also, please make sure to read and learn from the model essays discussed during the class period before selecting your own rhetorical artifacts and analyzing them.

The goal of the Neo-Aristotelian rhetorical perspective is to discover and write about the available means of persuasion in a text.

1. For the artifact of analysis, locate a speech that could be considered as a mediated pop culture text. You are free to locate a speech from any media, and the speech can be either fictional or nonfictional. For models, see the list of examples on page 50 in our textbook. Ideally, the full transcript or a portion of your selected artifact should be available online so that you can include its link in your posting. If not, find another way to describe the speech and include portions in your posting.
2. Describe the elements of the rhetorical situation for your selected artifact.
3. Interpret the text according to the five canons.
4. Finally, evaluate the overall effect and implications of your selected artifact.

Be ready to share your findings when prompted in class.

Due by 4:00 p.m. on January 27

You were previously given an in-class tutorial on how to create a Longwood blog. Now is the time to make your first blog post! The main purpose of your first post is to clarify the rhetorical situation of your blog for readers who might stumble upon it. For example, why does your blog exist? The elements of a rhetorical situation include the following: writer, purpose, message/topic/subject matter/content, audience, context.

-Who is the writer/blogger (e.g., brief info about you)?

-What is the purpose of your blog (include the course information but you may also include a purpose of your own)?

-What will the writer be writing about on this blog (subject matter/content)?

-Who is your intended audience (write one or two sentences about who might make use of this blog or would like to check it out, etc)?

-What is the context of this blog (you can think about the classroom and beyond)?

In your response to some of these questions, you will want to mention our Rhetorical Criticism course. Hence, it is also appropriate to give some information about your major/specializations, reasons for taking the class, any past rhetoric/writing classes you have taken, etc.

Be flexible and use your creativity while making sure you address all writing prompts in detail. Please make all your postings more visually appealing with media (images, video, etc); cite your images and try to use ones that are in the public domain (not copyrighted), but you should be fine sharing any YouTube videos. You may also create your own images (take photos, etc) and add them to your blog, too.

(Sources for high-quality free images include pixabay.com, Wikimedia Commons, etc.)

Plato and Aristotle in Raphael’s The School of Athens (1509-1511)

Source: Wikimedia Commons

Welcome to our course blog! This blog will serve as a medium for us to communicate about our course, which will allow you to study various methods of rhetorical criticism and use them to examine examples of verbal and nonverbal communication in film, pop culture, and multimodal texts.