Rhetorical Criticism with Dr. Elif Guler

Due by the class period on Friday, February 5th

For your first formal critical essay in our class, you will use the rhetorical method of Neo-Aristotelian criticism to discover and write about the available means of persuasion in a speech of your choice. (Follow our class meetings on steps for writing a Neo-Aristotelian criticism.) Locate a speech for your analysis. You are free to locate a speech from any media, and the speech can be either a fiction or nonfiction one. For example, the speech can be an actual presidential address which can help you make a case about a certain type of leadership rhetoric and its possible effect on audiences. Or you can find a movie, a TV program, or another mediated text that features the delivery of a speech and analyze it in relation to a certain issue (identity, race, gender, morality, or another everyday exigency). Feel free to discuss your ideas with me inside or outside of the class period. In your Post #3, describe the rhetorical situation (rhetor, audience, topic, purpose, and context) of your selected artifact (2-3 paragraphs); the more details you can provide to inform us about your selected artifact, the better. We will build on this posting during our rhetoric lab on Friday (so your timely posting is essential).