Project 1: Analysis

Project 1: Rhetorical Analysis of an Economic Artifact

Requirements: 

• the equivalent of 5–6 pages (1250-1500 words);
• a one page (250 words) rationale;
• references to at least two course readings from Unit 1   
• you may work in groups for this assignment

Due Dates: 

• Draft: Due 2/19 on your blog before class (2:30pm). Please complete around 500 words for this draft and have your artifact chosen.

• Final: Due 2/28 on Canvas by end of day (midnight)

If we accept Richard Lanham’s claim that in an age of information, attention is the most scarce resource and  rhetoric is a “new economics,” then it seems essential to understand how rhetoric works and how rhetors use their resources to achieve their own economic ends.

In this assignment, your task is to write a rhetorical analysis of a “text” or groups of “texts.” (By text, I mean any kind of symbolic act or symbolic mediation, including print, digital, visual, sonic, embodied, etc.). The text(s) you choose will be your “case study.” The choice of case study is yours, but I recommend thinking about texts that participate in economic activity or reveal something about the economic moment.

Textual Analysis: Your analysis should include at least some “textual” rhetorical analysis (Selzer). To do this, you might ask yourself: What particular rhetorical strategies is the text using? To what effect? How does it consider audience? What language, style or imagery is used? Are there any kind of argumentative appeals? What does the arrangement of the text reveal? How does the text orient people to particular ideas or action? What do the rhetorical strategies reveal about the beliefs and attitudes of the author and the communities they belong to?  

Contextual Analysis: Using the readings we’ve discussed in Unit 1, I’d also like your essay to include a “contextual” rhetorical analysis (Selzer), with specific focus on the economic contexts that define the “rhetorical situation” of the case study (Bitzer). For this analysis, I’d like you to draw from the theorists we’ve read—Lanham, Zelizer, Bourdieu, McMillan Cottom, Gregg—and the analytical concepts they’ve used (payments, forms of capital, economics of attention, for example) to help you understand the larger economic conversation that surrounds the text. In other words, you should use the theorists to understand the “cultural environment” of the text(s) and consider how this environment “produce[s] clues about the persuasive tactics and appeals” used by the author(s) (Selzer 283). You might ask yourself: What is being communicated and why? How is this text in conversation with other texts and social practices? How does the text reflect the attitudes, beliefs, and values of the author and communities that sustain them?

Ultimately, the goal of your analysis is to break down the rhetorical strategies at work in the text in order to better understand how the text contributes to economic activity. What does successful (or unsuccessful) rhetorical work in the information age or in an economics of attention look like?  How do you know?  

Composition choice and rationale: You may write this analysis in a genre, mode, style, arrangement or system of delivery of your choice–in other words, the classroom academic essay is one of many options you can choose from to communicate your analysis. Choose a genre or mode that best achieves your communicative goals, such as the message you want to convey, the audience that you think should hear it, etc.

Therefore, in addition to your main product (the analysis itself) I’d like you write a 250 word rationale where you talk about the choices you made in genre, mode, delivery, or style (among other composition choices), to compose the analysis. Your rationale should address the following questions:

• What were the goals for your rhetorical analysis? What is this piece trying to accomplish and for whom? In other words, what work does or could this piece do?
• What specific rhetorical and material choices did you make in service of accomplishing the goals above?
• Why did you pursue this plan as opposed to other ways of achieving your goals? What other choices could you have made in genre, mode, or style?
• Who are what helped you achieve your goals?

Printable Rubric:

Rhetorical Analysis Grading Rubric
Main Text	Points  (__85)
DESCRIPTION: The project utilizes summary and paraphrasing and contains a detailed description of the text(s) under investigation. The description focuses on the rhetorical and economic elements of the case study.	___/10
TEXTUAL ANALYSIS: The project breaks down the text(s) under analysis into discrete and significant parts and examines them in order to better understand the how the rhetoric works to “alter reality” or respond to exigencies. The author(s) use rhetorical terminology from Lanham, Selzer, Shipka, and/or Bitzer in its textual analysis.	___/20
CONTEXTUAL ANALYSIS: The project provides some examination of the context or situation surrounding the case study. Sufficient research is done to “reconstruct the rhetorical moment” (Selzer). The object(s) under analysis are situated within larger communicative chains (Selzer), and the exigencies, audiences, and constraints of the rhetorical situation (Bitzer) are discussed. The project uses course concepts to analyze the context.	___/20
THEORY: The project thoroughly engages with a main idea from two of the readings from the course that theorize economics and writing (Lanham, Zelizer, Bourdieu, McMillan Cottom, Gregg). These concepts are used to explain the economic contexts of the text(s) under investigation. The project shows this engagement through summary, paraphrasing or quoting from these readings and critical engagement with the authors’ ideas.	___/20
ARGUMENT: The project creates some new knowledge or new idea (a thesis or claim) about how rhetoric works in economic activity.	___/10
COHERENCE AND STYLE: The project is organized logically and adheres to appropriate genre conventions. The project meets word length requirements; the author is able to manage editing, mechanical and grammatical errors.	___/5
RATIONALE	___/15
RHETORIC: The author(s) explain the “rhetorical situation” of their project and explain the rhetorical strategies used to persuade and appeal to their audience or “alter reality” (Bitzer)—they explain the exigence, audience, and constraints of their “text.” The author(s) deploy specific textual strategies or draw on contextual resources (Selzer).	___/9
GENRE: The author(s) explains how the project is typical or atypical for a “text” in their chosen genre. They explain the purpose of the genre, its common conventions, and its use for the reader and writer.	___/3
CHOICES/GOALS: The author(s) explain the process for creating the project and the choices they made. They explain their communicative goals and the technological, rhetorical, and genre choices made to accomplish their goals. They explain why they pursed this plan as opposed to other ways to achieve their goal.	___/3
Comments:	Total:  ___/100