Assigned: [date]
Workshop: [date]
Due: [date]
For this assignment, you’ll be leading the class in a 45-minute
discussion on an assigned reading. This assignment involves some very
rhetoric-y skills:
- Rhetorical analysis
-
Contextualizing–linking the reading to broader
social controversies
- Researching those controversies
It also involves some real-world speaking skills:
- Preparing relevant information for your audience and conveying it
in a useful way
- Asking provocative questions
- Encouraging participation from the class, and using that participation
in a thoughtful way
Your task, as you know, has two main thrusts:
Help us find our way through this piece
- What rhetorical strategies did this writer use? (Look at that
“How To Analyze” handout for more explanation–those
are the elements you’ll want to be sure to address.)
- What strategies worked?
- Which ones didn’t?
- Which ones should you, as writers and speakers, steal or avoid?
- What makes this piece persuasive to you?
Help us understand the larger social controversy at the heart
of this piece.
- Identify it
- Research it
- Tell us what’s at stake, who’s affected, what viewpoints
members of each side hold
Details: You and your partner are required to meet with
me at least a week in advance of your presentation. Come with
some reading under your belt, and a plan for the controversy you’ll
present. We’ll all work together on the analysis, if you need
that, and on presentation strategies.
You’ll assign the class a Reader Response question. (We can
formulate it together, if you’d like.) You’ll need to
okay the question with me before you assign it.
Length: Your presentation should last for approximately 45
minutes.
Grading: Your grade is based on these questions:
- Did you convey an admirable understanding of the piece’s
rhetorical devices?
- Did you link the piece to a social controversy, placing it in
the context of others we’ve read?
-
Was that controversy well-researched, and did you
inform the class about more than one side of it?
- Did the work (both behind the scenes and in front of the group)
appear to be shared equally between the two of you?
- Did you involve the class in relevant ways, picking up on good
questions and encouraging new and innovative lines of discussion.
Hand in: your outline and your research
sources (I require two, but strongly encourage more than two.)
