Agenda:
JFK Timed Rhetorical Analysis: 45 minutes
DO NOW: Go ahead an have your JFK thesis pasted in a doc for your essay.
Class Activity Involving Writing for Specific Audience- The purpose of this assignment is to make us become more aware of just how much audience SHOULD impact persuasive writing. This activity is not necessarily a measuring your strength in argumentation, BUT your ability to understand how RA is completely dependent upon a speaker or writer understanding their audience.
Write mini speeches fashioned with specific audiences in mind. (15 minutes per speech)
Share out speeches- Analyze as a group
Homework:
Read "This is Water" and "Psychologists say a good life doesn’t have to be happy, or even meaningful"- You will need to prepare for a GRADED Socratic Seminar that will take place on Thursday, September 19th! Create SOLID open-ended discussion questions and any annotations of ideas you may have had while reading.
I, as the resident rhetorical crazy lady, will of course expect you to consider the following, with emphasis on numbers 1 & 2:
What’s our rhetorical situation?
Exigence
Audience
Speaker
Purpose
What rhetorical strategies do we pick up on? Modes?
What do you think is your “natural default setting” in how you think or perceive the world?
In what ways does your own experience in the world limit your world-view?
Do you have an experience that is similar to the example Wallace shares at the supermarket? Looking back now, how could you have shifted your thinking during that experience?
Wallace says, “The only thing that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're going to try to see it. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't.” What have you chosen, consciously or not, to assign meaning to?
What is sacred? What is important? Thinking about it consciously now, is it worthy of your time and attention?
What advice do you think Wallace is trying to give? How would you follow it?