back to main pageText Analysis
Assignment
This assignment invites you to use different sets of tools to think
with and about writing. You can use pentadic analysis to think deeply
about human behavior, or you can use rhetorical analysis to figure
out how the author is trying to persuade us or assess how well it's
being done. If you're familiar with the tools of literary analysis
(plot, setting, character, point of view, etc) you could write a
review; if you do take this last approach, it would still be
interesting to discuss why this character would be
appealing to the audience, or why the plot turned out the way it did,
and then use that observation to speculate about what we can learn
about ourselves from that. Here's some possibilities:
Comic Books (or graphic novels, if
you prefer)
Novels Horror, adventure, mystery,
romance, sci-fi
Speeches: Here's a really good rhetorical analysis of the
Unabomber
Manifesto by a student.
Magazines
Newspapers
Song Lyrics
Graffiti/bumper stickers (suggestion: start by collecting a bunch and then categorize)
Web pages (suggestion: pick two that have essentially the same purpose and audience and explain which one is better and why). Here's a student paper on the Heaven's Gate cult.