UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO BOULDER SPRING 2017
Program for Writing & Rhetoric JOE HATFIELD
FINAL PAPER Description from the course syllabus: The final essay of this course asks students to select a memorial, and utilize the concepts learned throughout the course to make an argument about how and to what effect the memorial rhetorically communicates to a particular audience or audiences. The challenge of this paper lies in the student’s ability to balance describing their artifact, while simultaneously making an argument about the artifact’s rhetoric. By the end of the paper, students are asked to critique the memorial by addressing whether they believe the memorial most effectively targets the audience or audiences they have identified. Students must cite at least eight academic sources in this paper according to MLA formatting standards. Instructions: For this assignment, you will complete two drafts of this paper, which will be turned in and graded. These instructions are simply suggestions that you should try, to the best of your ability, to implement in each of your drafts. In this a world obsessed with memory like the one we inhabit, we cannot escape the rhetorical function of memory (in addition to, words) to communicate an idea or to support an argument. This prevalence suggests that memorials should be treated as texts, just like any other form of communication, and analyzed for their rhetoric and impact. In this essay, you will take what you have learned about memory rhetorics this semester in order to analyze a memorialized artifact of your choosing. Your artifact might be a memorial such as a statue or monument, or another type of memorial such as a photograph or set of photographs, a film, book, blog post, website, video game, or some other kind of memorial text. The possibilities are endless. Nonetheless, you should develop a thesis that details how and to what effect the memorial rhetorically speaks to a second persona, or specific primary audience. You will then use the tools of this course to write a full, eight-page research essay. Such tools might include but are not limited to: skills of information literacy, Aristotle’s types of speeches, kairos, rhetorical appeals (ethos, pathos, and logos), enthymemes, the rhetorical situation, genre, medium, delivery, the second persona, public sphere(s), adaptation, visual rhetoric, and/or tourism. Listed on the following page are questions you might ask yourself when developing your argument. Your argument should be tight, consistent, and coherently proven. Therefore, you probably will not answer all of the questions I have listed below in your final essay. These are simply heuristics, or starting places, for you to begin drafting the project. Pay
UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO BOULDER SPRING 2017
Program for Writing & Rhetoric JOE HATFIELD
close attention to question seven, as I expect that the conclusion of this essay will offer some appraisal of the ideological undertones of the memorial’s rhetoric. 1. Begin by deciding upon your memorial artifact. a. What memorials interest me? Could I write a sustained research project about one of these memorials? b. How do people engage with this memorial today? Is this a popular memorials, or a more obscure one that people might not know a lot about? Could this matter for my overall argument? 2. Create a thesis for your paper. a. What do I know about this memorial? b. What is my prior knowledge of the memorial? How does this help me understand the memorial’s rhetoric? c. What do I want to argue about this memorial? d. How does the memorial attempt to rhetorically target an audience? Who is the audience/audiences? e. How can I tell? f. What assumptions am I making about the audience? What does this say about the ideology of the memorial? 3. Establish a rhetorical situation for the memorial. a. What is the purpose of this memorial? b. What is the exigency of the memorial? What made this memorial come into being? Why is it necessary? c. What is its historical/rhetorical context? What further research do I need to do in order to better understand the memorial’s context? d. What choices in composition has the creator made? What has been omitted? What is important about these particular omissions? e. Does the memorial invite an audience response? How so? 4. Identify the memorial’s rhetorical content. a. What overt and unstated messages does the memorial convey? b. What themes does it employ? Does it present a narrative? c. What does the memorial tell us about the culture/ideology of its audience? d. What strategies has the author used in composing the memorial? Tourism? Rhythm? Playfulness? Sex? Identity? Cool palettes? Tension? Horror? Mundanity? Trauma? e. Are these strategies effective? 5. Look for rhetorical appeals. a. Does this memorial appeal to credibility (ethos)? Is there something about it that tells us about the character of the content or its audience? b. Does this memorial appeal to logic (logos)? Is there something rational about the memorial? Is it logically created in some way?
UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO BOULDER SPRING 2017
Program for Writing & Rhetoric JOE HATFIELD
c. Does the text have emotional appeal (pathos)? How is this emotion created? What does this emotion do for audiences? 6. Ask more questions. a. Are there memory analogies being used in this piece? An analogy compares a familiar event, object, or process with one that is unfamiliar to encourage the audience to see a situation differently. b. Does the text use symbols? What do these symbols do rhetorically? Is the symbol appropriate for the audience? 7. Try to appraise the ideological rhetorics of the memorial. a. What is the ideology that allows this memorial rhetoric to exist and/or prosper? b. Is this ideology harmful? Who is good for? Who is it not good for? c. What can we do to make sure this ideology is transformed? Should it stay the same? How do memorials play a role in your view of the ideology?
