PAPER 2: / DUELING ETHOS
INTRODUCTION
In class, we've read/watched and discussed three different moments when a rhetorical 'we' has been used by different rhetors: David Brooks in "One Nation, Slightly Divisible," Blake Hurst in "The Plains vs. the Atlantic," and Jon Stewart's appearance on Crossfire (which is now linked to under External Links on Blackboard). All three of these rhetoricians are using this 'we' to enhance their personal ethos; they aren't simply writing for their own opinions, but for the opinions of a group of people (Brooks for "Blue America," Hurst for "Red America," and Stewart for "America"). In other words, they have felt that they have the right to speak on your behalf about your values, your ideas, and your identity. Sometimes they may have gotten it right,sometimes they may have gotten it wrong, and sometimes they may have simply missed the entire point.
For this assignment, you'll be telling them what they did and didn't get right, helping them see the blind spots in their rhetoric,and offering corrections and observations on their rhetoric. Your paper will be 3 or more pages (though if you go past 10, I'm going to be concerned) and will be written in the form of a formal (but non-business) letter to one of these three rhetors (Brooks, Hurst, or Stewart). For purposes of this class, we're going to pretend that formal letters make use of the MLA format, so be sure to review your MLA format sheet. The first line of your paper should be some variant on a standard letter greeting (ie, Dear Mr. Rhetorician,). No, I will not expect you to mail these to the people involved, but I'd like you to take the rhetorical ethos they represented as part of your consideration for audience.
Remember that we've also read other essays related to this topic (Rebecca Skloot's "Two Americas, Two Restaurants, One Town," Jedediah Purdy's "The New Culture of Rural America," and Bill McKibben's "Small World: Why One Town Stays Unplugged"). Although the rhetorical 'we' isn't used in these, I want you to consider each of them as potential resources for your response to Brooks, Hurst, or Stewart.
CITATIONS / AVOIDING PLAGARISM: Cite WHENEVER you quote, summarize, or paraphrase. ‘Tis better to overcite than to undercite.
Because one of the biggest differences between college-level writing and previous writing is the ability to use texts for your rhetorical purposes, you will need to cite at least TWO DIFFERENT TEXTS (counting theCrossfire episode as atext)while making your response to one of these rhetoricians (the first will be the essay/video itself, the second/third/fourth/etc can be any of the other essays). Refer to the "You Gotta Have Moves" handout I gave you earlier (which is also available on Blackboard) for ideas about how you can use these sources. It isn't simply enough to cite, you, as a rhetor, need to be making use of these citations for your rhetorical purpose. Citations will be handled using the MLA system, which we discussed in class. More help on how to use the MLA system can be obtained from the University Writing Center and their website (links are available under External Links on Blackboard).
FORMAT RULES
Because this is a letter, you areintended to make use of both I and you; however, please make sure you're using the you to mean Brooks, Hurst, or Stewart, not the transferring you which really means I or someone else. I want to see ‘I’ because I want you to make use of both personal experience and text citations.For the final evaluation draft, mechanics (grammar and whatnot) will count; however, for this assignment, the most I will allow them to reduce a grade is athird of a letter(meaning that an A can drop to an A-, an A- to a B+, but an A cannot drop to a B because of mechanics).
THE WHAT
My biggest hope for this assignment is that you will make good rhetorical use of different texts which you cite. I'm expecting this to be a more thesis-driven piece that still makes use of personal experience as you relate to one of these 'we'-using rhetors. I'll expect to see clear and cogent organization in the final evaluation draft. However, early drafts will be viewed as discovery drafts, so feel free to explore different positions and ideas without fear in those drafts.
Because I'm doing you a disservice if I don't require it, mechanics (both standard grammar and correct MLA format) will be part of the grading criteria (evaluation draft)
THE WHY
As I said, one of the biggest challenges of college writing is citing with intent to use sources rhetorically, not simply because you are required to cite. I'm hoping this assignment will give you both practice with the mechanics of using citation systems and with the more important goal of using citations for your goals. By making it a letter, I want to give you a different audience than myself to see how to work with people of different ethos (remember, my argument is that the identity of a writer is always in a relationship with the identity of his or her audience).
DUE DATES
9/24Assigned pre-writing/position-gathering
9/26 Mega-rough draft
9/28 ONLINE CLASS -ROUGH DRAFT DUE BY10PMON DISCUSSION BOARD
10/1 Peer responses to rough drafts
10/5 Submission (not evaluation) draft due
10/10-10/12 CONFERENCES ON SUBMISSION DRAFT
10/19 Evaluation draft due