Project One Directions
So farthis semester, we have read and listened to a number of different perspectives on the emotional, historical, rhetorical, and social functions of monuments and memorials in American culture broadly, and the role of monuments to the Confederacy specifically. There are approximately 1,500 monuments to the Confederacy scattered throughout the United States. In recent years many states and cities have debated what should be done with these monuments, given the discriminatory and violent history they represent for many. The debates center around what these monuments mean, whose history they tell, how they tell it, and whether the monuments should be replaced, relocated, or removed. This paper is worth 20% of your final grade.

Your work in this project is to unpack the arguments and rhetorical strategies used in at least two of the four primary texts (Landrieu, Applebaum, Davidson, and Brophy) we’ve read and to make a case for which you think is most persuasive. To complete this work, your paper will need to do the following:

  • Identify and analyze the authors’arguments, rhetorical strategies, and assumptions.
  • Consider these questions: Who is the author’s primary audience? What are they trying to persuade readers of and why? What beliefs or ideas does the author take for granted (or assume that the audience will agree with) and how do these assumptions influence the persuasiveness of the overall argument?
  • Evaluate the effectiveness of the authors’ rhetorical choices and appeals to ethos, pathos, and logos for the intended audience.
  • Consider these questions:In what ways are these appeals based on assumptions the author makes about that audience? How does their effectiveness change when read by a wider audience?How do rhetorical choices (the way authors frame the issue, construct analogies, address the audience, characterize the opposition, build rebuttals, use pathos, etc.) impact the persuasiveness of the overall argument?
  • Compose an essay that:
  • introduces readers to the memorial debate and the rhetorical situation (including intended audiences, timing, and publication venue/speaking occasion) for your chosen authors’
  • focuses on identifying and analyzing the authors’ arguments, evidence, appeals, and rhetorical choices
  • offers examples and explanation from the authors’ texts to help illustrate your evaluation of the effectiveness (or not) of their arguments
  • closes with a brief review of what your paper covered and reflects on the implicationsor significance (the “so what?”) of what you’ve discovered through this analysis
  • is 6-8 pages in length, uses MLA format and includes page numbers and a works cited page

Keep in mind that your focus here is onanalyzing howyour chosen authors make their arguments and explaining what rhetorical strategies and choices make their approach persuasive or not for their audiences and contexts. That is, where possible you should concentrate on how the authors construct their arguments and why their evidence is convincing (or not) for their target audiences rather than on your response to those arguments.

As a reminder, this project supports the following student learning outcomes for RWS 200:

  • Analyze a variety of print and digital texts to articulate relationships between an argument’s elements and the contexts within which the argument was created.
  • Evaluate both print and digital arguments through a process of critical inquiry, examining the arguments in their original contexts
  • Compose a variety of texts through a multi-stage recursive process.
  • Employ conventions of academic writing in rhetorically purposeful ways.

Due Dates:

  • 2/13- Outline and rough first paragraph/thesis
  • 2/15- Rough draft
  • 2/27- Final draft