Rhetorical Situation Professor Danielsen

Warm Up Question: Pick one of the following, and briefly write the following: 1) Ask to borrow some money from your friends for your textbooks. 2) Ask to borrow some money from your boss for your textbooks.

Rhetorical Situation Purpose Audience Genre

Purpose All writing has a purpose: Public/Private Descriptive, analytical, persuasive, etc Questions to think about purpose: What do you want your audience to do, think, or feel? What does this writing task call on you to do? What are the best ways to achieve your purpose?

Audience Who are you writing for? Identify your audience. The people who are writing for. Questions Who are you writing for? Identify your audience. What is your audience’s background, their education or life experiences? What are their interests? Is there any demographic information that you should keep in mind? What political circumstances may affect their reading?

Audience What does your audience already know – or believe – about your topic? What is your relationship to the audience? What does your audience expect from you? What kind of response do you want? How can you best appeal to your audience?

Genre Kinds of writing. Letters, profiles, reports, essays, poems, etc. Questions: What is your genre, and how does it affect what content you can or should include? Does your genre call for any specific strategies? Does your genre require a certain organization? Does your genre affect tone? Does the genre require formal or informal language? Do you have a choice of medium? Does your genre have any design requirements? (Resume)

Stance Attitude towards your topic. Questions for Stance: What is your stance and how does it relate to your purpose for writing? How should your stance be reflected in your tone? How is your stance likely to be received by your audience? Should you openly reveal your stance?

Activity: Video Analysis Look at some of the elements of Beyonce’s Superbowl Performance including costuming, dance movements and dancer formations. https://youtu.be/L_Hgh7sPDLM?t=1m34s Think about: Purpose Audience Genre

Example Rhetorical Situation Purpose: To entertain To make a statement Answer claims that she is apolitical/apathetic? Audience: Superbowl 50 audience Special appeal for Black History Month Black Lives Matter (anti-police brutality movement)? Genre: Superbowl halftime show, family event Musical performance

What is the main message? What do you think the main message of Beyonce’s performance is? Example Thesis: Beyonce’s Superbowl performance (genre) is a response (purpose) to many in the black community that have called her apathetic to the growing Black Lives Matter movement. (audience) Now.... how do we support this claim?

Using Elements as Support Now we will break down this complex performance into simple components in order to support our claim.

Element #1, Example #1 - Costumes King of Pop – Michael Jackson Queen Bey - Beyonce

Element #1, Example #2 - Costumes Beyonce’s Backup Dancers Black Panthers

Element #2, Example #1 – Choreography Black Power salute from Beyonce and Angela Davis

Element #2, Example #2 – Choreography X formation in tribute to civil rights leader Malcolm X (remember him?)

Revised Thesis: Through incorporating symbols of black resistance and alluding to key black historical figures, (elements/reasons) Beyonce’s Superbowl performance (genre) is a response (purpose) to many in the black community that have called her apathetic to the growing Black Lives Matter movement. (audience)

For more practice, let’s look at Kendrick Lamar’s Grammy Performance http://www.theverge.com/2016/2/15/11004624/grammys-2016-watch-kendrick-lamar-perform-alright-the-blacker-the-berry

Activity: Textual Analysis Workshop Individually, look at ads/editorials that you have brought and think about the Rhetorical Situation (Purpose, Audience, Genre) and different elements. Write a thesis statement incorporating all of these elements, then write three topics sentences for each element that supports your thesis statement.

Homework: Revise your essay Read: Art of Summarizing (Handout/Titanium)