Thesis

BA 4 Description: For your draft 1.1, you will write a rhetorical analysis. See the description of Draft 1.1 for a discussion of what a rhetorical analysis is and what you will be expected to do. In this assignment, you will continue your preparation for writing your rhetorical analysis by writing thesis statements suitable for it. Using two texts specified by your classroom instructor, you will 1) identify the audience and purpose of each text and explain what those are, in about words, and 2) create a thesis statement for a rhetorical analysis of each text. Remember that to successfully create your thesis statements, you will need to read these texts carefully (and, usually, several times) so that you thoroughly understand the audience, purpose, and content of the texts. To be clear, you will have TWO thesis statements for TWO different articles. You will also have TWO explanations of audience and purpose for these TWO different texts. Texts for your thesis statements: “The New Sovereignty,” Shelby Steele 450 “My Pedagogic Creed,” John Dewey 460 “The American Scholar,” Ralph Waldo Emerson 468

What’s a thesis? The controlling sentence(s) of a piece of writing. It tells us the most important stuff about an essay. Usually, this means outlining your conclusions so that the reader knows exactly what you will talk about and find in the essay.

So if a rhetorical analysis is an evaluation of the effectiveness of a piece of writings rhetoric, what are some important aspects/things that a thesis for a rhetorical analysis should have?

An evaluation Audience (as specific as possible) Purpose (tied to action—what does the writer want the audience to change/do differently) Rhetorical choices

example Dewey uses X, Y, and Z to successfully convince [AUDIENCE] to [PURPOSE]