1. Let’s boil it down, shall we?
The civic artifact
Let’s boil it down, shall we?

2. The assignment Analysis of Civic Engagement Artifact
Select an artifact that frames the civic in a rhetorically compelling way. It could be anything from a corporate advertisement to a notice about an event or involvement opportunity happening on campus. This artifact could be contemporary or historic. Then, plan a three- to four-minute speech about the artifact based on RCL course material and discussions. After a brief introduction of the artifact, aided by images or video (no more than 30 seconds), you will want to draw upon course concepts to explain how the event or opportunity in question can be seen as civic and what ideologies and/or civic commonplaces are contained within or assumed by the artifact. Your speech might also explain how context and the rhetorical situation inform the piece’s message and how the artifact is framing the very idea of civic engagement.

3. What is this thing called “Civic artifact?”
Your best guess, please, before I give you mine.

4. Here goes:
A civic artifact is a human-made relic/phenomenon that frames the civic in a rhetorically compelling way.

5. “A human-made relic/phenomenon”
Sounds like this:
But could also be this:

6. “A human-made relic/phenomenon”
Or this…
Or this…

7. “A human-made relic/phenomenon”
Or this…
Or this…

8. “A human-made relic/phenomenon”
Or this…
Or this…

9. “A human-made relic/phenomenon”
Or this…
Or this…

10. “A human-made relic/phenomenon”
Or this…
Or this…

11. “A human-made relic/phenomenon”
Or this…
Or this…

13. And again…
A civic artifact is a human-made relic/phenomenon that frames the civic in a rhetorically compelling way.

14. “Frames the civic”
(more Schudson)
“How do we come to understand or accept or take for granted what counts as civic?”

15. What counts as civic? “…a particular sense of the public good”
“willingness to participate in (public) advancement”
“a part of everyday life”

16. Commonplaces
Ideas that are commonly held. Ideas/beliefs about things that we just take for granted. For example: Thanksgiving is about taking note of what you’re grateful for and for spending time with family.

17. Ideologies
Sets of beliefs, ideas, ways of thinking that distinguish a culture/group. For example: A liberal believes (most likely) that capital punishment should be abolished, a woman should have the right to legal abortion, and a market system in which government regulates the economy.

18. Questions to ask of a civic artifact
WHO…
“made” the artifact?
consumes (consumed) the artifact?
who benefits from the artifact?
who modified the artifact?

19. Questions to ask of a civic artifact
Why/how is/was the artifact necessary?
What is/was the artifact responding to?
Has the need for the artifact changed over time?

20. Questions to ask of a civic artifact
Does the artifact have different meanings for different people?
What commonplaces are embedded in the artifact? Or how does the artifact comment on commonplaces?
Were/are any commonplaces/ideologies challenged in the creation of the artifact?

21. What’s up next in Unit 1:
This four- to five-page, double-spaced essay will widen the scope of your analysis by comparing the civic artifact analyzed in your speech to another piece (text) that makes appeals (similar, different, or opposing) connected to the topic. Naturally, the success of your essay can be impacted by your choice of artifacts, so select a second artifact that plays well with the artifact you originally discussed in your speech. (In the past, some students have chosen artifacts/texts that covered similar topics but were created during different eras, or targeted different audiences, or advanced different persuasive themes and tactics, or were composed in different mediums – say, a visual image or video compared against a speech or written work that tackled the same subject matter.) Before drafting your essay, consider how the artifacts target, respond to, or construct their audiences. How do the pieces’ rhetorical choices make meaning? How do the pieces use the textual elements to marshall Aristotle’s three appeals: ethos, pathos, or logos? How do social and historical contexts, ideologies, and commonplaces come into play? What world does the text desire? Then, take some of these questions and shape them into an overarching argumentative claim about the pieces to serve as your thesis. You want to link the rhetorical choices or strategies within the pieces to distinct ideologies or commonplaces you identify that make the persuasive argument float. Your essay should also discuss and analyze the rhetorical situations–the specific context or moment out of which the artifacts have arisen.

22. I’ll leave you with a special moment.