Today’s Discussion
To make it easier to handle, I’ve separated the notes on Aristotle’s Books into different webpages. Here’s our airtight, no-veering plan:
Mini-Rhetorical Analysis Examples
I hope we devote class time to looking at passages for their rhetorical effect(s). I don’t want to ignore the nuances of our figures, but, honestly, we’ll be glossing over lots because we can’t possibly cover everything. Again, we could spend an entire semester just on Aristotle’s On Rhetoric, but we have other figures to consider to help build our understanding of rhetorical theory broadly. I have links to passages and examples below:
- Bottom of January 25th’s page
- ASPCA: Breaking: Bad News for Slaughter-Bound Birds
- If we’re really needing obvious messages for rhetorical analysis:
- “WHO Guidance: Healthy People Should Wear Masks Only When ‘Taking Care Of’ Coronavirus Patients”
- “Emerging Pandemic Diseases: How We Got to COVID-19”
- Their article mentions “The Plague of Athens,” which was a precursor to Athens’ defeat by Sparta and their political decline in the Ancient Greek world
- Last Seen: Finding Family after Slavery
- The Clinton Presidency: Expanding Education Opportunity
- No Child Left Behind
- You’ll no doubt see policy similarities in these last two, but try to focus on the rhetorical similarities.
- Ethos, pathos, logos
- “Look at how much I/we care…” rhetoric
- “Left-Handed Commencement Address,” Ursula K. LeGuin
- The Declaration of Causes of Seceding States
- You might be surprised to learn it was about States’ right–singular…
- Georgia: “The prohibition of slavery in the Territories is the cardinal principle of this organization.”
- South Carolina: Mentions “slavery” 6 times, “slave-holding” 5 times.
- Wait a minute…Nikki Haley’s from South Carolina, and she didn’t know this?
- Like Race, Like Gender
- The final paragraph is a better choice to analyze
- Intro to Francis Ford Coppola’s Godfather (1972)
- I think I said not to do visuals, but you can definitely do that for this assignment.
Next Reading–Isocrates
Sticking with primary texts (compiled and translated after centuries), we’ll move onto Isocrates. Please read the selections on Canvas available online through Atkins Library: “Introduction to Isocrates” and “Introduction to Part One,” pp. 1-18; “To Demonicus,” pp. 19-30; “Against the Sophists,” pp. 61-66; “Introduction to Part Two,” pp. 137-138; “Antidosis,” pp. 201-264.
Also, be thinking about what you’ll want to analyze for your Mini-Rhetorical Analysis (Due 2/23). Speeches, prefaces, printed arguments, YouTube diatribes, etc. Just explain how the text, segment, discourse carries meaning.