WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO WRITE ABOUT. Deciphering and Understanding Writing Prompts

Transcription

1 WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO WRITE ABOUT Deciphering and Understanding Writing Prompts

2 Compare and contrast the gender roles and behaviors of a female protagonist in a classic fairy tale with a female protagonist in a modern retelling of a fairy tale.

3 DECIPHERING AND UNDERSTANDING Locating the Prompt Analyzing the Prompt

4 FINDING THE PROMPT Intro Thought Provoking Questions Actual Essay Prompt Requirements/Tips Logistics

5 In class for the next few weeks, we are going to be discussing rhetorical analysis and advertising. Advertisements often reflect and perpetuate a shared cultural knowledge and use our own desires and insecurities to persuade us. For this essay I am asking you to do two things: pick two advertisements (print or commercial) that use the same emotional appeal among those listed in the essay Advertising s Fifteen Basic Appeals and analyze and evaluate the strategies used to convey this appeal and any other rhetorical strategies used to persuade consumers. In analyzing visual texts you will need to deconstruct the advertisement and look at color, style, text, composition, and context (societal, political, and cultural). You must use the readings that we ve gone over in class as your sources. You must quote from these sources and provide a works cited page and in-text citation. MLA Format Typed/ Double-spaced 12-point Times New Roman font 4-complete pages (no large font or extra spacing) Works Cited page

6 None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. We got here because somebody - a parent, a teacher, an Ivy League crony or a few nuns - bent down and helped us pick up our boots. -Thurgood Marshall This administration and these folk who run Washington are no more interested in our welfare and our wellbeing than the man on the moon. And we have got to start taking our destiny into our hands. -Tavis Smiley Deeply embedded in our national consciousness is the idea that those who are accomplished achieved their success through hard work and perseverance, while those who fell short did so simply because of their unwillingness to work and strive. However, some argue that many of those who achieved success did so through advantage and privilege. This debate is founded on two divergent definitions of America: a meritocracy, in which everyone can achieve or a non-egalitarian society, in which opportunity is afforded the few. This has led to the longest running debate in American history: collective responsibility versus individual responsibility. What do we do with those in our population unable to help themselves? Or are those needing aid simply indolent and lazy? Should we have safety nets in place to help those that fall between the cracks? Or are those people simply allowing themselves to fall because they know these social safety nets will save them? Locate ten sources dealing with this issue of collective responsibility versus individual responsibility. You must include five sources supporting the need for social welfare programs and five opposed. You may use two articles we ve read in class. Write a detailed annotated bibliography entry for all nine sources.

7 ANALYZING THE PROMPTS Verbs Subject/Topic Critical Lens Essay Type

8 VERBS Analyze Compare/Contrast Evaluate Research Define Explain Consider Demonstrate Develop Illustrate Summarize Prove

9 CRITICAL LENS Like a camera or a pair of glasses, the critical lens is what we must look through when we investigate, analyze, research, or evaluate a subject. It informs the writer about what to focus on and determines how we must consider the text.

10 ESSAY TYPE Rhetorical Analysis Narrative Argumentative/Persuasive Reflection Research Textual Analysis

11 VERBS/SUBJECT/LENS/TYPE Choose an American stereotype or cultural myth and analyze one or more popular cultural texts that reinforces it. Choose an American stereotype or cultural myth and compare and contrast a popular culture text that perpetuates it with one that subverts it.

12 VERBS/SUBJECT/LENS/TYPE According to Peter Hutchings in his book The Horror Film, movie monsters are expressions of or [are] metaphors for socially specific fears and anxieties and help audiences (and perhaps filmmakers as well) to engage with and come to terms with these fears (37). Explain this idea in depth and analyze the portrayal of a movie monster as representative of the culture s anxieties, fears, or concerns when the book, television show, or movie was released. You will need at least two secondary sources for this essay. You may use an essay we ve read in class for one of your secondary sources. You must use MLA format to document your sources.

13 FINDING THE PROMPT Intro Thought Provoking Questions Actual Essay Prompt Requirements/Tips Logistics

14 ANALYZING THE PROMPT Verbs Subject/Topic Critical Lens Essay Type