Project #1: Commonplaces

Once you have finished reading the chapter on "Commonplaces" from ARCS, be sure to review the section on the common topics of conjecture, value, and possibility. Now, look for a newspaper editorial (or an editorial from a newsmagazine like Time or Newsweek); this assignment will be more productive if you choose a full-length editorial, not just a one or two paragraph piece.

Your assignment is NOT to agree or disagree with the editorial writer's position; rather, you are trying to examine which "common topics" or "commonplaces" this writer has appealed to in order to make his claims. When does the writer gesture to value or possibility, for example? Use the heuristic questions in the chapter sections related to the common topics to help you.

Write a 2 - 2.5 page paper in which you mention which commonplaces the writer used and explain how they work. Be sure to mention, as well, other ways of looking at the issue. For example, if the writer mentions what is possible or most probable, how might one re-think the same situation to offer possibilities the writer hasn't included or considered?

Here are some links to newspapers that you might use; if you do not choose them, please choose a larger newspaper (or newsmagazine — editorials are on the last page of Time and Newsweek) as these tend to have longer, better-written editorials):

• Raleigh News-Observer
• Atlanta Journal-Constitution
• Chicago Sun-Times

Use Times New Roman 12pt. font. Projects are due at the beginning of class.

Project #2: Kairos / Stasis

After reading the ARCS chapters on kairos and stasis theory, you should look through some current and past issues of magazines, newspapers, or issues-oriented websites and find three or four articles on a common issue (i.e., "standardized testing," "body image," "cheating spouses," "divorce," "national language," "fad diets," "multi-ethnic adoption," etc.). Finding articles that relate different sides of an issue may be useful to you, but not absolutely necessary for this assignment.

Part I: Issues-Web & Kairos
With those documents, create a list of main and sub topics that arise in the articles, but which connect in some way to the central issue you looked for as you searched for these articles. In your list or "map," be sure to connect specific issues/ideas to those who are making them (the author of the article, a researcher that author quotes, a group that supports that position/idea, etc.) and note, as well, what values they seem to be asserting in making these claims or in addressing these issues/ideas. You can do this in tables, lists, or paragraphs, whichever works best for your way of thinking.

Part II: Issues-Web & Stasis
Using the Issues-Web you created for Part I, create and explain three to four theoretical and practical questions raised by your issue (you'll see several examples in the Stasis chapter). Next, explore the issue in general, specific, and very specific terms, again using the extensive examples in the chapter as models. When you finish, you should have a long list of questions relating to various aspects of your chosen issue.

Your finished project for this MAP will not look like an essay; think of it more as an exercise in developing a heuristic centered on your chosen issue.

You will need MAP #2 completed for the class activity (Minor Persuasive Piece #2) on Monday night.

Project #3: Sophisitic Topics

This assignment focuses primarily on definition, one of the most powerful of the sophistic topics (IMHO). After all, as we discussed in the Stasis chapter, how one defines the terms of debate affects/effects how the debate actually happens. Those who wish to recast the debate in their own terms, often have to do so by wrestling the definition of central terms away from the person who started the debate. Although one can easily argue that this strategy didn't work well for President Clinton, who tried to redefine "is" and "sex," in less absurd situations, it often proves rather effective.

After reading Chapter 9 in ARCS, do the first "Exercise" on page 255 - 56. Essentially, you'll have three paragraphs, one for each type of definition ("species/genus," "enumeration," and "dictionary"). The library has a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary in the reference section; you'll need it to complete the assignment. Unfortunately, the OED is no longer online. There should also be a copy or two at the Greenville Public Library downtown, if that location is more convenient for you.

Project #4: Ethos

After you've finished reading the ARCS chapter on ethos (the "ethical appeal"), you should try to apply your reading to one of the "texts" you've chosen as part of your Major Analysis Project. Obviously, your major projects will be different, your own construction as far as topic is concerned. However, I will expect you to do as full a rhetorical analysis as possible, which means reading each text for the rhetorical appeals used therein.

For this MAP, choose your text and then examine what the rhetor does to construct his/her/its ethos, how the rhetor does this, and try to examine the possible implications for readers/viewers (why?).

If you choose a "visual" text (advertisement, for example, or brochure), you might comment on the various ethoi at work in each text, both the rhetor (constructor of the text) and the individual(s) used in the ad (like a famous actor) or the product being "sold" to the viewer (a body, a name, a commodity, etc.).

Try to produce at least two full pages of analysis.

Project #5: Pathos

After you've finished reading the ARCS chapter on pathos (the "pathetic appeal"), you should try to apply your reading to one of the "texts" you've chosen as part of your Major Analysis Project. Obviously, your major projects will be different, your own construction as far as topic is concerned. However, I will expect you to do as full a rhetorical analysis as possible, which means reading each text for the rhetorical appeals used therein.

For this MAP, choose your text and then examine what specifically the rhetor does to engage the readers' or viewers' emotions. Explain, as well, how that sort of engagement works and be sure to note how different audiences might react differently, might experience different emotional engagement.

Try to produce at least two full pages of analysis.

Project #1: Rhetorical PreKnowledge

Using the magazines and art materials provided, construct an advertisement for a product in one of your magazines to meet the audience needs/expectations/desires/interests of a different audience (magazine). For example, you might find an ad for men's skin care products in GQ or Sports Illustrated; using the product -- and whatever other graphics/words you want from other magazines -- you would reconstruct this ad for a magazine with a significantly different readership, one like Oprah or Better Homes and Gardens. Although women might read GQ and SI, we can safely assume that more women would read Oprah or BHG.

Project #2: Kairos / Stasis

Students will divide into two groups and each group will construct a persuasive text using the following guidelines. The end result will be two short pieces of writing to be shared with the class as a whole.

For this project, begin by sharing what each group member chose as her "issue" for MAP#2. As a group, decide which one issue you would like to work on together tonight; feel free to try to persuade each other why YOUR issue is the one to use!

Next, using the issue webs that student created (and then adding to it from your own "common knowledge" of the issue), as well as the theoretical/practical stasis questions from MAP#2, write the first two or three paragraphs of an essay in which you attempt to show your audience why this issue is kairotic right now. You might review the examples from newspaper writers on pages 45 & 84 of your textbook.

Project #3: Ethos

Using the issue you've chosen for your Major Analysis Project (or the one you've been working on most so far this semester), map out the ways in which you think YOU would be most credible or authoritative on the issue. For this project, start by listing how YOU might demonstrate Good Sense, Good Character, and Good Will, based on the ways these concepts are defined in the ARCS textbook.

Once you've completed your map/list, construct the first two paragraphs of this piece so as to make yourself credible/authoritative to some audience. Stipulate your audience at the top of the page.

Project #4: Pathos