As members of the University discourse community you will be engaging in critical thinking and communication.  Rhetorical analysis is on means of conveying your critical thinking and analysis skills in writing.  For this essay assignment you will be required to choose a text and analyze the strategies at work, the rhetorical situation, the context and the relative effectiveness of the piece.  

We will be working on research in English 102/108, particularly in the persuasive essay unit.  I would like to give you two options for choosing a text for the first assignment.  One will require you to begin research now, thus lightening the workload in the second unit, and the second option will allow you time to master the principles behind rhetorical analysis by choosing a pre-assigned text which will leave a greater burden of research for the second unit.  If you will be choosing your text focus upon an academic field of interest and find a current, somewhat controversial issue within the existing discourse of that field.  You will then select one text to analyze in the first essay.  If you choose the second option for a text select from the following essay from Frame Work: 
“Language and Literature form a Pueblo Indian Perspective” p. 21
“ The Armenian Genocide” p. 493
“The Classroom and the Wider Culture: Identity as a Key to Learning English Composition” p. 175
“The Story of Rosa Parks” p. 378
“The Egg and the Sperm: How Science has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female 
Roles”  p. 417
“Images of Power and Powerlessness”  p. 474

The essay must be double-spaced,  3-4 pages in length and include an original title.  Remember to ANALYZE the text rather than merely summarize!