ENG 111 Essay #2 – Analyzing a Larger Conversation
In Essay 2, you will use rhetorical analysis techniques to make informed comparisons between the reading you selected for Essay 1 and an additional reading chosen from the list below. Start with the idea that both authors are addressing a shared issue, but that their rhetorical situations – their occasion for writing, their sense of audience, and their purpose with regard to the issue – may be very different. You should discuss and compare the two readings in terms of these and other rhetorical elements. Build your analysis on specific evidence from both readings. Are the authors trying to do the same thing, or different things? Are their audiences or occasions for writing different? If they’re both part of the same conversation, what accounts for any differences in purpose and rhetoric?
For Essay 2, you will use the reading from your first essay, but you will connect it to another reading from the list below. Once you have worked through the two readings’ connections to one another and to a larger conversation about a significant issue, you will offer your response. As in the first paper, this response should be rooted in an analysis of your own position as a reader and comparisons to their assumptions about their audiences. Is there something neither author covers that is important to you today? Be careful what sorts of claims you make here; since you will not have the opportunity to cite credible evidence of your own or bring in new factual material, you will have to respond based on your own experiences and your analysis of the readings.
You may choose
one of the following essays to connect to the reading you analyzed for Essay 1 and respond to.
Not all pairs will work, so be careful in making your choice when picking which reading to connect to the Essay 1 reading you have worked on already. You may not use anything beyond your two readings as sources.
All four are linked here:
Peggy McIntosh, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”
Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The Enduring Solidarity of Whiteness”
Audre Lorde, “Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference”
Victor Tan Chen, “All Hollowed Out”
Learning Goals
· Examine the way multiple readings help give shape to a larger, ongoing conversation about an issue of real importance
· Understand writing as a process of analysis, response, and development
· Gain a greater understanding of the way multiple writers can create a bigger sense of what “they say” and create room for a more fully developed “I say” response
· Gain experience with MLA citation and document formats used to give proper credit to others for their words and ideas
What You Will Need to Get Started
· An essay chosen from the options listed above, as well as your Essay 1 reading.
· Good notes on both of your sources, including clear indications of which ideas and words come from which sources.
· Resources on MLA citation style and documentation, including
The Little Seagull and the Durham Tech Library Guide.
· Reliable Internet access.
· At least
two reliable places you can save your work as a .doc document
Your Assignment Targets
· Write
four to six full pages presenting a clear, well-supported comparison of the two readings’ use of rhetorical elements and a response of your own.
· Provide a clear
thesis statement identifying the central and most significant point of comparison between the two readings’ use of rhetorical elements.
· Integrate and properly cite quotations and paraphrases in each analysis paragraph, making effective, thoughtful choices about when to quote and when to paraphrase.
· Employ multiple “they say” and “I say” templates from your textbook as appropriate.
· Structure the essay so that others can follow it easily and clearly by using a strong overall sense of organization, including good transitions and well-structured paragraphs.
· Conclude in an interesting way.
· Use proper MLA citation throughout and include a correctly formatted Works Cited page.
This does not count towards the page limit.
· Employ clear and grammatical writing, a formal style, and good sentence structure
Example sentences for the paper:
While X and Y both tackle the issue of _______, they do so from very different perspectives, and
as a result they ________.
Both X and Y seem to conclude that _____, although they reach this conclusion in distinct ways.
For example, X _____. In contrast, Y ______.
Because X intends to persuade __________, while Y aims for an audience of ____________, they
have each chosen different appeals. X uses _____________, while Y uses ___________.
I [differ from or resemble] X’s audience in that I __________. In comparison to Y’s audience,
expected audience I ____________. For this reason, my own response to the conversation
between these two authors is ______.
While X and Y are writing in a time when __________, during my lifetime the issue has evolved in
that ______. As a result, from my perspective their arguments seem ___________.
