Toni Zakarija WRD 540 Model Assignment 1/31/11 Target Class: 1st Year Undergraduate Composition Class Paper

#2: Chicago Mayoral Debate- Rhetoric Used (Due in two weeks) Assignment: Watch the Chicago Mayoral Debate and observe each candidates rhetorical devices. Explore the language the candidates use in the debates. Pinpoint a few important rhetorical patterns, explore how these rhetorical devices affect the candidates message/point. What are they trying to accomplish by using these rhetorical devices? Does the language they are using succeed or fail? Why? Are they successful speakers, why or why not? Dont focus on their political message/agenda, stick to analyzing the rhetorical devices used to express the message. Purpose: The goal of this assignment is for you to explore and understand the language used within the political rhetorical realm. As voting age constituents, it is important to be able to listen to political speeches and debates and be able to separate the actual message of the candidate from the language devices being used in order to express that message. By taking a critical look at speeches and language of political candidates you can practice the finding of rhetorical devices. Because politicians language is highly stylized, full of rhetorical devices, and practiced, studying their language/speeches will be a good step into recognizing rhetorical devices used in other aspects/individuals. Also, its useful to identify these devices and see how they work or dont work in a politicians speech in order to better understand the device and its correct usages. Audience: Your audience will be a newspaper from another city (The Chicago Tribune equivalent of another citys newspaper). Pretend you are a correspondence weekly writer for a neighboring citys newspaper. You are giving an update on the Chicago mayoral elections/debate. So, when you write your paper, assume that your audience doesnt have any preconceptions about the candidates. Also, in your paper remain unbiased about the candidates, this way you can more effectively dissect their speech and separate the message from the speaking devices. Be sure to include a thesis. Length: 3-4 pages, typed, double-spaced, 1 margins Due Date: 2 weeks

Toni Zakarija WRD 540 1/31/11 Invention Activity Pretend you are a talk show host and the topic you are writing about in your paper is your guest. Steps: 1.) What talk show host are you? -This means, what is the writing persona that you are going to embody in your paper? Are you writing in 1st person, 3rd person? Is the style of the paper formal or more casual and conversational? 2.) Who is your audience? -Who is the audience that you are writing for? Your boss? A friend? Is this a report, an argument, an opinion, newspaper article, a job resum? This will set the tone of your paper. 3.) Who is your guest? -Who or what is your topic? Identify the main topic that you want to stick to in your paper. 4.) What questions do you want to ask your guest? -Formulate a few questions that you want to answer about your topic in your paper. This will give your paper some guidance. If you identify which questions you want answered in your paper before you begin writing, you will be able to address any questions that your teacher may have about your paper and ensure that nothing is missing from your analysis(that you could potentially lose points on). 5.) Why is your guest on your show? -This question will help you formulate your thesis statement. Addressing why you are tackling your topic in your paper will help you understand what stance or beliefs you have concerning your topic, and therefore help you create a thesis statement. Keep asking yourself this question throughout your writing process in order to make sure that you are staying on track with your thesis.

Toni Zakarija WRD 540 1/31/11 Assignment Rational The model assignment I chose to do was for the second paper in a first year undergraduate composition class. I chose this for the second paper, since the first paper is usually more personal and easier. As the second assignment, students should be familiar with my grading. Also, since its the second assignment I wanted something a little more concrete; also, I wanted to have a paper that required the students to stay away from using personal experiences, emotions, and opinions(so they could learn how to write in a more formal, objective manner). The last paper/third paper would be something more reflective so that the students could use the skills theyve learned in class to reflect over some type of event. I decided to have the assignment be something that the students could see as being purposeful in their lives. Having the students focus on the rhetoric of a political candidates speech within a mayoral debate has a two-fold purpose. First, it is a paper that would get the students to start thinking about speech, rhetoric and the ways in which language can be used. It gives the students a look at language in the special environment of a debate; this means that most of the political candidates speech patterns will be distinct and recognizable. And second, it will hopefully get students interested in their local politics. Students can easily listen and understand the idea of a speaking persona and the rhetorical and speech patterns and devices that political candidates use in their speaking. The easy to spot rhetorical devices will allow the students to discern between the candidates message and the rhetoric used to express those messages. By

doing this they will begin to be able to pick up more rhetorical devices used in other aspects/parts of life. I thought this assignment would be engaging for first year writing students because most of the students are already of voting age. Assuming the undergraduate institution is located in the city of Chicago, it is likely that many students were already considering voting or at least somewhat familiar and aware that an election is taking place. Hopefully, students will see a purpose of an assignment that makes them observe and write about an event that is happening around them. So, by feeling there is a purpose/usefulness to their assignment, the students will be more willing to complete and fully engage themselves in their work. Also, this assignment will continue to help students to understand rhetoric once they leave their undergraduate institution. Breaking down political rhetoric will help them understand future political candidates and debates; a skill thats useful if they wish to continue an interest in their community/political leaders. The potential problems I see with this paper is that the students may bring their personal opinions about certain candidates into their writing. I have listed the intended audience/author persona as a non-biased newspaper writer for a neighboring city. This way the students have to keep their political leanings out of the paper. I am not looking for who they believe is the best/worst candidate. I only want their observations of rhetorical patterns throughout the debate. By making them an objective reporter giving a summary/breakdown of the mayoral debates the student can focus on the objective of the assignment and not get carried away with their own personal beliefs/opinions. Another problem I foresee are the students who are uninterested in the assignment because they dont care about politics, etc. This is more difficult, since, uninterest in the assignment

stems more from a personal issue with politics/political campaigns. The assignment in itself is fairly useful for students, so hopefully, the idea that students are watching/writing about the debates in order to learn more about language/rhetorical devices that can be used in other aspects of life should be enough to convince the politically uninterested into seeing some sort of usefulness in the assignment itself. The invention activity is supposed to get the students started on writing their papers(for this assignment and other writing assignments in general). I remember using an invention activity similar to the talk-show host invention activity when I was in school. The activity I learned in school was a sort of detective/who-what-where-when invention activity. I found this activity quite helpful when writing papers. My talk show host invention activity is a grown-up modification on the detective invention activity. I wanted to create an invention activity that was fun and got students thinking. My main concern with my invention activity is that it may seem a bit hokey or juvenile to undergraduate students mostly because I want the students to pretend to be a talk show host. But, on the other hand, if the invention activity wasnt a bit hokey, it would be too serious and no one would have any fun thinking about their paper topic. Basically, I didnt want the invention activity to seem too daunting; I wanted to ease my students into the writing of the paper. Also, the reason I like the talk-show host idea is because you can remember it without having a paper in front of you detailing all the questions you need to ask yourself. Its simple enough that my students wont need to have the invention activity in front of them in order to remember it and do it. My goal is that after learning the invention activity for this paper the students wont have to bring the invention activity sheet with them every time they write a paper. I want them to be able to remember the

activity so that they can start thinking about their paper in their head subconsciously. While theyre exercising, doing errands, riding the bus, they can think about their paper because they can remember all of the aspects of the invention activity and can just do it in their head while folding the laundry, etc. Since we all have busy lives and often cant sit down for a set amount of time to plan papers, its nice to have an activity we can do in our heads to get us to begin thinking about our papers before we actually sit down to type or write them out.