Rhetorical Lens Close Analysis For your first major paper, using “When Ecocriticism and Rhetoric Meet: Environmental Persuasion in Terrorists of The Aberdare” by Eve Nabulya as an example, you will write a rhetorical close analysis of your chosen text. Since your paper will be MUCH shorter, consider Nabuyla’s article as an example of how to write an analysis through a rhetorcial lens rather than a full example. Choose Simpsons “Trash of the Titans” (Season 9, 22th) as texts. For your close analysis, you will need to choose ONE core focus for your paper to consider through a rhetorical lens. Use detailed observations and rank that which is most strange, interesting, and/or revealing to help you choose your focus. To analyze your focus through your lens, you may use different strategies. Some possiblities include: You may examine the nuances of ecocriticism/ecowriting as ecoactivism (or lack thereof) in your chosen example. Or, you may focus on how rhetorical context (audience, purpose, and genre) affects and complicates interpretations of the text. Or, you may focus on one or more of the rhetorical appeals in the text. Or, any combination of the above. Your focus should be on your chosen text, but you can reference the Nabulya article IF appropriate. Don’t forget, that you need to have a core focus; thus, you don’t want to get too broad. For, example, you won’t want to look at all the ways the text uses pathos. Don’t attempt to consider everything in your chosen text, instead choose one central idea and talk about it in relation and connection to other examples or points (10 on 1). Think through the layers of implication, asking yourself the “So What” question to get to meaning and significance. Don’t tell your reader that something is significant – tell your reader WHY something is significant. Remember that this is not a basic argument, but a complex analysis that deals with different layers and facets of meaning rather than “should” or “pro/con” constructions. Avoid a simplistic rhetorical analysis that gestures toward the way the text uses logos, pathos, and ethos. Instead, think more in-depth about how one or more of these appeals change and complicate textual implications. You want to use detailed observations from the chosen text to support and complicate your argument throughout the body of your paper. Each paragraph should begin with a clear topic sentence that shows how the paragraph will develop the argument as you analyze the implications of your detailed observations. Keep your focus throughout and make your connections clear – show your work. Avoid too much summary. Only summarize to contextualize the text for the reader. Assume the reader has not seen or read the text. This is a close analysis – a conversation between you and the text. Except the Nabulya article, NO secondary sources should be used unless needed for context. If any sources are used for context, they must be cited both in-text and in a works cited page (see MLA formatting).
