Project Plan
Using the “Writing to Analyze” information discussed in Chapter 8 and feedback from previous assignments, answer the following to focus your analysis and rhetorical decisions. If you are using the same ideas from your Topic-Audience assignment, please remind your instructor of those decisions. If your ideas have changed, please use the new ideas on this assignment.
Part 1: Rhetorical Knowledge: The Writer’s Situation and Rhetoric
- Audience: Who is your specific audience within the context of your local community or workplace? What do they know about this topic already? Why do they care? Why should they care? What do you need to explain to them? What details do you know about your audience that you can incorporate into your project? (For example, if you are writing to a specific person, you can use that person’s name. If you are writing to a school, you can discuss specific features of that school. You can mention you work at store #297 on the corner of Sun Ave. and Devil St.)
Remember, although your teacher and classmates are the initial audience for your analysis, they are not your target audience. Find an appropriate, specific target audience that is within the context of your local community or workplace to tailor your writing to.
For example, your analysis of wages for restaurant workers in Tempe could be addressed to members of the City Council who are in a position to change the wage. Or, depending on your purpose, the analysis might be addressed to a group of low-wage workers in the city. The general public, all Starbucks partners globally, or all national customers of a particular establishment are not specific enough audiences. - Purpose: What is your purpose in writing this document to your audience? What do you hope to accomplish? What is the new information you will give your audience?
Remember, an analysis is often an opportunity to help your readers understand a familiar topic in a new way. Whatever your topic, you will need to consider why you want them to gain this understanding.
- Voice and Tone: What kind of voice and tone would your audience expect from you? How will your audience know you are directing this document towards them and not a different group? List at least three examples of how you will address, target, or speak directly to your audience.
- Ethos, Pathos, Logos: At this point in the project, it is helpful to begin thinking about how you will use the rhetorical appeals ethos, pathos, logos in your piece. What ideas do you have so far in using the rhetorical appeals with your chosen audience? How will you establish your ethos in your document? Which appeals do you think your audience would respond to most strongly?
Watch this tutorial to remind yourself of the rhetorical appeals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oUfOh_CgHQ
Part 2: Medium and Genre
- Genre Features: What genre or form of text have you selected for your problem analysis? Why is this genre an effective choice for your target audience?
Complete a search for writing examples using the genre you selected for your project. You can peruse the eBook or simply conduct a Google search for what these documents look like.
a. List the visual characteristics of the genre, i.e. call outs, formal headings, multi-colored fonts/backgrounds, etc.
b. How will you tailor these elements to your audience? For example, if you are writing a newsletter to your ENG 102 group at ASU, you might use ASU colors of maroon and gold.
c. How will these visual elements support and enhance the points you’re making in your written analysis?
d. What trends in organization do you see in these examples? How will you organize your piece to align your piece with your chosen genre?
- Multi-Modal Elements: Include at least three multi-modal elements that you plan on using in your rough draft. You can embed images, links, and audio/video clips into your .doc file. If you will be collecting images, be sure that you review the guidelines for image use here. Include properly formatted APA citations for any content you find.
Remember to tailor your multi-modal elements to your genre, medium, and technology. An e-mailed memo can contain different links while a printed newsletter cannot. For each element (at least 3), explain how that element will enhance your meaning for your audience.
Part 3: Problem Analysis
Now that you have narrowed and analyzed your audience, think about how you need to present your problem to your audience. Remember to include enough information to remind your instructor of your chosen topic.
- Focused Problem: When you consider a problem, you need to be able to breakdown your problem into its identifying parts. Your purpose is to explain this problem in a new and informative way to your specific audience so that they gain an in-depth understanding of the individual parts/aspects that make up the whole problem.
What is your focused, local problem? List 3-4 component parts that make up this problem. What is the relationship among these parts? How do they contribute to the problem as a whole?
- A clearly stated thesis: Create a thesis statement to help you organize your analysis. Ask yourself: What is the main idea I am trying to communicate to my target audience? Your thesis should convey this main idea (problem with its identifying parts) and preview your analysis in one succinct, audience-based sentence. Don’t tell your audience what they should do. Make them aware of the problem and its component parts that you are analyzing.
Thesis:
Part 4: Discussion – Project 1 Real-World Example Analysis: Genre
In most cases, the audiences you will be appealing to in Projects 1 and 2 are not academic audiences. Given this, it would make sense to write your project as something other than an academic style paper, and you will need to choose a different genre that is more appropriate for your audience. To help you think about the genre and genre conventions you might use in Project 1, you will find a real-world example of a genre you might want to work with in your project. The example should be appropriate for your audience, purpose and rhetorical situation. The content of the example does not need to be related to the topic of your project, but your choice should reflect the audience, tone, content and style you discussed in your analysis plan. For example, if you are writing to someone at work, you might find a good example of a formal memo to analyze.
After you choose a specific genre example, you will examine it rhetorically. Rhetorical analysis is a critical reading of another’s work; and discussing the effectiveness of other writers’ rhetorical choices helps us become better writers ourselves. After you analyze the piece rhetorically, you will discuss how it might be useful for your own project.
Part I – Initial Post
Rhetorical Knowledge and Genre
To participate in this discussion, respond in detail to the following questions, using specific examples from the real-world example of the genre.
- Describe the example you chose: Who is the author of the piece? Where does it come from? Who is the intended audience for the piece?
- What are the main “external” conventions of your genre example (formatting, design, multimodal elements, etc.)?
- How do you think these “external” genre conventions help the piece appeal to the audience or help the audience understand the material in a specific way?
- What are the “internal” or writing conventions of your genre example? For example, how would you describe the tone, style, and level of formality in the example? What kind of diction or language choices does it use? Are there any phrases that stick out to you as good examples of the kind of language the piece uses?
- How do these “internal” genre conventions help the piece appeal to its audience?
Composing Process and Conventions: Your own rhetorical strategies - What is your own topic, purpose and audience for Project 1? (Provide a brief explanation for your peers)
- What are the specific ways the internal and external genre conventions in your example that might help you appeal to your audience in Project 1? Are there features of the genre that may not work for your audience and purpose? Why?
WPA Outcomes and Habits of Mind
The following are possible WPA Outcomes bullet points and Habits of Mind that connect with this assignment. As you develop your document, consider how you might use the following, perhaps even making some notes that could help develop your Mid-Course Reflection assignment due later in the term.
Possible WPA Outcomes:
Rhetorical Knowledge
• Gain experience reading and composing in several genres to understand how genre conventions shape and are shaped by readers’ and writers’ practices and purposes
• Understand and use a variety of technologies to address a range of audiences
• Match the capacities of different environments (e.g., print and electronic) to varying rhetorical situations
Critical Thinking, Reading, and Composing
• Read a diverse range of texts, attending especially to relationships between assertion and evidence, to patterns of organization, to the interplay between verbal and nonverbal elements, and to how these features function for different audiences and situations
Processes
• Use composing processes and tools as a means to discover and reconsider ideas
• Develop flexible strategies for reading, drafting, reviewing, collaborating, revising, rewriting, rereading, and editing
• Adapt composing processes for a variety of technologies and modalities
Knowledge of Conventions
• Gain experience negotiating variations in genre conventions
• Learn common formats and/or design features for different kinds of texts
Possible Habits of Mind:
Curiosity, Openness, Creativity, Flexibility
Sample Solution
