Jillian Sayre's Courses

Peer Review: Wednesday 2/6

The first extended argument you will compose for this class will be a comparative rhetorical analysis. This analysis will employ the skills you've developed looking at both written and visual texts and rely on your understanding of how definitions are constructed on and about bodies.

RHE 309K Paper 1.1 and 1.2

WHO COUNTS? READING THE (OTHER) BODY

General

In the past few weeks we’ve looked at how regimes of power articulate citizenship through the deployment of bodies. This self/other, us/them divide works to establish a normative figure even as it discusses those it finds to be aberrations or perversions (and vice versa).

Your purpose in this 4-6 page essay is to analyze one of the images (given by the instructor) in order to illuminate how such representations “speak” a normal or degenerate body. How is this body presented and what arguments does this representation make about the figure it presents? How does the author make that argument, through what rhetorical strategies? This is not about your general knowledge of the topic but rather a close reading of a particular text and so your work should focus on the evidence at hand, not on general opinion.

Your work on the image itself should be the focus of the paper, but you should draw from the other sources we have discussed in class in order to explain or give context to the image. To what other representations is it similar? different? This comparative work should help prove your argument about the representation of normative or aberrant bodies and effectively communicate the cultural conversation from which the image emerges, and in which it participates.

Questions you should consider when preparing this paper:

Why was the image taken?
What is the focus of the image?
What details are present?
What “feeling” does it give about the person?
What appeals does the author/artist use in presenting this figure?

Make sure you consider the HOW of each of these questions – rhetorical analysis is about isolating the rhetorical strategies used to persuade an audience of certain ideas or concepts.

Minimum Requirements

For a C or above, each essay will:

==> Be 4 to 6 pages, typed, double-spaced; have 1-inch margins; list name, class and date at the top left corner of the first page with its title centered two lines below the date; number pages (except first page) in top right hand corner, putting name, page (e.g. Smith 3). Please use Times New Roman font;
==> Give a thorough analysis of the primary text/image with sufficient evidence from the text;
==> Expand this analysis through thoughtful and thought-provoking comparisons to other bodies we have encountered in the class. ONLY CITE TEXTS WE HAVE DISCUSSED IN CLASS;
==> Be written effectively and coherently, with very few grammatical errors. You should have a strong, specific and interesting thesis as well as topic sentences and transitions that structure your paper. Your paper should have both an introduction (that introduces the topic and leads the reader into your thesis) and a conclusion (that summarizes your main themes and reflects on what your paper has accomplished);
==> Have been peer reviewed at the in-class workshop;
==> All sources cited in MLA style (guides available through library, Undergraduate Writing Center);
==> Be turned in on time and be accompanied by all previous drafts and written peer reviews