Anna Mills, Instructor

English 1C

Your task is to write a complete analysis of one of the following excerpts from American Earth:

• A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold (266-294)
• "Everything is a Human Being" by Alice Walker (659-670)
• "The Ecology of Magic" by David Abram (815-834)

Your essay should summarize the argument and discuss all the strategies the writer uses to convince us. 

As this is an evaluative analysis, you should finish with an assessment of the effectiveness of these strategies.  To what extent does the excerpt convince you of its definition and fulfill its purpose?

Issues to consider in your analysis :

• Exigence: What is the situation that drives the writer to write?  What is his purpose in relation to the situation?
• Logos:  What exactly is the writer claiming?  What are her reasons and warrants?  Your essay should summarize her definition argument and then go on to discuss any problems you see with her logic.
• Kinds of Support: What kinds of support does the writer use for his definition?  Rhetoric advises you to look for examples, definitions, and comparisons.   How convincing is the support he chooses to include?
• Audience: What can you infer about the audience the writer wants to reach?  How does this affect her strategies? 
• Ethos: How does the writer attempt to establish his credibility and gain our trust?  To what extent does he succeed?
• Pathos: How does the writer attempt to affect the reader’s emotions?  How effective are her strategies in this regard?

Requirements:

• An engaging introduction and focused thesis
• Focused paragraphs that draw on ample references to the text for support. The topics listed above may be discussed in any order and not necessarily in separate paragraphs.  You choose the structure that most smoothly leads the reader through your ideas. You may find that a point related to audience is very similar to one you want to make about ethos: in that case, you should combine them into one paragraph.
• A conclusion that assesses the argument in the excerpt.
• Your analysis should show an understanding of the criteria for successful argument as developed in the Rhetoric chapters we’ve read so far.
• At least 6 pages long