Martin Luther King Jr’s "Letter from Birmingham Jail"

In this unit, we will read several kinds of texts and learn and discuss what rhetorical features make them work. Op-Ed articles, scholarly articles, reviews, speeches, print advertisements, video commercials, and textbook chapters are among the kinds of texts we will explore. John Ruskiewicz describes the essence of rhetorical analysis in his textbook, How to Write Anything:

Rhetoric is the art of using language and media to achieve particular goals. A rhetorical analysis is an argument that takes a close look at the strategies of persuasion within a text; it lists and describes specific techniques that a writer, speaker, editor, or advertiser has employed and then assesses their effectiveness. (222)

When you write your Rhetorical Analysis assignment, you must take words seriously, know your audience, and read closely so that you can offer strong claims about the text and support those claims with textual evidence.

Content and Audience

For this assignment, you will choose a short written text (no more than three pages long) to dissect, analyze, and write about. As you explore your text, consider the following questions:

• · What principles of organization govern the text?
• · How does the author appeal to the reader’s feelings, intellect, and sense of self (i.e., ethos, pathos, logos, and kairos)?
• · How does formatting influence the presentation of the writer’s ideas?
  • · What rhetorical strategies discussed in class does the writer use to affect the way that the message of the text is receive*

Once you have responded to the questions above, decide on a unique angle for your analysis.

You will write for the Arkansas State University first-year community. You should consider what you know about your peers (and faculty) as you write. Arkansas State University students (and faculty) are bright, intellectually adventurous, and sophisticated—they know a lot about many things. But they don’t know everything about everything. You will have to explain key concepts and define terms. You will also have to persuade your readers that you have something valuable to contribute to their intellectual understanding.

Organization and Format

Your Rhetorical Analysis should include a thesis that suggests the essence of your analysis with your text and your analysis of your text serving as your support. Refer specifically to the text in your analysis, using summary, paraphrase, and direct quotation as appropriate. As a class we will examine sample rhetorical analyses and generate a list of conventions for this genre, conventions you should work to incorporate as you write and revise. Your Rhetorical Analysis should be at least two full pages, but no more than four, and should be written in MLA style. You should create an MLA Works Cited Page for your source.

* For more detailed Rhetorical Analysis considerations, see the Rhetorical Analysis section of our course text, Engaging Questions.