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Sept 9th

The first major assignment for my students is to complete a Rhetorical Analysis of an advertisement. First of all, I had to write the assignment before giving the assignment. (UGH) When I was in undergrad, we had to write “argument” papers that, in part, addressed some of the elements of the rhetorical analysis, but they didn’t have as much of a focus on ethos, pathos, and logos. Yes, we addressed those ideas for these argumentative papers, but what we studied was more focused on fallacies and how to avoid them in writing. Hence, having to instruct my students in rhetoric was not so easy. Writing the paper, however (as much as I hate to admit it), was helpful in teaching rhetorical analysis to my students. In addition, I was able to use my paper as an example, allowing them to identify my thesis statement and how I picked out the ethos, pathos, and logos used in the advertisement I analyzed.