English Composition II: Visual Rhetoric Assignment

Below you fill find three options for approaching the Visual Rhetoric Assignment.

Option #1:

Minimum 4 full pages, double-spaced.

Select an item for analysis.

Choose an advertisement such as the Coca-Cola ads, the Barbie ad, the Lego ads, the Apple ads, or the ads for period products. Your analysis can focus on a single ad, but note that a study of multiple ads often yields more material for analysis.

Use a thesis statement to launch a critique or comparison. Below are two sample thesis statements, each of which has enough clarity and complexity to launch a full paper:

● Although Mattel presents girls as the CEOs, scientists, coaches, and doctors of tomorrow, the company seems to forget that young girls can be as intelligent as they are imaginative.

● Although Barbie has been critiqued for promoting sexist stereotypes and shallow materialism, Mattel’s latest ad shows that playing with Barbies can actually lead girls to imagine themselves as leaders in male-dominated careers.

You are welcome to use either of these thesis statements as you build your own essay.

Your rhetorical analysis will include many of the following elements:

● Description of the item

● Identification of the target audience

○ Be as specific as possible as you identify the target audience. You might mention age, gender, race, educational level, political orientation, or socioeconomic class. When identifying the target audience, be sure to give evidence for your conclusion. Which details in the ad suggest to you that the audience you have identified is indeed the target?

● Analysis of rhetorical strategies

○ What is the purpose or message of the ad? What impact is its creator seeking on the audience?

○ How does the item appeal to emotions, to reason, or to cultural values?

○ If applicable, how does the item establish brand identity?

○ What main claims does the item make, both implicitly and explicitly?

○ How are language, graphics, and other visual details used?

● Evaluation of how well the strategies work for persuading the target audience

○ Tell whether the images succeed or fail. Tell what the images succeed or fail at doing. This statement will probably be your thesis!

○ Describe any problems with the ad or its message. Does it have any blind spots?

Format

Your final draft should include a Works Cited page, and the essay should be typed, double-spaced, and carefully proofread. Follow the formatting guidelines set out in the course syllabus. Be sure to provide solid introductory and concluding paragraphs, organize the essay coherently, and avoid errors in grammar, spelling, and punctuation.

Grading Criteria

Your essay will be evaluated according to these criteria:

● Demonstrated ability to construct a rhetorical analysis

● Construction of a significant and arguable thesis

● Demonstrated ability to use clear claims and substantial evidence

● Confident but civil advocacy of your own position

● Proper use, citation, and documentation of source material

● Effective essay organization to create a clear line of argument

● Clear and precise sentence-level rhetoric (grammar and style)

Possible Outline

You are not required to use this outline, but it may help you to conceptualize your project.

● Introduction

○ Hook the reader by describing the most interesting thing about the ad or image. Then follow up with a more thorough, yet succinct, description.

○ Justify the need for analysis. What makes this ad or image relevant or important?

○ Lay out your thesis, in which you explain whether the item succeeds or fails (or both) in reaching its intended goal. For example, you might argue that Apple’s “Security” ad successfully characterizes the brand as cute and non-threatening despite the fact that the actual message of the ad is critical.

● Target audience

○ Explain who the target audience is, in detail. Point to evidence in the ad that you use to draw your conclusions. Explain how the ad appeals to this audience. Also explain how well the ad appeals to this audience.

● Intended message

○ Describe the intended message of the ad. Point to concrete details that reveal this message. Explain why this message might be important to the ad’s target audience. Weigh in on how well the ad manages to convey its messages. If there are flaws, point them out.

○ If the ad conveys multiple messages, use multiple paragraphs to develop your evaluation.

● Observation and analysis of specific details

○ Look closely at the ad. Identify specific details that matter. Tell what purpose these details serve in the ad. Determine whether these details contribute to the ad’s message or appeal specifically to the target audience. Weigh in on the strengths and weaknesses of these details.

○ Here are a few sample paragraph claims:

■ Apple uses light-hearted music and a personable main character to show that their product is non-threatening.

■ Coca Cola focuses on classic, rural places in America because they want to appeal to the nostalgia of Baby Boomers.

■ Barbie focuses on showing girls in male-dominated careers in order to connect with progressive-minded parents.

● Conclusion

Return to your thesis and end with something memorable. You might refer to a detail from the ad that you haven’t yet discussed, or you might make a big-picture statement about why the message of the ad is or is not meaningful.

Note that different types of papers may require different types of outlines. For example, an essay that argues that Mattel has broadened its narrative via the “Imagine the Possibilities” campaign could follow a different format. That essay might contain many of the same elements described above, but these could be arranged according to a logic better suited to the topic. The first body paragraph of such an essay would likely establish context by describing how Mattel has marketed Barbie in the past. The next paragraphs would then explain specific revisions that the new campaign makes to the old narrative. The remaining paragraphs could evaluate whether these revisions succeed or fail.

Assignment Option #2

Visual Analysis Essay:

Length: No maximum or minimum length; however, the excellent essay is about 1500 words. Don’t pad your essay.

A visual analysis essay basically requires you to provide a detailed description of a specific visual display, a photograph, painting, sculpture, ad, or video. You will break down you image in order to analyze the individual elements and show how the elements fit together for a coherent whole.

Objectives

Students will be able to effectively analyze a visual text.
Students will be able to develop and support a claim about the visual text based on evidence found in the text.

Writing Suggestions

Write about the use of color and action in TV commercials. *
Discuss how the brand name is displayed in digital media campaigns.
Discuss different types of emotional appeals used in internet ads.
Why televise a trial? Example: Johnny Depp and Amber Heard
Adidas ads, (hold onto your hat for this one.)
Sexist commercials; privileging male/female point of view, (grab that hat again)

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWz8CzLELLQ (helpful video on color and action; do not analyze the actual video. For educational purposes only.)

Here are questions to ask about each image as you begin to work on your analysis:

1. What is the general mood of the image? How does it evoke or create this mood? (If you say the image is patriotic, for example, does it create this mood by use of red, white, and blue imagery? Or do you see an American flag prominently placed?)

2. What is the primary focus/central subject of the image? Describe it in full detail from top to bottom.

3. If there are figures (men, women, children, animals) what are they like? What can be said about their facial expressions, poses, hairstyle, age, sex, hair color, ethnicity, education, occupation, relationships (of one to the other)?

4. What does the background tell us? Where is this taking place and what significance does this background have?

5. What action is taking place and what significance does it have?

6. How are the basic components or elements of the image arranged? Is it chaotic and cluttered or clean and modular?

7. What about other aesthetic decisions? If the image is a photograph, what kind of a shot is it? What significance do long shots, medium shots, close-up shots have? What about the lighting, use of color, angle of the shot?

8. If there is writing/typeface in an image, Where is it placed?

9. What typefaces are used and what impressions do they convey? What color is the font and what might that convey about the image? What about the language used? Does it essentially provide information or does it try to generate some kind of emotional response? Or both? What techniques are used by the copywriter: humor, alliteration, definitions" of life, comparisons, sexual innuendo, and so on? *

10. Make sure you have discussed Logos (sound reasoning: induction, deduction), pathos (balanced emotional appeal) and ethos (author credibility) associated with the visual text in your essay.

*from Baker College Research Guides

Criteria

You will be graded on:

clarity, organization, grammar
context of & purpose for writing, content development, formal essay conventions, sources & evidence, control of syntax & mechanics
communication, critical thinking, content
thesis, structure, use of evidence, analysis, logic and argumentation, mechanics
addressing the prompt

Assignment Option #3

(Please find 13 Ways of Looking at a Photograph used by Ryan Jerving in the Additional Documents)

Writing about Photographs—A Rhetorical Analysis of Visual Rhetoric

Objective
The purpose of this assignment is to have you perform a rhetorical analysis of visual rhetoric; to gain experience working with visual rhetoric; to experiment with pre-writing techniques; to work with crafting an effective thesis statement and selecting relevant details to support general conclusions; to focus on writing engaging introductions and conclusions; to consider questions of voice, audience, and purpose; to work with selecting and integrating appropriate strategies of development; to experiment with different revision processes; and, overall, to move toward a persuasive academic writing style when writing about images.

The Assignment

Write a 3.5-4 page essay that analyzes a single photograph from a photo-essay of your choice (from the list below) and that provides a researched understanding of the social/historical/ political conditions of the photo-essay as a whole.

1) In-Class Writing on Moodle. Do a 5 minute free-write on your chosen image. Remember: the key in free-writing is to just keep writing. The goal is to generate ideas spontaneously without getting bogged down in perfectionism. When you’re finished, read through the class posts, and respond to two. Provide a link to the image you are discussing.

2) Analyzing the Components of an Image.Using each of the 13 Ways of Looking at a Photograph used by Ryan Jerving in his article, you will write 25-50 words for each category based on one of the images.

3) The Essay. (25 pts.) The essay will include the following:

A. an introduction section that describes the context of the photo essay, (the social issue you’ve chosen and why you think these images are important to you and others for learning about x),

B. a rhetorical analysis of the text you choose, considering both the messages within it (ethos, pathos, logos) and the cultural reality it reflects/creates through a selection of photographic components. You must also consider the assumptions underlying the text, its materiality and layout, (where it was published and how viewed) and its audience and purpose.

C. A researched section that uses outside sources to shed light on the social issue explored in the images and what you want your reader to know.

Websites to Choose From

· New York Times Look (link opens in new window)

· Lightbox/Time (link opens in new window)

· Yes! Photo Essays (link opens in new window)