WR 39B UCI Rhetorical Analysis About Pastoralism Discussion

Remember, the overarching goal of the GA is to define your selected text (you may choose from Thoreau, Apess, or Austin) as an example of a specific genre (pastoral, anti-pastoral, or post-pastoral) according to one or more key conventions present in this text. You should also analyze how the text employs, reinterprets, or subverts those conventions in order to elicit a certain response from a particular discourse community, or address a relevant issue within that discourse community. In other words, you will use rhetorical analysis (ethos, pathos, logos, & historical context) to make an argument about genre and audience.

To complete this assignment, complete the following steps. You should respond in paragraph format, providing 1-3 sentences for each bullet point.

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1) Begin by describing some specific aspects of the pastoral that you find interesting and want to learn more about and/or explore further in your GA. You might write about one or more of the following:

• Are there specific conventions of the pastoral that interest you? What are they and what do you find interesting about the rhetorical effects they create? What do you want to understand about these conventions and their rhetorical importance?
• Are you interested in how readers respond to pastoral conventions? Who are these readers and what historical/cultural context do they inhabit? What do you want to understand about how the pastoral affects these readers?
• Are you interested in a particular ideological context that underlies the pastoral? What is this ideology and what historical/cultural context shapes it? What do you want to understand about how nature writing engages with this ideology?

2) Then, ask yourself some questions about the information you’ve just described (your GA thesis may ultimately address these questions). Based on what you’ve just written, what rhetorical aspects can you explore further? Your questions might consider any combination of the following rhetorical and generic elements:

• Message and purpose
• Specific conventions of nature writing
• Social/historical context
• Rhetor/persona/ethos
• Audience

Your questions don’t have to cover everything, but they should focus on HOW one rhetorical element affects another, not simply what they are. At least some of your questions should also deal with audience, context, or both.

• Your questions should be as specific as you can make them. Asking something like “how does context affect the message?” is very vague. A question like “How would nineteenth century readers have understood Thoreau’s repeated references to Eastern philosophy?” or “Does Thoreau’s commitment to certain kinds of learning/education contradict the pastoral commitments he expresses in Walden?” is closer to what you want.

3) Next, describe your own, individual purpose and goals for writing this Genre Analysis essay. What specific skills and knowledge do you want and/or need to demonstrate in your GA? What do you want to understand better by the time you finish writing this essay? How do you want your GA to contribute to and/or build on our larger classroom discussions?

4) Finally, list some requirements and advice for yourself as you write the GA, based on what you know about your writing process and work habits, and the essay requirements. For example, what note-taking and drafting strategies do you want to employ? What potential problems do you anticipate and wish to avoid? What do you need to remind yourself to do?

P.S. There is a sample essay