ENGL 120 Grossmont College Economic Culture and Political Aspects Discussion

Now it is time to put together the concepts and skills you have been learning in English 120: College Reading and Writing in a comprehensive and cohesive essay. For this first major assignment, you will be writing a rhetorical analysis of Reniqua Allen-Lamphere’s “The American Dream Already Eluded Millennials of Color. Then Came Coronavirus.” Any writing you have done so far in this course may be incorporated (cut and pasted) into this essay, as we have been working on it for a few weeks.

Your final essay should be a minimum of 3 pages in length, in MLA format and style, with a Works Cited page (does not count as one of the 3 required pages). You are writing to an educated audience who has not read Allen-Lamphere’s editorial but is probably aware of the conversations surrounding the socio-economic impact of COVID-19. Personally, I find writing rhetorical analysis fascinating; it’s like a mechanic lifting up the hood on a car and explaining what’s going on under the hood.

It’s time for you to “lift up the hood” on Allen-Lamphere’s important text.

Requirements

Your essay should be a multi-paragraph, thesis-driven rhetorical analysis and evaluation that contains each of the following requirements listed below (#’s 1-7) based on your critical work with Allen-Lamphere’s editorial. Please note that each of these requirements does not necessarily represent a paragraph, some may be combined and others may take more than one paragraph, and two are basically sentences. It is your task to construct a cohesive (Links to an external site.) essay that leads your reader from one idea to the next using clear organization (Links to an external site.), strong topic sentences (Links to an external site.), and transitions (Links to an external site.) that weaves all of these requirements together into an effective rhetorical analysis of Allen-Lamphere’s editorial.

1. 1. introduction to the contemporary conversation/discourse (what people are talking about) on the effects of COVID-19;
   2. summary of the Rhetorical Situation;
   3. “Academic Meaty Sentence”;
   4. summary of Allen-Lamphere’s editorial;
   5. your major claim/thesis statement on how effective Allen-Lamphere’s argument is for her intended audience;
   6. identification, analysis, and evaluation of the author’s use of persuasive appeals (logos, pathos, ethos) and the strategies she employs to make them, supported and illustrated by direct quotations, summary, and paraphrases;
   7. a conclusion

(Tip: More than a summary, a well-written conclusion gathers all the information you’ve painstakingly laid out and tidily presents a final, impactful point. A quality conclusion shows the significance of the techniques used in the argument that was critically examined as well as the author’s major patterns or moves. First, summarize what the analyzed text accomplished and how it went about achieving its intent. You can also highlight each topic sentence and points of evidence to assist in writing a concise conclusion.

Note: You are not giving your opinion on the socio-economic effects of the coronavirus on Millennials of color or sharing any personal information, but instead, on the ways in which the author attempts to persuade her audience on the importance of the issue. Essays that give personal opinions on the subject (not the rhetoric) or primarily summarize the text will not meet the minimum requirements for the assignment. In addition, do not use the terms logos, pathos, and ethos in your essay; use the phrases: appeals to reason, appeals to emotions, or appeals with credibility or character, as students often confuse the Greek terms and they are less descriptive and relevant.

The essay should be meticulously proofread. In fact, I suggest you read it out loud in the final editing stages, as you will catch many sentence-level errors and typos. If you are working on mastering basic English skills, or know that you need additional help with writing mechanics, please make an appointment (actually, as many as you need) with a tutor in the English Writing Center (Links to an external site.).

Once I have evaluated and scored your essay, you will have the opportunity to revise it for a higher grade. However, please be sure to turn in your BEST work this first time around, so that you can learn the most and grow from my feedback.

Reminder: All assignments in this class, past and present, are cataloged and run through a plagiarism checker, Turnitin, so do not be tempted to present previously submitted assignments or similar work you find on the Internet, as your own. Plagiarism will result in a 0 on the assignment and will be reported to the dean. If you are having trouble with an assignment, please contact me. I am here for you!

-Give your essay a title that showcases what you are doing.

-In academic writing, it is standard to present an author’s full name the first time you use it, and then you may use the last name only; the author with which you are working has a hyphenated last name, so be sure to use all of it.

-Use transitional words and phrases between ideas and paragraphs.

-In-text citations: You are analyzing a two-page editorial in which you are expected to quote directly from the text, so if you do not include the author’s name in the sentence, then your in-text citation may look like this: …” (Allen-Lamphere 1). If you state the author’s name in the sentence, then your in-text citation will look like this …” (1). Long quotes that take up more than four lines on the page are indented twice so they do not need quotation marks, and the citation goes after the period.

-Your Works Cited page should have only one source.

-Use an academic, critical voice (Links to an external site.) in your essay. One big step is to stop using contractions, such as “don’t.”

-Avoid using the pronoun “you,” as it can be awkward for the reader, not to mention, untrue. When using academic voice, it can also make your tone to informal.