Instructions:
It’s time to lift up the hood and show that you understand how Tompkins’s essay works. For this assignment, you are challenged to write a multi-paragraph essay in which you analyze and evaluate Tompkins’s “Indians: Textualism, Morality, and the Problem of History.â€� In your analysis, take a position on the extent to which the text is rhetorically effective given its intended audience then analyze and evaluate her rhetorical choices to support your position. Do not do any research or include sources besides Tompkins, as this is a rhetorical analysis that requires your original critical reading, thinking, and writing.
Do each of the following in your essay:
- provide a brief summary of the author’s argument, including the major claim, intended audience, exigence, context (review the Nunnery lecture for context), and any assumption/s she makes;
- include a thesis statement that gives your position on how effective Tompkins’ argument is for her intended audience;
- analyze the text to support your thesis by choosing a minimum of two strategies Tompkins employs to persuade her intended audience to accept her major claim (you may, if you like, use the strategy you posted in the Discussion Forum). Be sure to address how the strategies appeal to reason, credibility, and/or emotions, and support your analysis with direct quotation/s, paraphrase/s, and/or example/s from Tompkins’s text. Use MLA in-text citations;
- evaluate the overall effectiveness of Tompkins’s argument for her intended audience;
- for your conclusion, consider how Tompkins’s argument might be relevant, perhaps applicable or helpful, to a current discourse related to truth in American society.
In your final essay, you should:
- employ an authentic and authoritative, academic voice;
- demonstrate knowledge of and proficiency in rhetorical analysis;
- work directly with the text using quotations (and MLA in-text citations) to support and illustrate strategies and how Tompkins is appealing to her intended audience;
- construct fully developed, focused paragraphs (with strong topic sentences) in a clear, organized structure with effective transitions between ideas and paragraphs;
- clearly communicate your ideas for an educated reader and proofread so that the final product is mostly free of grammatical errors;
- essay should be 3-5 pages in length;
- correctly use MLA format and style, including in-text citations and a Works Cited page.
This essay is not an agree or disagree exercise,
nor is it intended to generate an extensive summary of the article.