What you’ll do: You will describe the purpose and rhetorical situation of two essays and, comparing their rhetorical strategies, say which essay more effectively persuades its audience and why

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What you’ll do: You will describe the purpose and rhetorical situation of two essays and, comparing their rhetorical strategies, say which essay more effectively persuades its audience and why. 

Which essays? As a class, we’ll evaluate and compare these four essays, and you will choose two of these essays to discuss: 

Tom Horton, "Let’s Shore up Efforts to Make a Chesapeake National Park" (PDF download , Online (Links to an external site.))
David M. Kennedy, "Our National Parks: Another Idea" (PDF download , Online (Links to an external site.))
Gil Lusk, "It's Time to Start Closing National Parks" (PDF download , Online (Links to an external site.))
David Treuer, "Return the National Parks to the Tribes, II: The Future of the Tribes and the Parks" (PDF download , Online (Links to an external site.))
Why you’ll learn from it: By writing this paper, you will

Evaluate rhetorical strategies, comparing the essays to show which is rhetorically stronger
Define & name examples of key rhetorical terms (audience, rhetorical situation, logos/pathos/ethos)
Support your points with evidence and details from the essays
Choose and follow a structure that makes your ideas clear and easy to follow
Use an introduction and a conclusion to frame your topic and show why it matters
Steps: We'll all work together on similar essays for this topic. This will help us talk about and agree on the essays' rhetorical effectiveness. Our progress on this assignment will follow the steps described below:

Identify the rhetorical situation of both essays. Persuasive essays are like puzzles, made up of a bunch of different pieces which contribute to the whole. Some of these pieces include the essay’s purpose, author, and audience.
Identify the rhetorical appeals (logos, pathos, and ethos) of both texts, and connect the way these appeals are used with the intended audience.
Decide which essay is more effective in using its rhetorical appeals and in what way. Keep in mind that one essay may be stronger in some ways but weaker in other ways.
Plan and structure the paper. Once you know what points you want to make, you’ll choose a structure to guide your paper and quotations or details from the essays to support your point.