ENGL135 Week 1 Assignment Latest 2020 December

ENGL135 Advanced Composition

Week 1 Assignment  

This week you will focus on planning your evaluation essay.  To prepare, I recommend the following steps:

Read through the writing assignment.

Learn more about how evaluation essays are written by posting to the Week 1 Live Lesson discussion

Brainstorm at least two TED Talks you might want to write about in the Week 1 Getting Started discussion and settled on one.

To start planning in detail, download Evaluation Essay Planning SheetPreview the document (hyperlinked here or in the Weeks 1 and 2 Evaluation Essay folder under the FILES Tab).

Save the file as Your Last Name Evaluation Essay Planning Sheet.

Complete the sheet and submit it by Sunday at midnight Mountain Time.

Name                    Date      Week 1

Evaluation Essay Planning Sheet

This assignment is intended to help you plan your Evaluation Essay (due Week 2). It is based on the following prompt:

Evaluation Essay

Browse the ted.com website and select a TED Talk that presents a persuasive argument on a debatable issue. Be sure to record the title, date, speaker information, and URL for your selected TED Talk.

In a 3- to 4-page essay, analyze how the speaker created his/her argument. Discuss the speaker’s topic, purpose, target audience, and style. Analyze thoroughly the kind of persuasive strategies the speaker used as well as the kind of evidence he/she presented.

Enter your answers in the dialog boxes provided.Even though this planning sheet is not a formal essay assignment, please note that proper spelling, grammar, and sentence structure are required.

What TED Talk have you chosen to analyze for your essay?

Title      

Speaker              

Date     

URL       

Summarizing theTalk(2 – 3 bullet points)

1.            Before you can begin your analysis, you need to tell your readers what your speaker said as objectively as you can. Identify 2 - 3 key points from your source.

2.            How familiar will your own audience (your professor and classmates) be with your speaker’s topic? Should you include background information on the topic? If so, search the internet for an informative article that will provide background information. Post the URL here.

Identifying the Target Audience(1 – 3 sentences each)

3.            Who is the audience for your speaker’s talk? To whom are they explicitly or implicitly addressing their message? If we say the speaker is in a debate about their claims, who arethey debating?

4.            What is the speaker’s purpose in giving their talk? What dothey hope the audience will learn or do as a result of listening to their talk?

5.            What kind of style did the speaker use in giving their talk? For example, did they use humor? Did they use visual elements in the background? Did they move around the stage a lot? How did they capture your attention at the beginning? How did they bring the talk to an end? Etc.

Applying Your Analytic Tool (1-2bullet points each)

6.            Every analysis needs an analytic tool.  For this essay, use Aristotle’s list of persuasive strategies (ethos, logos, pathos, telos, andkairos). Which strategies did your speaker use? Identify the strategy and give an example of how they used it in their talk.

Strategy               Details from My TED Talk

Logos(reasoning)            

Pathos(emotion)            

Ethos(character)             

Telos(attitude)

Kairos(right timing)        

7.            Closely related to the persuasive appeals your speakers used is kind of evidence they provided. What kind of evidence does the speaker use to support their claims (personal experience, scientific studies, statistics, expert opinions, analogies, etc.)? Identify the strategy and give an example of how he/she used it in his/her talk.

Strategy               Evidence from My TED Talk

Logos(facts, scientific studies, statistics, analogies, etc.)

Pathos(stories, pictures, etc.)   

Ethos(reference to credentials, personal experience, etc.)         

Defining Your Purpose and Thesis (1-3 sentences each)

8.            Your overall purpose for writing this essay is to evaluate the effectiveness of a TED Talk by analyzing and“reverse engineering” it. What is your tentative thesis?

Your thesis is likely to be some version of this sentence:

In _____, _____ gave a TED Talk that effectively used Aristotle’s persuasive appeals of _____ to achieve his/her purpose of ______.

In _____, _____ gave a TED Talk that effectively used Aristotle’s persuasive appeals of _____ to achieve his/her purpose of ______.