Analyzing and evaluating an author’s argument within a given context

Unit One:  Education

Texts:  Mann (Introduction), Ravitch, Rose, Anyon, and Deresiewicz

Paper #1:  Analyzing and evaluating an author’s argument within a given context.

Prompt:  Your primary task in this paper is to analyze the argument featured in William Deresiewicz’s “Don’t Send Your Kids to the Ivy League” (which we will not explicitly discuss in class).  Explain how the writer construct’s his argument, analyzing and describing its different elements and strategies that contribute to the overall strength of the argument.  Next, discern and discuss elements of context embedded in the argument—the clues that suggest what the argument is responding to, both in the sense of what has been written previously and in the sense that it is written for a specific audience in a particular time and place—and evaluate how effectively the argument persuades this audience within this specific context.  (Learning Outcomes addressed:  1–3, 5–6)

Commentary:  When you receive an assignment such as this one, it’s useful to break it into its principal parts and think about how they should be structured and sequenced.  First, you’ll need an introduction that opens up the topic and previews the scope of the paper.  Details such as the name of the primary text, its genre, its author, and a few details concerning its publication are important here.

Next, you’ll need to concisely “articulate” Deresiewicz’s argument and “analyze and describe its elements.” You’ll be focusing on key claims, evidence and reasons, rhetorical appeals, underlying assumptions undergirding the argument, and primary strategic moves (account of an argument).

The next section of the assignment, which actually has two components, focuses on “elements of context embedded in the argument—the clues that suggest what the argument is responding to, both in the sense of what has been written before it and in the sense that it is written for a specific audience in a particular time and place.”  This section requires you to play the role of rhetorical detective, working from the text to the world beyond it.  You’ll need to draw on previous readings from the unit and some investigation of your own beyond the class readings (the Chapter introduction).

Up to this point, all the work has been primarily descriptive in nature.  However, the final section of the paper—“evaluate how effectively the argument persuades this audience within this specific context”—which may serve as your conclusion, is explicitly evaluative in nature.  Here, you need to enlist a vocabulary of judgment, which includes—but is by no means restricted to—a discussion of potential fallacies:  bungled or deceptive argumentative moves.  In evaluation, I always emphasize the arguer’s treatment of oppositional arguments and figures.

For purpose of clarity, I’ve outlined how you might divide the assignment into manageable sections, but your completed paper shouldn’t comprise four or five separate writings glued together with a few mechanical transitions such as “next” and “another,” but a coherent piece of writing aimed at an audience of well-educated, open-minded non-experts who care about the issues in question, but may not be familiar with the specific readings you feature.

Your paper should be at least 5pages of analysis (not including the Works Cited page).  Apply MLA format (double-spaced, one-inch margins, page numbers, etc.) and edit and proofread carefully.

See your Project Calendar for assignments and due dates.