Session 1: Reading Bitzer’s on “The Rhetorical Situation” will provide some excellent guidelines for the Opinion Piece and the Rhetorical Critical Analysis assignments. As we all know, another great way to learn is by example. Take 10 minutes to read the following popular opinion piece from WIRED magazine. What’s the exigency? What are the attention getters? What’s the main point? Is there a chain of evidence? Does the piece have a convincing summary and closing appeal?

FCC Wants to Kill Net Neutrality. Congress Will Pay the Price

Assignment 2: Opinion Piece
Due: Week 5, Session 1 (6 points)

Description
Publicly take a position that responds to an exigency that you feel is mature and ready for rhetorical intervention. Write a column that would run on TommieMedia so your readers are members of the St. Thomas community. Your piece will aim to convince readers of your position, ask for a behavioral or policy change, and persuade them that the change will impact or modify the exigency.

Your opinion piece should use the following format:

• Attention getter: start off the piece and grab the reader’s attention. It can be a narrative, a shocking statistic, a provocative statement, an interesting analogy etc. Design it to get readers interested in finishing the article.
• Main Point: introduce the thesis of the piece.
• Chain of Evidence: give the facts that support the argument.
• Summary: this briefly summarizes the argument.
• Closing Appeal: leave the reader or listener with something to think about, or a call to action and change.

Your opinion piece should follow these guidelines:

• Write your column within 400 and 500 words (plus or minus 15). Place the word count at the bottom of the article.
• Include a headline that is 5-9 words long and reflects the nature of the piece inviting readers to read your essay.
• Write the column for submission to TommieMedia.com by keeping your audience in mind. Consider who is reading your piece, who among them might be the “rhetorical audience,” and adapt your argument and style to them.
• Submit your final piece through Canvas before the due date and to TommieMedia.com using the form found here: https://www.tommiemedia.com/submit-a-letter-to-the-editor/

Your opinion piece will be evaluated on the following criteria:

• Meet the requirement of the assignment (timeliness, length etc.)
• Grammar and spelling of the writing
• Elegance of style
• Quality of the arguments and evidence
• Adaptation to the audience
• General persuasiveness of your appeal

Session 2: Perform classmate interviews (beginning of class).

Required Reading (due before next class):
Reading Bitzer on “The Rhetorical Situation”