The Assignment
• Write an essay in which you analyze song lyrics
• Your paper should be a minimum length of four pages (double-spaced), plus a Works Cited page, and should be formatted in MLA style.
• To better understand the text you chose, you may need to research it to find out who the intended audience was, who the author is, where the text was published or when it was written, and any other important contextual information. If you use any information gained from this research in your paper, document it with in-text citations and on the Works Cited page.
• A successful rhetorical analysis essay will do the following:
o Describe the rhetorical situation (purpose and original target audience) surrounding the text
o Accurately (but briefly) summarize the text’s argument
o Include a clear and precise thesis statement (an analytical claim with reasons about how the text works or does not work), along with organizational cues and patterns to guide its readers
o Explain and analyze how the author’s specific writing choices help fulfill the author’s purpose and connect with (or fail to connect with) the target audience
o Demonstrate a sophisticated understanding of how rhetorical appeals are working in the text
o Support its claims with quotations and/or paraphrases from the text