With this essay, the task is to begin incorporating secondary sources into your writing while examining the value of that source. This means you will have to make use of an issue you draw from reading the assigned text, the chapters in "Part Two" of  Guns, Germs and Steel in this case. Once you have found a topic in the reading, your task is to find a video on the internet (I'll provide some to get you started) and discuss the manner in which this source treats the topic by looking into its use of either logos, pathos or ethos. The goal is making it clear to your reader why this is an element of the video to pay attention to.In examining your chosen rhetorical element, you are to base the examination on the Savvy Voter criteria (to which I've provided a link below). Whatever judgment you make is entirely up to you, so long as it allows for a reasoned analysis of the information and the rhetorical component. As The essay should be about 1,200 words in length, making use of roughly four of the Savvy Voter criteria.

A Process for this Assignment

1. Read and annotate the chapters in "Part Two" of Guns, Germs and Steel. These will be checked in class.
2. Post a list of the major detail summaries for one of the chapters in the blog by the date indicated in the schedule. Major detail summaries means the annotations need not be all that smoothly woven together, but should not just be a collection of annotations. Make the annotations reasonably readable.
3. Be prepared to work with your peers in discussing and explaining your chosen chapter. You will be asked to explain the essence, as a group, of at least one chapter and to identify possible issues to write about.
4. Once you have chosen your chapter(or before, or after, it doesn't matter that much really,) find some passages from the assigned readings that express your view. At least one of these passages will be used in your introduction as a spring board into the broader discussion. You may use other passages throughout the essay to further illustrate and explain the points under discussion;
5. Find a video (some have been provided) that addresses an issue raised by the chapter;
6. Determine whether you will analyze the ethos, pathos or logos of the video. You will do just one.
7. Use the guidelines provided in accompanying links (the PBS Savvy Voter Guide in particular) handouts to gather effective material from video source you decide to use. Answer every question that is possible. Here's the link to that material: http://www.pbs.org/elections/savvyvoter.html;
8. Based on your issue and the material gathered from the video source, come up with a claim regarding your chosen rhetorical component and how it applies to the video, expressing it in a claim that will function as the essay's thesis;
9. Begin drafting the essay, with an eye on using the best material to support your thesis;
10. Upon completing the draft, begin revising the essay with an eye to making use of only the best material to illustrate the thesis and support your judgment of the topic under discussion. A draft for review by your classmates should be posted in the blog before class on Friday, January 27.
11. See the calendar for remaining dates.

Choose a video from the options provided or find one of your own. The readers of essay will be me, your teacher, of course, but also your classmates, other SFCC English faculty in the portfolio process and anyone you might invite by our blog, or who wanders by, this website. Your ultimate goal is to get these readers to see that you have done a good reading of the video, demonstrated its relationship to the assigned readings, and that you have made a clearly articulated point that highlights some "truth" about how the ad works, all backed up with evidence. We're looking for about 1200 words, which works out to about four pages, typed and double-spaced in a 12-point font.

You are to use the following material and guidelines on dissecting political ads, essential for doing a good job on this assignment:

• Dissect an Ad: PBS Savvy Voter
• PBS's Point of View Dissect an Ad
• Grammar of Television

Check Your Facts

• FactCheck.org
• PolitiFact