Purpose
This writing project asks you to…
Learn about characteristic features of the review genre.
Study the ways reviews function in different rhetorical situations.
Apply your rhetorical knowledge in reviewing an item of your choice.
Demonstrate an understanding of the ethics of reviewing.
Instructions
Imagine you’ve been contacted by the editor of a print publication or website. This editor needs a review to run in the next edition, and has heard that you’re a smart, entertaining, and ethical reviewer.
Your task in this writing project is to write the review. In doing so, you get to decide the key details. What exactly are you reviewing, for instance?
That’s your choice. You might select a music album, film, novel, restaurant, video game, television show, technological gadget, or anything else you think readers will be interested in. Wait—what readers?
Well, you choose those, too. The audience for the review is up to you. Are you writing for a general audience (subscribers to the Orlando Sentinel, for example), or are you writing for a narrower, better-informed readership (poetry readers, iPhone owners, Taylor Swift fans who have attended at least three live concerts?).
You decide—and write your review in a way that reflects this decision.
Each of the activities in this unit will help you learn about reviews and take steps toward producing your own. Here are the activities, in the order in which you should complete them:
Activity 2.1: Discussion: First Thoughts on My Review (due by Monday, Sep. 13)
Activity 2.2: Quiz: Different Kinds of Reviews (due by Thursday, Sep. 16)
Activity 2.3: Discussion: Subgenre Analysis (due by Monday, Sep. 20)
Activity 2.4: Discussion: First Two Pages (due by Thursday, Sep. 23)
The concepts, skills, and examples provided in these activities should shape your approach to the assignment.
