English

Genre Analysis Project

1,500 Word Essay or Long-Form Powerpoint

For this project you will analyze and compare two web-based texts about the same or similar subject. You will consider the way that each source is constructed within their genre to reach a particular audience. For example, if your subject was “immigration” you could examine rhetorical differences between a news article about refugees and a Super Bowl Budweiser commercial that discusses the subject.

Your project can take two different forms. You can either write a traditional essay or an extensive PowerPoint presentation. Both will require you to provide original insight, evidence, and clear analysis.

If you opt for the PowerPoint, a viewer should be able to click through the presentation and fully understand the issue at hand, the strengths and weaknesses of the two selected genres, and how these two genres contrast with one another. Though the form can take any shape you wish, it would be nice to introduce the subject the samples focus on first before diving into the genred texts.

Goals:

The goal of the project is to present to a reader/viewer how your selected genres work. You should focus on what elements are utilized to reach the audience. Examining the strengths (and/or weaknesses) of the genre will allow you to show the reader/viewer how the creator shared their knowledge with a wider audience based on their use of genre.

Visual Aids:

Your presentation must have visual aids that explore your key points about the similarities and contrasts between the genres/texts. These examples must be fully explained and analyzed. Don’t just have images floating in space. They are to bolster your statement, not chew up space.

Genres:

You can use any two genres that are focusing on the same topic. Newspapers, advertisements, forums, Twitter, video, streaming, social media thing, blog, etc.

Be creative.

Points to Consider in Your Analysis:

· Who is the intended audience? How does this media aim to reach them?

· What is the audience likely to know? Want to know? Why?

· What is the purpose of the text?

· How does it work?

· Why do you think the creator of the text chose that genre to speak to their intended audience?

· What are some of the conventions of the genres you chose?

· Do the texts you chose adhere to those conventions? Do they defy them at all?

· How does language differ between the texts? (i.e. levels of formality, length, etc.)

· Finally, which of the texts do you think is most effective for which audience? Why?