Saturday, February 5, 2011

Quiz Tuesday, 2/8

Welcome RotMI fans, Spring 2011!

We've been thinking about the persuasiveness of visual texts. Film trailers are the perfect example of short films that are essentially commercials urging you to "buy" the film they're advertising.

There will be a short quiz in class on Tuesday, 2/8. We'll see a trailer you probably haven't seen before, and you will have the opportunity to both define and identify the following terms by citing examples from the trailer: Appeal (in general), emotional appeal, logical/rational appeal, & ethical appeal.

The challenging part is to explain HOW what you see is acting as, let's say, an emotional appeal. What emotion is the appeal connecting with? Is it tapping into your sense of patriotism? Is it trying to scare you? Fear can be a very powerful motivator.

Remember, if you fail this class you won't graduate! (Now that's an emotional appeal...)