Find a commercial on YouTube that you find stylistically interesting (see below for guidelines on selecting a commercial). Write a 1250-1500 word essay where you analyze the commercial according to the rules of “style” as the ancients thought of “style.” In other words, using as your guide the selection on style from Crowley’s and Hawhee’s book Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students and the web site “A Glossary of Rhetorical Terms with Examples,” identify, analyze, and discuss the elements of ancient “style” evident in the analyzed text. Be sure to make some sort of point about the strengths and weaknesses of the text or of the applicability of this method of analysis.
Here are some things to keep in mind as you work on this assignment:
- First, you need to find a commercial on YouTube. This is easy to do– simply do a search on YouTube for “commercials.” Take some time to find a commercial you think will make for a good analysis. It needs to be a single commercial– don’t use a “top ten” sort of compilation video. It would probably be best NOT to use a commercial that are just graphics and some kind of slogan, like the “Got Milk?” ads. Also, you need to pick an ad that is understandable to a general audience– avoid ads that are overly technical or specialized. You will need to post two or three commercials you are thinking about writing about for this project by July 12.
- You should be as detailed as possible in your analysis of the style of your YouTube commercial. For example, you will probably consider the appropriateness of the commercial, the uses of different kinds or ornaments, figures, and tropes, how the sentences are constructed, the word orders and use of language, etc. However…
- …keep in mind that none of us (your teacher included!) can rattle off the definitions of the many elements of ancient style Crowley and Hawhee discuss in their chapter. In other words, you should consider your audience somewhat “informed” about the elements of ancient style, but you should also quote from Crowley and Hawhee, and give definitions of the various parts of style as appropriate.
- Along these lines of quoting from Crowley and Hawhee and the “Glossary of Rhetorical Terms” web site: be sure to include a works cited page with citations for the materials you cite in your essay. Also, be sure to follow the rules for parenthetical citation that are a part of good MLA style.
- Last but not least, you need to have some sort of point to your essay. The goal here is not to go on a “scavenger hunt” for each and every stylistic element you can find. Rather, you want to make a point about what the applicability of ancient styles to examining very contemporary videos. What does it mean to view these commercials through the lens of the ancients’ definitions of “style?” Are the ancients’ notions of style still relevant today? What is the effect on the reader of the stylistic elements present in the text that you are examining? Do you consider the text successful in terms of style? Why or why not?
Are we to only address the style and rhetoric in terms of our commercial or can we also connect it to why that type of usage (found within the commercial) is effective?
I think the answer is both. But one thing I think you’ll see when we get to the Crowley and Hawhee reading, I mean style in a very VERY specific way here. You’ll need to use the language of ancient Greek and Roman notions of style, which I think is a kind of interesting and even fun way of looking at this stuff.
Will we be linking the actual commercial to our discussion so the class can see it?
Sounds like a great project! I am always looking for fun commercials to show my students. I have to be very selective because of limited English (idioms, appropriate language, clarity), and also because I have some religiously conservative students in my classes. I’ll have to complete the readings to see if I have further questions, but at this point, I think the assignment is pretty clear.
I too would be interested in having us link our commercials.
The first commercials that came to mind were the stop-motion animation commercials that have been in fad right now, like the Amazon Kindle ones. However, this might not be a good idea since there’s not much language in it. Perhaps the another good one would be those strange but funny Old Spice commercials, “look at your man, now look at me…”
And keep in mind it has to be something on YouTube– the idea here is that you can include that video in your final project. That’s the linking part that I think that Virginia and Liz are getting at.
Also, don’t limit yourself to current commercials since there are a bunch of old commercials in YouTube that are really interesting.
And last but not least, I think the first thing to do before picking out a commercial because there might be some element of style that we discuss you find particularly engaging that you want to find a commercial that illustrates rather than the other way around.
I like that idea, focusing on a style and looking for a commercial to demonstrate it. Narrows our search guidelines a bit. Thanks for the suggestion.
Will you be posting, today, where we should be discussing the first 1/2 of the Style chapter? I read the first 9 pages thus far. Is that about right?
I was thinking that if I looked at older commercials, I could get a sense of their style but also check to see if they were successful years, or possibly decades after they were created. We are discussing “style” that was referenced 1000′s of years ago so this might prove the endurance of style if we can expose it in a modern medium.
So, we’re picking a YouTube commercial, any commercial (except what you said), and relating it to the style of the ancients and the reading? Sounds easy enough. Do you think more recent commercials or older commercials from early TV days would be better?
Also, when you say to not use slogans like the “Got Milk?”, would that rule out most corporate commercials. I really love the Dawn Commercial with the sea otter and duckling (if you know what I’m talking about), I’m not sure if that would be a good commercial or not, but would a commercial like that be ruled out?
This sounds like an interesting assignment. How long in pages does it need to be?
The second sentence says “Write a 1250-1500 word essay where you analyze the commercial according to the rules of ‘style’ as the ancients thought of ‘style.’” Since I don’t collect paper, the number of pages doesn’t really matter, but that is generally somewhere between 6 and 8 typed and double-spaced pages.
Do we have to only use Crowley’s and Hawhee’s book Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students and the web site “A Glossary of Rhetorical Terms with Examples,” as sources for our articles?
Can we use our previous class readings as well?
I don’t quite know the answer to that–I guess it would depend. But keep in mind that the main goal of this assignment is for you to apply these ancient notions of style to a YouTube as, not to jut make a sort of general “interpretation.” So unless you studied some of the classic figures and tropes and ancient notions of style in previous classes, I’m not sure how it would work. But then again, no reader will be able to give you feedback until you try it….
Like the first writing assignment, this project is unlike any other kind I’ve had in previous classes. I’m excited and a bit nervous about taking on these projects–they’re completely new to me! But that is the point (and the fun part!) about the learning process.
What I would think would be interesting to do would be to find an old and current commercial from the same company and see not only how they have utilized style in the way defined in our readings, and how that has translated over, say, 20 years.
Same here, I’ve never had a project with commercials and I am also nervous to look at a commercial through the eyes of the Ancients and writing a paper
Can we go pass the 1500 word count, or is that strict?
You can go over or under 1500 words, give or take. I wouldn’t go a lot over that though.
it is 1767
a quick link for the class blog junkies, here is my second post peer reveiw draft of my YouTube Commercial Essay:
http://luckybug85.wordpress.com/328-portfolio/ancient-style-in-modern-day-media-youtube-draft-2/