Diary of the Dead

Prep Work:

• By now you should be very familiar with Ch. 5 (Rhetorical Analysis) & 6 (Visual Arguments) of Good Reasons.  Keep their key ideas in mind during this class.

Agenda:

• What were your overall reactions to the film?
• Review of Visual Analysis.  How does analysising a film differ from other visual media, such as graphic novels and advertisements?
• Class discussion of the film's rhetorical elements
• Group Work - Creating a thesis statement for a rhetorical analysis

Analyzing Visual Arguments:

Go back and think about ch. 6 of Good Reasons and previous class discussions involving visual arguments of photographs and graphic novels.

• What types of elements did you look for?
• What additional elements are useful in analyzing a film?
• What are some specific examples involving Diary of the Dead?

Rhetorical Analysis:

Textual Analysis:

• What is the purpose or main argument of the film?
• How do logos, pathos and ethos play out?
• How is the film arranged?
• What is the film's style?  What is its tone?  Is it appropriate?

   

Contextual Analysis:

• What are the film's social cirmcumstances?
• What is it a response to?

Group Work:

For the next five minutes, break up into groups of 3-4 people.  Based on our discussion, create a thesis that you could use for a rhetorical analysis of Diary of the Dead.  Post your thesis on a new wiki page from the links below.  We will spend the last few minutes of class workshopping your theses to make them clearer and stronger.  Also, be prepared to give a couple examples that you might use to support your thesis.

Group 1

Group 2

Group 3

Group 4

Group 5

Group 6

If you are having trouble coming up with a thesis for ProjectTwo, use these ones created by the class as reference points.  Look at how you could tweak their basic arguements to fit your own analysis.