PROJECT TEXT- V for

Vendetta
Rhetoric of Text

Project Text asks that you interpret a major text through

close reading and research. Our text is V for Vendetta.
Well approach this text through a number of critical sources,
classroom discussions and activities, documentaries, and
individual student essays.
Project Text Requirements
% Critical reading of V for Vendetta and supplementary
readings
% Weekly Moodle Posts
% The Word Picture
% The Scene
% Shitty First Draft
%
% Individual essays (@4-6 Pages)
Exercise #1: The Word-Picture
Your recent work in reading essays should have demonstrated to you the importance of a
reading process that is active, and it should have reaffirmed the rigorous demands of
good, clean writing. In this next writing sequence, you will extend the active reading
process to a different kind of text: a visual object such as a painting, a sculpture, or a
photograph that represents one of the themes that you observe. You can discover this
visual object from your life, your readings, and even your viewings of media, but it must
have meaning to you.

Create a word- picture of a visual object so that readers can see the object through
your words. Select a visual object such as a painting, a sculpture, or a photograph
that interests you or triggers a strong response within you. (Choose carefully you
will be working with this art object for the next month.) Describe only what you
perceive so that others who do not have access to the object can see it too; that is, do
not mention names and historical dates.

Manuscript Notes: Try to keep your word-picture as short as possible (about 100
words) without sacrificing precision; produce something more evocative than a
laundry list of features.

Exercise #2: The Scene

Your second exercise in this progression is to make use of your visual object in a scene, a
scene that puts you and the object in relationship with one another. The scene may shed
light on your attitude toward the object.

Write a scene that will help your readers begin to understand what idea your visual
object has sparked in you. In this scene, you should try and focalize around the issue
you would like to discuss. Remember that a scene is dramatic and constructed so
that readers in order experience the action. Readers may be drawn into the scene by
a dramatic action, an interesting conversation, or by the sheer force of your creative
language. Your scene need not focus on your visual object as long as the object plays
some part in the scene.

Manuscript Notes: Your scene should be no more than three, double-spaced pages.

Exercise #3: Shitty First Drafts

Your third exercise asks that you produce a Shitty First Draft. By Shitty First Draft,
I mean you should try and write a rough version of your essay. After you read Lamotts
essay on Moodle, you will understand this assignment more. Although this assignment is
a partial essay, you should at least have your introduction written and the rest of the essay
outlined.

Write a Draft of your paper that shows your awareness of the issue or ones own
identity. It is not a complete draft, but a partial draft. You should use the Word
Picture and the Scene as pre-planning work.

Manuscript Notes: Your Draft should at least be two pages. At least, it must
include an introduction, body paragraphs outlined, and the beginnings of a
conclusion.

ESSAY II

Essay 2-Rhetoric of Text (@4-6 Pages)

For this essay, you are required to use V for Vendetta and our
supplementary texts as idea generators for argumentative topics.
What does this mean? In particular, you should find a theme from
within the text and write an essay that argues something about the
theme and it uses V for Vendetta as evidence of this theme.
When mining V for Vendetta for themes to explore, there are many
topics to consider, including:
% The Internet and Censorship
% Privacy
% Piracy/The Pirates Bay
% Controlling Information Through Controlling the Internet
% Government Control/ Police States
% The Anonymous Movement
% The Removal of Civil Liberties
% Freedom of Information

Optional Assignment:
Write a rhetorical analysis of a text of your choice, where you explore the
message or meaning of the text through the rhetorical strategies the author of the
text uses (ethos, pathos, logos).
Note: For the subject of this paper, you may use any of the texts we worked with
in class or you can choose a new text. You can use poetry, music/lyrics, paintings,
photography, your own work (writing or artwork). A student last semester wrote a
rhetorical analysis as a means of gaining understanding of a confusing ad she saw.
Another student wrote about the movie Mean Girls use of ethos, logos, and
pathos and other rhetorical devices.
Manuscript Notes: This essay should be four to six double-spaced pages and calls
for MLA documentation; you must include a Works Cited list at the end of your
essay. When you quote key phrases or clauses from your written text(s), you must
provide parenthetical documentation.