<Rhetorical Analysis>
You will be analyzing Pollan’s persuasive strategies in the essay, including appeals to the audience through ethos, pathos, and logos, as well as his use of other literary devices, such as metaphore, repetition, or irony to get his point across effectively.
**Choose a particular chapter or chapters, or particular thread of inquiry, such as the cattle industry, the poultry industry, in hidden costs of industrial farming, local vs. industrial organic farming, fast food, the ethics of eating animals, the meaning of food in our lives, etc.
As a writer for The New York Times Magazine and a professor of journalism at UC Berkeley, Pollan suggests we have become “unhealthy people obsessed by the idea of eating healthily” (3). He looks into the complex conditions that have grown up around our food consumption, and reminds us, ultimately, that “we eat by the grace of nature, not industry” (411). What persuasive strategies does Pollan use to educate and to influence?
** In your analysis, provide a close reading of selections of Omnivore’s and a well-supported answer to the above question. You may draw upon your personal experiences with food and your observations of the role of food in our culture to help to illuminate Pollan’s strategies and to assess the effectiveness of his claims. For this assignment, I would like you to critically and closely read selections from pollan’s book and analyze Pollan’s argument about the impact of food industries and government policies, assessing how he uses these arguments to advocate that we “eat with a fuller consciousness of all that is at stake” (11).
** Take into account what knowledge Pollan assumes the audience has. What values does he assume the audience holds?
** Your overall analysis needs to be organized like a conventional, unified essay with and introduction, thesis that ties together your major points, analysis of quotes form the texts, and a conclusion restating and tying up your thesis.