By June 2: Choose one or more ads that strike you as interesting both aesthetically (patterns of color, lines, lighting, texture, verbal cohesion) and referentially (topic, cultural knowledge, beliefs, values, and so on). You will need to be able to submit a copy of the visual text with your written essay.

June 6:  Your 2-page essay on a visual text is due. Edit your paper carefully. We do take off for lack of organization and lack of attention to the conventions of writing. Hand in the following:

?    your essay;
?    a copy of the ad you are analyzing; include the name and date of the source in which it appeared.

Format:  The essay should be typed on standard 8 ½ x 11’’ plain paper. Use only one side of the sheet. Double space and use 12 pt. font size. Allow 1’’ margins. Attach your sheets with a staple and secure the visual text to it with a paper clip. Do not use a folder or binder.  In addition to the criteria of use of  the tools for textual analysis presented in MLL 301 in class and in your readings, your grade on the project will take into account evaluation of the following writing rules:

Organization Resulting from the Writing Process
Title
Introductory paragraph
Clear thesis statement (a summary of the main idea your paper explains and develops)
Logical sequencing of paragraphs and supporting details
Transitions between parts of the paper
Concluding paragraph

Conventions of Writing
Consultative style
Grammatically correct sentences
Spelling
Punctuation
Tightness versus wordiness and redundancies

Policy on late papers: In deference to the students who hand in their essays on time, late papers will be marked down. If an emergency prevents you from completing the paper on time, please bring in written documentation for our consideration.

Visual Text Project Worksheet
Below you will find the content criteria we will use to grade your projects. Please remember that we are interested in your textual analysis and response — not those of a professional critic.  Your paper will be graded on how well you analyze your ad, according to the categories described below.  Not all questions will be relevant to every text, but be sure to include all the answers that apply to yours.  Your analysis should be in the form of a coherent essay not a list of questions and answers

I.    Visual Language

1.    Consider the formal elements of the text and how they relate to the subject matter.
•    How is line employed? Is it consistent with traditional laws of perspective or does it violate them?
•    How do light and dark function? Is there a great deal of tonal contrast, or is it held to a minimum. What is the effect?
•    What is the predominant color scheme? Are complementary or analogous colors employed?
•    What other elements are important? Is your attention drawn to the text’s texture?
•    What kind of relationship, as Kress and van Leeuwen describe it, is the ad’s image setting up with the viewer?  Cf. Reading Culture, pp. 219-220.

2.    How are these elements organized? What cohesive patterns (patterns of repetition, variation, and contrast among the visual elements – line, shapes, value, color, texture, space and perspective) do you perceive? What do they communicate? What do they serve to emphasize?

3.    Are there any examples of foregrounding (undermined expectations)? What is their function?

4.    How does the text communicate sender attitude, notions of status and/or connection, or framing?

5.    Which communicative orientations are emphasized: referential? aesthetic? phatic? metacommunicative? expressive? directive? Give more than one and explain. What is the relation between the orientations stressed and the purpose of the ad?

II. Written Language

1.    What examples do you find of lexical cohesion in the ad? Are there patterns of repetition and contrast among the lexical features? What kinds of figurative language (metaphor, metonymy, personification) are present?

2.    What other forms of cohesion do you find?

3.    Comment on the ad’s persuasive verbal techniques. Refer to specific textual strategies listed in the class handout on Directive and Persuasive Language in your analysis.

4.    How are the words related to the images?

5.     Which communicative orientations are emphasized: referential? aesthetic? phatic? metacommunicative? expressive? directive? Give more than one and explain. What is the relation between the orientations stressed and the purpose of the ad?

III. Social and Cultural Context

1.    What shared values and beliefs between sender and receiver does your text imply? What helps to get the socio-cultural message across to the viewer?

2.    Is intertextuality present? How does it function?

3.    Comment on the overall effectiveness of the text’s internal organization in relation to the sender’s intention. How effective do you find the ad to be?

4.    Be sure to incorporate in your ad analysis answers to the questions about ads that are suggested in Reading Culture, page 210, especially those related to target audience, where the ad appears, the product and the promise being sold, and the relation between visual image and written text.