Denotation

Students analyze portions of profiles excerpted from the free online dating site, OkCupid, in order to talk about ethos, values, ideology and goodwill.  The exercise, in turn, encourages students to consider their own online presences, their values, and the ways in which rhetoric has “real world” applications.

Students are given a passage to close read and asked to compose a short analysis paper.  After submitting the paper, all claims/thesis statements are compiled anonymously and discussed in an in-class workshop.

This assignment focuses on using a visual thesaurus to illustrate the nuanced relationships among words that the list form of the traditional thesaurus glosses over.