Wooseong Yeom
RHE 309K – Spring 2005
Unique number: 42465 /42530
T/TH 9:30-11:00
PAR 102
Due Dates:
Proposals: February 3 (Thursday)
Rough Drafts: February 10 (Thursday)
Final Drafts: February 17 (Thursday)
Evaluation Argument
Assignment Instructions
This assignment asks you to support evaluative claims about an issue or topic with regards to the
representation of the West in the film you have chosen. It will be your task to make evaluative
claims regarding the film’s presentation of the West in terms of history, myth, and ideology.
You should craft an argument of evaluation by investigating, “What is the quality of this thing?”
Remember that this “quality” is not necessarily a statement about absolute good or bad, though it
can be. You may examine the thing itself and how it compares to other things in its same class
(e.g. other films). Or you may examine a change in context that makes us value the thing more at
one time than another. In other words you will be making some kind of value judgment about
the film’s particular representation of West. However, be careful to avoid naive, moralistic
judgments of the films in question. What may first seem anachronistic might well indeed have
more currency then you would expect.
Your presentation should address or include the following:
An interesting claim: a claim or claims about the representation of history, myth, and
ideology in the film you have chosen to analyze
Exigence: an effective case for why your claim matters and to whom
Criteria: a set of two or more well-explained and defended criteria for evaluating the
item or items
Examination: assessment of your item (and possibly others) in terms of the stated
criteria
Evidence: for every part of the argument (the claim, evidence, criteria, assessment),
including some from published sources.
Concession and Rebuttal: fair consideration of alternative views and counter-arguments
from the audience most likely to be interested in your claim
Suggestions for Finding a Topic
Your thesis should approximate this format: "X is (or is not) a good Y because of A, B, C. . ."
or "X is a better (or worse) Y than W because of A, B, C..." in which the X term is an item and
the Y term is the larger category to which the X term belongs. A, B, C, D and others are the
