10/30/08 Rhetorical Activitices 1,4, & 6 (ARCS, p.263)

1) This is an example of how I would attempt to persuade fellow WVU students to participate in my fundraiser for Children's Miracle Network.

Imagine a mother and child that just got into a car accident. The mother was fine, but when she comes to, she looks over in the passenger seat and realizes that her daughter's airbag did not deploy and she is unconscious. She calls an ambulance and the two are rushed to the hospital. One of the nurses asks what insurance policy the mother has, she replies, "I don't have any. My husband left me and my daughter, and my job doesn't provide healthcare." The nurse then explains that the proper proceedures that the doctors need to perform cannot be do without the health insurance. Her daughter may have mild retardation, and minor paralisase on her left side. What is the mother to do? She can't afford the proceedures, and she doesn't have the insurance to rehabilitate her daughter back to normal health.

The audience will want to know what can be done to help the mother. They will now be able to sympathize with the cause.

4) They do indeed. The latest Old Spice "Swagger" commercials insinuate that the product defines the boundaries between geek/dqeeb/dork/nerd from hero/suave/alpha male. This plays on the hopes and fears of many males in society.