Annarose Campbell Assignment

Here's my final version of the Campbell assignment. In an effort to "clamp down" a little more, instead of giving my students the option of writing about Williams's speech in terms of imagination, passions, or memory, I'm only giving them the option of focusing on passions. I was inspired by Beth's post about Ida B. Wells's speech last week, and the question of how one could write a speech on suffrage imbued with the same passions and force as a speech on the horrors of lynching.

OK, here it is:

My students are African American women who are about to graduate from a trade school. They will have learned typing, shorthand, dictation, and other skills that will have well-qualified them for a secretarial/office job at a (presumably, at this time period) white-male owned and operated company. I’m envisioning NYC or another Northern urban area, where white men would have been accustomed to interacting with black women on a daily basis, whether as their housekeepers or their children’s nannies. They are comfortable with them, but would have trouble envisioning them in more non-traditional roles.

Reading:
Read carefully Section IV of Chapter VII in George Campbell’s The Philosophy of Rhetoric. Then, complete the following:

1)In your own words, describe how Campbell defines “passion” and its relationship to the speaker’s planning.

2)Put Fannie Barrier Williams’s “The Intellectual Progress of the Colored Women
of the United States since the Emancipation Proclamation” under scrutiny through the lens of Campbell’s discussion of “passion.” Take note of where she appeals to the audience’s passions well, where she falls short, and how her appeal to the Cult of True Womanhood helps or hinders Williams’s ability to appeal to passion.

Writing:
Write a letter of application for employment in the office of your choice. Using Campbell’s description of “passions,” and your work from the reading assignment with Section IV of Chapter VII, attempt to appeal to the “passions” of your potential employer, while also including the evidence that speaks to your suitability for the job. Do some research into the company; find out what your potential employer’s interests are, and what might be at stake in his decision to hire you. Here is the catch, however: you are NOT allowed to use ANY appeals to the “True Womanhood” standard.

As this is a job application where you want to convey your qualification and desire for employment as quickly as possible, this letter should be no more than 500 words, so choose your phrases carefully and make them say the most in a short amount of space.