Analyze the elements of the rhetorical situation in Ronald Reagan’s White House Address to the Nation popularly referred to as the Challenger Address. In order to do this, you will need to obtain some historical information. You will, for example, need to determine how popular Reagan was in 1986.
Was he elected by a landslide or a squeaker?
How was he viewed by the American public?
What events framed his speech on Jan 28, 1986?
How did Americans view the space program at this time in history?
Why was the Challenger disaster such a dramatic event to most Americans?
This paper should be approximately 400-600 words, or two to three typed double-spaced pages.
Requirements
All papers should be typed or word processed and cited in proper A.P.A. format (4th edition, 1995). You should have a minimum of four scholarly sources for this paper. For our purposes we will consider news magazines scholarly sources. News magazines such as Time or Newsweek are acceptable sources, as are biographies, journal articles, and newspaper articles. Only one of your four sources may be from the Internet. All papers should be free from typographical and spelling mistakes. At minimum, you should address each area of the rhetorical situation in approximately 100-150 words, but in most cases it will take more than that to effectively address each issue.
