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The nature of rhetoric
The nature of rhetoric
Rhetorical analysis ideas
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Before an author begins composing a body of work, there are three requirements necessary to establish beforehand. The composer must first “have a specific purpose and an audience”( Braziller, Kleinfeld, 7). A purpose allows there to be an overall reason to write. The purpose is necessary to persuade, inform, educate, or entertain the reader on a certain topic. The topic can be caused by "the time period, location, current event, or cultural significance (University, 1995-2018 )”. Identifying the audience is necessary since it instructs the composer how to communicate in a way the audience will appreciate and understand. Knowing how the audience will best understand the information gives the composer an advantage when trying to communicate the …show more content…
A rhetorical situation can be found in every composition since it serves as the foundation. To further provide evidence towards my claims about the function of the rhetorical situation, I will analyze how three different compositions were influenced by the rhetorical situation.
The three reading are Superman and Me by Sherman Alexie, You’re not going to believe what I’m about to tell you by The Oatmeal, and Girl by Jamaica Kincaid. While analyzing these readings, it became apparent all three contained different rhetorical situations. The purpose, or reason to write, in Superman and me, is the cultural significance. Superman and me is a rare story where a Native American was able to succeed by reading books. The purpose can be identified after Sherman mentions how “A little Indian boy teaches himself to read at an early age”(Alexie, 130). An Indian boy teaching himself how to read was significant since all “Indian children [are] expected to be stupid"(Alexie, 130). Alexie mentioned if he had “been anything but an Indian boy living on the reservation, he might have been called a prodigy. But he is an Indian boy living on the reservation and is simply an oddity”(Alexie, 3). The purpose allowed Sherman Alexie to speak
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Just like purpose, there can be a primary and secondary audience. The Primary is the audience the composition is intended for, and the Secondary being for the group receiving the message indirectly. The audience can range from one to millions of people depending on where the essay is found and what the essay is about. The primary audience in Girl is the daughter. Since the mother knew the compositions audience, she was able to mention instructions she felt her daughter will find valuable. Knowing the audience also allowed the mother to structure the composition informally since it was only intended for her daughter. The secondary audience in Girl is everyone reading the composition since the composer’s only speaking to a specific individual. The primary audience of you’re not going to believe what I’m about to tell you finds it hard to accept the facts that challenge their core beliefs. The composer's knowledge of the audience allowed him to present the information as if the composition was speaking towards the reader. The secondary audience of you’re not going to believe what I’m about to tell you was not intended, but came as a result of choosing the genre to be a comic book. Choosing a comic book attracts a new audience, due to the different display of information. In Superman and Me, the intended audience can be anyone interested in his biography, but more specifically Indian kids
Audience (Who was the audience for this work? What evidence from the author’s writing leads you to this conclusion?)
Fast food, while a quick alternative to cooking, has always been known to be less healthy than traditional preparations, but the extent of its health benefits or detriments was not known until a lawsuit came out which inspired documentarian Morgan Spurlock to engage in a 30 day experiment. The resultant documentary specifically targeted McDonald’s, the largest fast food chain in the world, which also happens to be a major recipient of lawsuits linking obesity and their food. Spurlock endeavored to spend a thirty day period eating nothing but food that came from the golden arches, with the rules that he would supersize only when asked, and every time he was asked, and that he would have everything from the menu at least once. In the 2004 film Super Size Me, Morgan Spurlock explores the concept that McDonald’s contributes to the nation’s obesity problem through the utilization of statistics and scientific evidence as a logical appeal, comedy and repulsive qualities as an emotional appeal, and s...
As I grew up learning to read was something I learned in school, yet for Sherman Alexie and Malcolm X can’t say the same. These two amazing authors taught themselves, at different stages of their lives, to read. In Sherman Alexie’s essay “The Joy of Reading and Writing: Superman and Me” and Malcolm X’s essay “Learning to Read” they both explain the trials and experiences they went through that encouraged them to work to achieve literacy.
In this passage from the novel Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates utilizes meaningful, vivid imagery to not only stress the chasm between two dissonant American realities, but to also bolster his clarion for the American people to abolish the slavery of institutional or personal bias against any background. For example, Coates introduces his audience to the idea that the United States is a galaxy, and that the extremes of the "black" and "white" lifestyles in this galaxy are so severe that they can only know of each other through dispatch (Coates 20-21). Although Coates's language is straightforward, it nevertheless challenges his audience to reconsider a status quo that has maintained social division in an unwitting yet ignorant fashion.
Educational systems in America are impaired, and the very educators that are meant to teach are the one’s pulling it down. That is the apparent message that Davis Guggenheim attempts to convey in his documentary “Waiting for Superman”. He uses many strategies to get his message across. Some of these include cartoons, children, and those reformers that are attempting to pull the system out of the ditch that it has found its way into. He makes his point very well, and uses facts and figures correctly. He does leave out some of the opinions of the opposing views, but it does not take away from his point that the educational system in America is in need of repair.
Composers of texts repeatedly have the common aim of persuading the audience into agreement or seek to gain empathy. The deliberate intention of the composer to inflict an incongruous perspective through the use of medium is represented through personalities, events and situations. Particularly, in both Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s infamous 1941 Four Freedoms speech, composer perspectives presented on historical events can be distorted, shaped, and reshaped to uniquely evoke a passionate response in the audience. Subtleties in the presentation of form overt a strong authenticity to text and provide a sustained theatrical license for the composer.
Having the author’s purpose is vital to knowing how informative, opinionated, or factual the arti...
To your average white American kid, a comic book is cheap entertainment— a leisure, a novelty. Your run of the mill issue of "Superman," perhaps the most generic superhero of all, is something to be read once, maybe even merely skimmed, while in the bathroom or the doctors' office. When finished with it gets thrown away mindlessly or tossed aside to join a mounting stack of similarly abandoned stories of fantastical heroism. However in the eyes of the young Indian boy, Sherman Alexie, as depicted in his essay, "Superman and Me," a tattered comic found in a donation bin was much more than that— it was a life line.
In Invisible Man, there are many instances in which rhetorical questions are brought up and one of these cases was when the narrator hears about the situation up in Harlem and asks to himself “What was happening uptown? Why should I worry over bureaucrats, blind men? I am invisible” (Ellison 528). The narrator believes that his invisibility has detached him for situations that were occurring at that time, so his responsibilities would not include having to fix or find out what was happening in Harlem. The rhetorical questioning shows that the narrator is coming to the realization that his invisibility is what makes him, him. After countless situations of being overlooked and ignored in decisions or discussions, the invisible man is able to
“I am breaking down the door.” Superman is breaking down a door to catch a villain. In the essay “Superman and Me” by Sherman Alexie, there is an extended metaphor. Sherman Alexie has a connection with the fictional character, Superman. Indians were expected to fail. Superman was expected to please people.
The Lottery movie affirms about 51 percent African Americans and 55 percent Latino students will graduate. The movie shows a black man incarcerated for stealing and selling drugs. He spoke of how he made wrong decisions in life. Instead of an education he made the option to sell drugs for quick money. Because of the hard lesson learned, he now tries to teach his son to make good decisions in life. The federal government has been known for making predictions of how many prisons to build according to the failure rates of black boys. The average amount of money spent on an inmate is $37,000 compared to $13,000 for education. Consequently, it appears that prisons take precedence over education. Situations as this, can create a negative
The ability to convey one’s thoughts eloquently and effectively in the form of a speech or spoken words is extremely important. Translating thoughts into a comprehensible collaboration of words allows for clarity in people heeding the message intended and evoking an expansion in their thoughts. In the novel, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, the unnamed protagonist finds his rhetorical, or orator’s voice, and develops this, leading him to his revelation of self-awareness. As time progresses, the protagonist reinvents his voice, leading him to accepting and embracing the person within, the self he has come to know. The author gives us a glimpse at the character through the various speeches he delivers in the assortment of scenarios he experiences
The author’s main argument in “Rhetoric: Making Sense of Human Interaction and Meaning-Making” is that rhetoric does not need to be complicated if writers incorporate certain elements to their writing. Downs further analyzed the elements that contribute to rhetoric such as symbols and signals, motivation, emotion, ecology, reasoning and identification. The author emphasized that writers can learn how to deliver their writing effectively once they are more aware on how rhetoric works. Downs constantly assures that rhetoric is quite simple and does not need to provoke fuzziness. Even though the term rhetorical is applied to everything, the author of the article made it clear that the “rhetorical” thing is situated. The example provided by the author in this article, further guides our understanding on what rhetoric
At what age did you learn to read? Were you younger or were you older? In “Superman and Me”, Sherman Alexie describes the importance of learning how to read at a young age and how reading saved his life. Sherman Alexie’s “Superman and Me” uses rhetorical analysis effectively to show that by reading he became an example for Indians at the reservations by beating and conquering all of the stereotypes that were against Native Americans.
Shea, Renee, Lawrence Scanlon, and Robin Scanlon. The Language of Composition: Reading, Writing, Rhetoric. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford St. Martins, 2013. 525-529,546-551. Print.