Rhetorical Analysis Assessment

Today's class featured the topic of your rhetorical analysis assessment: the commencement address by Meryl Streep at Barnard University. You will find a copy of the speech here: http://www.graduationwisdom.com/speeches/0069-streep.htm. You can also listen to and watch the speech here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-a8QXUAe2g.

After the viewing and annotation of the transcript, you split into 5 groups for your presentation preparation. As a group, you selected a specific purpose and divided up the strategies for analysis for homework this evening. Miranda, you are to work on the identification and the analysis of logos in the speech; Kayla, you are to work on the identification and the analysis of ethos in the speech.

Tomorrow will be a full prep hour for this presentation. Remember, any person absent on Wednesday will have a supplementary individual assignment to make up the grade.

Logos, Ethos, Pathos

After analyzing your tone maps, which all exhibited a fluctuation of tone as Eponine, she would be the speaker of "On My Own," recognizes that she must accept the loss of a love that never knew her feelings, we read an article for its usage of logos, ethos, and pathos. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/12/magazine/12wwln-lede-t.html. Absentees should read the article and identify where logos, ethos, and pathos are used. We decided that the essay relies most heavily on pathos, attempting to disgust and then motivate the reader to adjust a fast food lifestyle. When you return, you will be completing the assessment for rhetorical analysis - more details on Monday.

Your Own Tone Mapping

During class, I modeled how to do a tone map using your nine tone words for "Siren Song." After indicating your tones, you then need to select 2 opposites or 2 words to create a range for your map. Then, you plot the points, draw the lines, and look for patterns in tone.

In partners, you created a tone map for "On My Own" from Les Miserables, which you may find a digital copy here: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/lesmiserablescast/onmyown.html. If absent, you will need to read through the lyrics, identify all the tone shifts (F.Y.I. you are looking at every minor, subtle tone shift in the lines -- do not just divide by stanza), and give each section (for example, lines 1-4) a tone word. I will show you what to do in class after that.

Big Kid Tone Words

After we performed our tone conversations, focusing on the subtle shifts of team positive, team negative, team sorrow, and team neutral, we looked at the AP tone handout and identified our new favorite tone words. Jingoistic - still my favorite! To practice using the list and our former one, we read "Siren Song" by Margaret Atwood and identified the tone of each stanza. On Monday, I will show you how to a tone map and then you will be creating your own.

Diction to Tone

For the first 1/2 of class, we worked on diction analysis. I provided feedback for each body paragraph, allowing for revision. (How impressive you are becoming in organizing paragraph, adopting active verbs, and bringing in multiple examples of evidence.) After the revision process, you composed a team introduction and turned in the team "almost" essay. We will be reading these on Friday, so any absent paragraphs will need to be attached on that day prior to class starting.

For the last 1/2 of class, we played with tone. Using different tones to verbalize statements and identify tone shifts. At the end, you received the umbrella tone list, divided into groups, and sculpted conversations using similar - but not same, Emerson - tone families. We will perform these conversations on Friday so that you may guess the tone shifts.

Miranda, we never made it to tone mapping, so I hope you did not work ahead. We will be doing that on Friday, so please treat the handouts I gave you as a preview.

Team Emerson

We finished up analyzing the paragraphs for Emerson's "Education" and identified topic sentences that would cover the diction and purpose.

In groups of 3, you then composed a thesis statement for the following prompt: "How does Emerson utilize diction to reflect his purpose?" In each group, each person selected one form of diction listed in the team thesis to compose a body paragraph. A strong body paragraph would include multiple examples of evidence that would reflect different paragraphs.

If absent, you should create a body paragraph for tomorrow's class. Choose one form of diction and write the paragraph. Here is a link to the entire essay; we read only nine paragraphs, which I will remind you of after the link.  http://archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/emerson/essays/education.html

Our section began with the paragraph "I believe that our own experience instructs us that the Secret of Education..." and ends with the paragraph "Nature provided for the communication of thought..."

Emerson Diction

We continue our emphasis on diction by looking at the first 9 paragraphs of Emerson's "Education" essay. In groups, you circled key words, analyzed meaning, and composed thesis statements indicating the author, an active verb, a specific type(s) of diction, and a mature purpose. Overall, the class is doing very well with characterizing diction in the text. My only want would be to see a bit more analysis and support from the text to validate the thesis statement. I know you will keep working on these skills as we continue forward into diction and tone later this week.