Post #17: Personal Essay / Rhetorical Modes

Which rhetorical modes will you use for your personal essay?

In case you've forgotten, here are those nine rhetoical modes once again:

Argument: Make an assertion, and support that assertion through reasons and evidence.

Description: Illustrate an object or idea by providing specific imagery (such as visual details) or figurative language (such as metaphors).

Definition: Specify the essential qualities of an object or idea.

Exemplification: Provide examples.

Narration: Tell a story.

Compare/Contrast: Detail similarities and differences.

Cause/Effect: Detail the causes (and/or effects).

Process Analysis: Explain how to do something or how something was done.

Division / Classification: Break an idea down into categories, and then label each category.

Be sure to specify HOW you will be using the mode.  For example, if you plan on using compare/contrast, what two things will you be comparing and contrasting?

Post #16: "Arrival Gates"

In "Arrival Gates," Rebecca Solnit uses syntax and metaphors to develop her theme of physical and psychological "arrival."

Here is one metaphor Solnit uses to describe the present: "the present is a house into which we always have one foot, an apple we are just biting, a face we are just glimpsing for the first time."

1.  Using this sentence as a model, write a similar sentence for your "Lost & Found" essay:

"Being lost is ...., is ..., is ...." or "Being found is ..., is ..., is ...."

These metaphors should be specific things (such as Solnit's house, apple, face), and the more specific, the better !

2.  Look at the opening sentence of Solnit's essay . . . it is a long paragraph that is all one sentence, a sentence that begins with a long string of "after" clauses tied at the end with the simple independent clause "I arrived at the orange gates."

Somewhere in your essay, I want to see you write a similar paragraph, one that is a long string of phrases or clauses tied at the end with a short, emphatic independent clause.  Instead of "after," you could use any of the following words:

although, as long as, as though, because, before, even if, even though, since, unless, until, when, whenever, where, whereas, while,

Which word will you choose to repeat throughout your sentence to build tension and rhythm?

Post #15: "Reflections on Indexing My Lynching Book"

In "Reflections on Indexing My Lynching Book," Ashraf H.A. Rushdy meditates and reflects on another work he has nearly finished completing.  In this way, he uses nostalgia to interrogate his own writing process as well as the historical contexts and traumas that formed the subject of his books.

1.  If you were to look back on something you've written for another class that affected you and that left you feeling "lost," what assignment would that be?

Rushdy begins his essay by using the second-person pronoun "you" to create a scenario and put the reader into the writer's experience.

2.  With what sort of scenario could you use the second-person perspective in a similar way in your "Lost & Found" essay?

One way Rushdy organizes his essay is to divide and classify the people in his books (and in American history).

3.  In your essay, who would be on your list of "someone who stood up for justice and righteousness, someone who performed a daring intellectual or heroic deed" (174)?  Who would be on your "personal axis of evil" (176)?

Post #14: "The Loudproof Room"

Kate Lebo's essay notable essay "The Loudproof Room" succeeds in defamiliarizing her hearing "disability."  Defamiliarlization refers to the process of taking something mundane, ordinary, and oft-overlooked and presenting it in a new light, in a way that makes it seem fresh, new, sudden, and alive.

Lebo's defamiliarization rings most clearly in the first sentence of the final paragraph: "Disability can create sensibility."  If this were an academic essay, we would call this her thesis, but since this is a personal essay, we might call this the essay's epiphany, the moment of truth.  Another method Lebo uses to foster defamiliarization is metaphor, of which this sentence is a prime example: "When my otolaryngologist says everyone's ear has three windows and that at least one of those windows must be closed to maintain balance and prevent vertigo, he turns my eardrum into a breezy little house."  In this way, Lebo's metaphor changes her medical condition into a home, which is an odd--and effective--way of framing her "disability."  Finally, Lebo uses alternate definitions of dehiscence in the fifth and sixth paragraphs to invite the readers to consider two contrasting ways of seeing her life: as a "flower bud that's about to burst into bloom" or two spots in the skull that "have thinned to two tiny gaps."  Is Lebo's dehiscence a gift?  Or a flaw?  In this essay, it's both, and this ironic, defamiliarized perspective allows us to step back and examine our own lives in a similar manner.

1.  In your essay, for what term, word, or idea might you explore alternate definitions?

2.  How might you use a metaphor in your essay?

3.  What might your epiphany be?

Post #13: "The Crooked Ladder"

Malcolm Gladwell's "The Crooked Ladder" effectively uses two published texts --A Family Business: Kinship and Social Control in Organized Crime and On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City-- to compare and contrast how the relationship between social mobility and crime has changed from the 1960s to now.  If one were to describe this essay under the heading of "Lost & Found," one could say that this essay explores how criminals in the past "found" legitimacy and how society and the law enforcement system have changed to make it so that today's criminals stay "lost" in their criminal endeavors.

If you had to compare and contrast two different "texts" (novels, scholarly texts, newspaper accounts, television shows, songs, movies) in your essay, which two texts would you use?  Why?

Post #12: "Thing with Feathers That Perches in the Soul"

First, read Anthony Doerr's essay "Thing with Feathers That Perches in the Soul."

Then, answer these questions . . .

1.  What is the effect of breaking the essay into sections and then numbering each section.  Why might Doerr want to organize his essay in this manner?

2.  Why have section five be composed of a series of questions? Why might Doerr want to pose questions instead of writing statements?

3.  Why use an Emily Dickinson poem as the source of the title and as a running thread through the essay?  Why would he want to refer to and quote this poem?

4.  Near the end of the essay, Doerr writes, "What does not last, if they are not retold, are the stories.  Stories need to be resurrected, revivified, reimagined; otherwise they get bundled with us into our graves: a hundred thousand of them going into the ground every hour."  What is one story from your life you will retell in the future (to your friends, lovers, children)?

Post #11: Syntax Variety

Though it may seem enough to have sentences that are free of grammar or mechanics errors, effective writers know how to combine different types of sentences in order to build rhythm and tension within a paragraph.  This tension keeps the reader interested on a subconscious level, and the end result is that the reader will be more invested in reading what you have to say.  As a general rule of thumb, use short, simple sentences for emphasis or when you want to clarify an otherwise confusing concept.  Use long, complicated sentences to establish connections between ideas and develop the broad context or worldview.  What writers should avoid is a paragraph (or essay) in which every sentence is the same general type or the same general length; this monotony is death.

In terms of the four basic types of sentences, there are simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex.

1.  A simple sentence (also known as an independent clause) is one complete thought.  In other words, there is a subject and predicate.  Here is an example: "Photographs surround us."

2.  A compound sentence is when the writer uses two complete thoughts (two independent clauses) linked with either a comma and coordinating conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so) or a semicolon.  Here are two examples: "Photography can be an art form, or a photograph can be a commercial mode of advertising" and "Photography can be an art form; conversely, a photograph can be a commercial mode of advertising."  In that second example, "conversely" is a conjunctive adverb.  Other examples of conjunctive adverbs include furthermore, however, and nonetheless.

3.  A complex sentence is when the writer uses a complete thought combined with a thought made incomplete through the use of a subordinating conjunction (such as while, since, after, although, because, and even though).  In other words, a complex sentence has an independent clause paired with a dependent clause.  Here are two examples of a complex sentence: "Because photographs surround us, we often take them for granted" and "We often take photographs for granted because they surround us."  A writer can either begin the sentence with the dependent clause (in which case a comma would come at the end of that introductory dependent clause) or with the independent clause (in which case there would be no comma).

4.  A compound-complex sentence is when the writer has at least two independent clauses and at least one dependent clause.  Generally, these are the longest sentences.  Here is an example: "When we take and post a selfie to Instagram, we are sharing a vision of both ourselves and how we see the world; this vision can be empowering, but for teenagers these images can also lead to bullying and insecurity."

For this assignment, review your essay's use of syntax, and make sure each paragraph has an effective combination of short, medium, and long sentences.  Finally, choose one paragraph to revise and ensure it has an example of a simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentence.  Post those four sentences to the blog.

Post #10: Using Quotes

One hallmark of advanced writing is the effectiveness with which one uses another person's words and ideas.  There are three ways to accomplish this: summary, paraphrase, and direct quote.  To summarize or paraphrase means to keep the author's ideas but to reconstruct them in your own language, syntax, and voice (while giving attribution to the original author, of course).  To directly quote a source is to keep the author's ideas and words (if the language is vivid enough to be worth keeping).  However, when using a direct quote, writers should avoid free-standing quotes (also known as dropped, floating, or cut-and-pasted quotes).  A free-standing quote is a quote that a writer uses without introduction or integration, and it will disrupt the writer's own tone and flow.

There are three ways of introducing quotes to prevent them from being free-standing.

1.  Use a simple introductory phrase, like "According to" or "So-and-so argues."  This method emphasizes the author, so a writer would use this when he or she wants to emphasize the person as an expert or someone offering testimony.

Here's an example.

According to Siegfried Kracauer, "While time is not part of the photograph like the smile or the chignon, the photograph itself, so it seems to them, is a representation of time" (424).

2.  Write your own sentence, then use a quote (introduced with a colon) that functions as evidence or demonstration of your sentence's ideas.  Be sure your sentence is a complete sentence; otherwise, the sentence becomes a fragment.  This method works most effectively for using source material as evidence for the writer's own claims.

Here's an example.

In certain ways, a photograph functions as a more reliable witness than our own memory: "Memory encompasses neither the entire spatial appearance nor the entire temporal course of an event. Compared to photography memory's records are full of gaps" (Kracauer 425).

3.  Instead of introducing the entire quote, integrate pieces (words, phrases, or clauses) into the context of the writer's own syntax.  This method works best to synthesize ideas and to create a smooth flow.

Here's an example.

When we reduce our experience of the world to collecting photographs, we become guilty of the "warehousing of nature" (Kracauer 435) and loved ones in dusty albums as forgotten souvenirs.

Your assignment:

A.  Find three quotes from Susan Sontag's On Photography that you will use in your essay.

B.  Introduce those quotes and/or incorporate them into a sentence of your own that you will use in your essay.

C.  Post those three sentences to the blog.

Post #9: Introductions

As we briefly discussed during our Saturday orientation, effective introductions are comprised of three basic parts: hook, context, thesis.

1.  The hook (also known as the lead, the attention-grabber, and the opening) is designed to catch the reader's attention and get him/her thinking about your essay's topic.  These hooks should be original (avoid cliches!), relevant (stay on topic!), and interesting (don't be boring!) and can may take the form of a question, direct quote, definition, anecdote, description, fact/statistic, or example.

2.  The second part of the introduction is when the writer establishes background and context.  In other words, this is when the writer should introduce and explain the broad topic as well as any specific information needed in order to understand the writer's argument.

3.  The thesis is the concise distillation of that argument.  This is where the author makes his or her claim about the topic at hand and implies (if not explicitly stating) the reasons for that claim.

How long should an introduction be?  That depends on the length of the overall essay.  For a book-length work, the introduction might be a full chapter.  For a short response, the introduction might be one long sentence.

For your essay, which needs to be at least four full pages of analysis, you should probably aim for an introduction somewhere between 1/2 page and one full page (typed, double-spaced).

For this post, answer the following questions:

1.  What form of a hook will you choose?  Will you ask a question?  Open with a quote?  Another option?

2.  What ideas will you establish in the section for background/context? (For this blog, you can just list these ideas).

3.  What is your thesis?  (Write the thesis statement).

Post #8: Your First Essay

Now that you have read and thought about Susan Sontag's views of photography, it is time to craft your own meditation, analysis, and argument.

In terms of your essay's overall topic, your thesis should answer a simple question: "What can/does/should a photograph do?"

When you explore this topic, I want you to consider how a photograph is both an object and a tool and how its utility changes depending on context and intent.  For example, we see photographs in museums, in advertising, in news stories, on the walls of our homes, and on our driver's licenses and mugshots.

As you develop this essay, use Sontag's ideas (and direct quotes from her essays) as support for your claims, and use specific photographs (from your fellow classmates, from Slate's Behold blog, and from your own life) as examples.

To help you generate ideas and plan an overall structure, use the nine rhetorical modes for guidance.  These modes are methods of structuring and presenting information and will keep you focused (and will help you avoid writer's block).

Argument: Make an assertion, and support that assertion through reasons and evidence.

Description: Illustrate an object or idea by providing specific imagery (such as visual details) or figurative language (such as metaphors).

Definition: Specify the essential qualities of an object or idea.

Exemplification: Provide examples.

Narration: Tell a story.

Compare/Contrast: Detail similarities and differences.

Cause/Effect: Detail the causes (and/or effects).

Process Analysis: Explain how to do something or how something was done.

Division / Classification: Break an idea down into categories, and then label each category.

These rhetorical modes often work in conjunction with one another.  For example, a writer using division/classification would probably find him/herself transitioning from there into exemplification.

Your essay does not need to use all nine rhetorical modes; rather, think in terms of what you want each paragraph or section of your essay to accomplish.

This essay needs to be at least four pages long, so assuming your introduction is 1/2 page and your conclusion is 1/2 page, you will need to have at least three pages of body paragraphs.  Assuming that your body paragraphs will be well-developed, that will probably work out to somewhere between four and six body paragraphs.

For this post, provide a rough outline of what each of these body paragraphs will do.

For example, if I were writing this essay, I might want to explore how bureaucracies use photographs, so...

Body Paragraph 1: Division/Classification.  I will explore how bureaucracies (such as the judicial system, the educational system, and the health care system) use photographs.  I will explore both the types of bureaucracies as well as the various purposes/functions of photography in those contexts.  I think I'll have a lot to say in this section, so this might end up being more than one body paragraph...

Body Paragraph 2:
Body Paragraph 3:
Body Paragraph 4:
Body Paragraph 5:

If you get stuck and can't think of what to say, read what your fellow students have written, and feel free to steal their ideas.  First of all, they won't mind, and second, when you actually write the essay, it will turn out completely different anyway.

Post #7: The Image World

Sontag argues that photography has a paradoxical relation to reality in that "It offers, in one easy, habit-forming activity, both participation and alienation in our own lives and those of others--allowing us to participate while confirming alienation" (167).  In other words, these photographs A) seem to allow us to understand and vicariously experience the event being photographed while B) simultaneously reaffirming that we are separate from that experience, that we are audience and separate from a reality in which others are the participants.

For this post, explain how these ideas apply to the works of Michelle Frankfurter or Kris Graves.

Post #6: Photographic Evangels

One essential aspect of photography is its capacity to defamiliarize the ordinary, to make us re-see and re-evaluate what we would normally overlook and take for granted.  As Sontag writes, "Just to show something, anything, in the photographic view is to show that it is hidden [...] the familiar, rendered by a sensitive use of the camera, will thereby become mysterious" (121).

Explain how this idea helps us understand the work of Irina Werning's series Back to the Future, whose photographs also form the visuals for the following music video by Feist.

Post #5: The Heroism of Vision

For this entry,

A) first briefly explain (in a few sentences) the following two quotes.

1) "The history of photography could be recapitulated as the struggle between two different imperatives: beautification, which comes from the fine arts, and truth-telling [... for] the photographer was supposed to unmask hypocrisy and combat ignorance" (Sontag 86).

2)  "Despite the illusion of giving understanding, what seeing through photographs really invites is an acquisitve relation to the world that nourishes aesthetic awareness and promotes emotional detachment" (Sontag 111).

B) then (in a paragraph) explain how the photographs of Carl Corey either embody or argue against Sontag's ideas.

Photographs from Your Realities

Y. Torres's "Skepticism"

H. Lee's "Before"

R. Ilodibia's "New Beginning"

E. Mullins's "Take Home Exams"

J. Cezar's "Eye See the City"

M. Robleto's "Being Surrounded by Nature"

S. Coodey's "Progress"

J. Camacho's "My Days"

J. Penuelas's "Sustenance"

E. Parks's "My Life"

J. Reyes's "Picture Perfect"

M. Phillips's "Ice Cream Date"

E. Worley's "Only Reality"

G. Bolanos's "Techno Inferno"

V. Basurto's "Spongy Bone"

J. Bravo's "Individualism"

S. Tamayo's "Family Reality"

Post #4: Melancholy Objects

In "Melancholy Objects," Sontag explores the relationship of photography and our understanding of the past.  In terms of this essay, focus on these four quotes:

1) "Picture-taking serves a high purpose: uncovering a hidden truth, conserving a vanishing past" (56).

2) "But essentially the camera makes everyone a tourist in other people's reality, and eventually in one's own" (57)

3) "A photograph is only a fragment, and with the passage of time its moorings come unstuck" (71)

4) "The lure of photographs, their hold on us, is that they offer at one and the same time a connoisseur's relation to the world and a promiscuous acceptance of the world" (81)

In terms of this blog response, you have three tasks:

1.  In a short paragraph, explain how the work of Nick Brandt epitomizes one of the four quotes above.

2.  In a short paragraph, explain how the work of Stacy Kranitz epitomizes a different one of the four quotes above.

3.  E-mail me a photograph (of which you are the photographer) that features an aspect of your 'reality.'  I am going to post these photographs online, so don't send me a photograph that you don't want the world to see.

Post #3: "America, Seen Through Photographs, Darkly"

In her essay "America, Seen Through Photographs, Darkly," Susan Sontag analyzes the photographs of Diane Arbus (examples of which can be seen here); Sontag describes Arbus's process as photographing "people in various degrees of unconscious or unaware relation to their pain, their ugliness" (36). Sontag ends her essay be making a larger point, that these photographs illustrate an American collective melancholy and depression.

For this blog entry, write a paragraph that answers this question:

In a world in which people are suffering, what good can come of artists like Diane Arbus or photojournalists like Joey O'Loughlin taking artistic photographs and having exhibitions of people at their least glamorous, their least "presentable" moments?

Post #2: "In Plato's Cave"

"In Plato's Cave" is one of Susan Sontag's most famous works of photography criticism in which she makes many philosophical assertions about our relationship between photography and our understanding of the world.  For this post, find one interesting quote, post it, and explain why it is interesting.  Try to provide an example from "real-life" in your discussion.

The one catch is that you cannot repeat a quote that someone else has already taken, so be sure to read the previous posts.

For example, (and now you can't take this quote)...

Sontag's assertion that "Photographed images do not seem to be statements about the world so much as pieces of it, miniatures of reality that anyone can make or acquire" (4) finds clearest expression in the use of photography in advertising.  These advertisements use photographs to promise a version of reality that can be ours but only if we buy the specified product; we can jump like Michael Jordan is jumping in this photograph but only if we buy the same brand of Nikes.  On a more personal level, we make these "miniatures of reality" when we use Instagram to document our meals ("See what I ate today!) or --again-- our newest shoe purchase ("Check out my new Chacos!  Now I'm ready be a hiker!)

Spring 2016, Post 1: Introductions

Hello All, and welcome to the class blog!

For this first entry, just introduce yourself (your major, interests, and anything you want to share with the world) and ask one question about the class (after you read the syllabus, of course).  I will respond to these questions as you post them, so check back to see the answers...

Lost & Found Brainstorming

For this post, add at least two items to each list.

Things I've lost: my mind, my way...

Things I've found: trouble, a clue...

Your Personal "Lost & Found" Essay

The topic for your personal essay is the concept of "Lost & Found," and there are many ways to approach this idea.  One way to begin brainstorming and planning a structure is to revisit the rhetorical modes: definition, description, narration, exemplification, cause/effect, compare/contrast, division & classification, process analysis, and argument.

If you had to choose one rhetorical mode to form the "spine" of your essay, which of these rhetorical modes would you select?  Explain in a sentence or two.

If you had to choose two additional rhetorical modes to help you flesh out that body, which two additional modes would you select? Explain in a sentence or two.

"Arrival Gates"

In "Arrival Gates," Rebecca Solnit uses syntax and metaphors to develop her theme of physical and psychological "arrival."

Here is one metaphor Solnit uses to describe the present: "the present is a house into which we always have one foot, an apple we are just biting, a face we are just glimpsing for the first time."

1.  Using this sentence as a model, write a similar sentence for your "Lost & Found" essay:

"Being lost is ...., is ..., is ...." or "Being found is ..., is ..., is ...."

These metaphors should be specific things (such as Solnit's house, apple, face), and the more specific, the better !

2.  Look at the opening sentence of Solnit's essay . . . it is a long paragraph that is all one sentence, a sentence that begins with a long string of "after" clauses tied at the end with the simple independent clause "I arrived at the orange gates."

Somewhere in your essay, I want to see you write a similar paragraph, one that is a long string of phrases or clauses tied at the end with a short, emphatic independent clause.  Instead of "after," you could use any of the following words:

although, as long as, as though, because, before, even if, even though, since, unless, until, when, whenever, where, whereas, while,

Which word will you choose to repeat throughout your sentence to build tension and rhythm?

"Reflections on Indexing My Lynching Book"

In "Reflections on Indexing My Lynching Book," Ashraf H.A. Rushdy meditates and reflects on another work he has nearly finished completing.  In this way, he uses nostalgia to interrogate his own writing process as well as the historical contexts and traumas that formed the subject of his books.

1.  If you were to look back on something you've written for another class that affected you and that left you feeling "lost," what assignment would that be?

Rushdy begins his essay by using the second-person pronoun "you" to create a scenario and put the reader into the writer's experience.

2.  With what sort of scenario could you use the second-person perspective in a similar way in your "Lost & Found" essay?

One way Rushdy organizes his essay is to divide and classify the people in his books (and in American history).

3.  In your essay, who would be on your list of "someone who stood up for justice and righteousness, someone who performed a daring intellectual or heroic deed" (174)?  Who would be on your "personal axis of evil" (176)?

"The Loudproof Room"

Kate Lebo's essay notable essay "The Loudproof Room" succeeds in defamiliarizing her hearing "disability."  Defamiliarlization refers to the process of taking something mundane, ordinary, and oft-overlooked and presenting it in a new light, in a way that makes it seem fresh, new, sudden, and alive.

Lebo's defamiliarization rings most clearly in the first sentence of the final paragraph: "Disability can create sensibility."  If this were an academic essay, we would call this her thesis, but since this is a personal essay, we might call this the essay's epiphany, the moment of truth.  Another method Lebo uses to foster defamiliarization is metaphor, of which this sentence is a prime example: "When my otolaryngologist says everyone's ear has three windows and that at least one of those windows must be closed to maintain balance and prevent vertigo, he turns my eardrum into a breezy little house."  In this way, Lebo's metaphor changes her medical condition into a home, which is an odd--and effective--way of framing her "disability."  Finally, Lebo uses alternate definitions of dehiscence in the fifth and sixth paragraphs to invite the readers to consider two contrasting ways of seeing her life: as a "flower bud that's about to burst into bloom" or two spots in the skull that "have thinned to two tiny gaps."  Is Lebo's dehiscence a gift?  Or a flaw?  In this essay, it's both, and this ironic, defamiliarized perspective allows us to step back and examine our own lives in a similar manner.

1.  In your "Lost & Found" essay, for what term, word, or idea might you explore alternate definitions?

2.  How might you use a metaphor in your essay?

3.  What might your epiphany be?

"The Crooked Ladder"

Malcolm Gladwell's "The Crooked Ladder" effectively uses two published texts --A Family Business: Kinship and Social Control in Organized Crime and On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City-- to compare and contrast how the relationship between social mobility and crime has changed from the 1960s to now.  If one were to describe this essay under the heading of "Lost & Found," one could say that this essay explores how criminals in the past "found" legitimacy and how society and the law enforcement system have changed to make it so that today's criminals stay "lost" in their criminal endeavors.

If you had to compare and contrast two different "texts" (novels, scholarly texts, newspaper accounts, television shows, songs, movies) in your essay of "Lost & Found," which two texts would you use?  Why?

"Thing with Feathers That Perches in the Soul"

First, read Anthony Doerr's essay "Thing with Feathers That Perches in the Soul."

Then, answer these questions . . .

1.  What is the effect of breaking the essay into sections and then numbering each section.  Why might Doerr want to organize his essay in this manner?

2.  Why have section five be composed of a series of questions? Why might Doerr want to pose questions instead of writing statements?

3.  Why use an Emily Dickinson poem as the source of the title and as a running thread through the essay?  Why would he want to refer to and quote this poem?

4.  Near the end of the essay, Doerr writes, "What does not last, if they are not retold, are the stories.  Stories need to be resurrected, revivified, reimagined; otherwise they get bundled with us into our graves: a hundred thousand of them going into the ground every hour."  What is one story from your life you will retell in the future (to your friends, lovers, children)?

Levels of Specificity

What is great writing?  Words.  Just words.  

However, great writers choose great words, the precise combinations of nouns and verbs (and adjectives, etc.) to convey the thought and build the tone.

For today's assignment, use Word's "Control-F" function to find each instance of "thing," "stuff," "a lot," or "very."  These are all generic, empty words that can sometimes be effective (if you want to convey the quality of being generic) but should otherwise be replaced.

Likewise, the most generic verb is "to be," which simply states a state of existence.  Use "Control-F" to find how many times you use is, was, are, or were.  You don't need to replace all of these examples, but the ones you keep should be worth keeping. 

In terms of complete phrases, clauses, and sentences, you should avoid cliches, which are sayings that have become overused and are the complete opposite of a unique, insightful analysis.  Read through your essay to eliminate any cliches, especially, in the context of your essays, the worn "A picture tells a thousand words."

For this post, find a sentence from your essay that is too generic, too empty, too cliched.  Post both your flawed sentence and a revised version that is specific, insightful, and original.

Syntax Variety

Though it may seem enough to have sentences that are free of grammar or mechanics errors, effective writers know how to combine different types of sentences in order to build rhythm and tension within a paragraph.  This tension keeps the reader interested on a subconscious level, and the end result is that the reader will be more invested in reading what you have to say.  As a general rule of thumb, use short, simple sentences for emphasis or when you want to clarify an otherwise confusing concept.  Use long, complicated sentences to establish connections between ideas and develop the broad context or worldview.  What writers should avoid is a paragraph (or essay) in which every sentence is the same general type or the same general length; this monotony is death.

In terms of the four basic types of sentences, there are simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex.

A simple sentence (also known as an independent clause) is one complete thought.  In other words, there is a subject and predicate.  Here is an example: "Photographs surround us."

A compound sentence is when the writer uses two complete thoughts (two independent clauses) linked with either a comma and coordinating conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so) or a semicolon.  Here are two examples: "Photography can be an art form, or a photograph can be a commercial mode of advertising" and "Photography can be an art form; conversely, a photograph can be a commercial mode of advertising."  In that second example, "conversely" is a conjunctive adverb.  Other examples of conjunctive adverbs include furthermore, however, and nonetheless.

A complex sentence is when the writer uses a complete thought combined with a thought made incomplete through the use of a subordinating conjunction (such as while, since, after, although, because, and even though).  In other words, a complex sentence has an independent clause paired with a dependent clause.  Here are two examples of a complex sentence: "Because photographs surround us, we often take them for granted" and "We often take photographs for granted because they surround us."  A writer can either begin the sentence with the dependent clause (in which case a comma would come at the end of that introductory dependent clause) or with the independent clause (in which case there would be no comma).

A compound-complex sentence is when the writer has at least two independent clauses and at least one dependent clause.  Generally, these are the longest sentences.  Here is an example: "When we take and post a selfie to Instagram, we are sharing a vision of both ourselves and how we see the world; this vision can be empowering, but for teenagers these images can also lead to bullying and insecurity."

For this assignment, review your essay's use of syntax, and make sure each paragraph has an effective combination of short, medium, and long sentences.  Finally, choose one paragraph to revise and ensure it has an example of a simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentence.  Post those four sentences to the blog.

Essay Introductions

As we discussed during the Saturday orientation, all essay introductions have three basic components: the opening, the background, and the thesis.

The opening (also known as the "hook," "lead," or "attention-grabber") should begin the essay in an original, interesting, relevant way.  The goal here is to intrigue the reader enough that he or she keeps reading your essay.  I am being paid to read your essays, so I will do that regardless, but your opening should make me want to read on . . .

How can you craft an interesting opening?  There are many different strategies, some of which parallel the rhetorical modes you brainstormed for your outline.  For example, you could begin your essay with a brief story (which is called an "anecdote"), description (maybe of a photograph), or definition.  You could also begin by asking a question, providing an interesting quote, or giving a fact or statistic.  The key is to . . . A) be original (so don't fall into the trap of using a cliche), B) be interesting, and C) be consistent with the topic and tone.

After the opening, writers should lay the groundwork for the rest of the essay.  That means introducing the main ideas and topics the essay will analyze.  For this essay, that means you should introduce the idea of photography (or photographs, photographers, people who use or look at photographs, and so on).  Maybe you'll use the rhetorical mode of definition here.  Maybe you'll divide and classify.  Maybe you'll analyze the process by which photography moved from tin-type to digital . . . Each of you will handle this part of the essay in a slightly different way, but you will all be introducing the topic of photography.

After the background, writers should present their thesis statements.  This is generally the last sentence of the introduction and provides the backbone for all the body paragraphs and information to come.  To craft an effective thesis statement, you should first think of a question.  Then, your thesis statement will be the answer to that question.  For this essay, such as question might be this: "Do photographs alienate and isolate us, or do they bring us closer together?  Or does it depend on the context?"

For this post, just describe what you will be doing in each part of your introduction.

For example . . .

A) For my hook, I am going to describe a photograph by the photographer Graciela Iturbide.
B) For the background portion, I am going to define photography and divide and classify the various ways photographs can be used.
C) For my thesis, I am going to answer the question, "How does a photograph's ambiguity allow for us to empathize with another person without actually letting us reach a true understanding of that person?"

Using Quotes

One hallmark of advanced writing is the effectiveness with which one uses another person's words and ideas.  There are three ways to accomplish this: summary, paraphrase, and direct quote.  To summarize or paraphrase means to keep the author's ideas but to reconstruct them in your own language, syntax, and voice (while giving attribution to the original author, of course).  To directly quote a source is to keep the author's ideas and words (if the language is vivid enough to be worth keeping).  However, when using a direct quote, writers should avoid free-standing quotes (also known as dropped, floating, or cut-and-pasted quotes).  A free-standing quote is a quote that a writer uses without introduction or integration, and it will disrupt the writer's own tone and flow.

There are three ways of introducing quotes to prevent them from being free-standing.

1.  Use a simple introductory phrase, like "According to" or "So-and-so argues."  This method emphasizes the author, so a writer would use this when he or she wants to emphasize the person as an expert or someone offering testimony.

Here's an example.

According to Siegfried Kracauer, "While time is not part of the photograph like the smile or the chignon, the photograph itself, so it seems to them, is a representation of time" (424).

2.  Write your own sentence, then use a quote (introduced with a colon) that functions as evidence or demonstration of your sentence's ideas.  Be sure your sentence is a complete sentence; otherwise, the sentence becomes a fragment.  This method works most effectively for using source material as evidence for the writer's own claims.

Here's an example.

In certain ways, a photograph functions as a more reliable witness than our own memory: "Memory encompasses neither the entire spatial appearance nor the entire temporal course of an event. Compared to photography memory's records are full of gaps" (Kracauer 425).

3.  Instead of introducing the entire quote, integrate pieces (words, phrases, or clauses) into the context of the writer's own syntax.  This method works best to synthesize ideas and to create a smooth flow.

Here's an example.

When we reduce our experience of the world to collecting photographs, we become guilty of the "warehousing of nature" (Kracauer 435) and loved ones in dusty albums as forgotten souvenirs.

Your assignment:

A.  Find three quotes from Susan Sontag's On Photography that you could use in your essay.

B.  Introduce those quotes and/or incorporate them into a sentence of your own that you could use in your essay.

C.  Post those three sentences to the blog.

Essay Prompt

According to Susan Sontag, photography "offers, in one easy, habit-forming activity, both participation and alienation in our own lives and those of others--allowing us to participate, while confirming alienation" (167).  In an essay of at least four pages, explain how photography can (paradoxically) both alienate and reaffirm the connection between that individual and humanity.
In your essay, use the essays from Susan Sontag's On Photography, the photographs and essays from Slate's Behold, and at least two photographs from your fellow students to help you explain/explore/prove your points.

Questions to Consider (not a checklist you have to answer in the essay)

Why do you take photographs?
What do you do with the photographs you have taken?  How do you use these photographs?
When you bring the camera up before your eyes, are you still participating in the experience captured in the photograph?  Or have you become an observer instead?
How/why do advertisers use photographs?
How/why do newspapers use photographs?
How/why does the government use photographs?  (Take a look at your driver's license . . . )
How can/does a photograph (a static representation of a visual object/scene, or, as Sontag describes it on 112, a "dissociated moment") reveal "truth" about fluid, abstract, and dynamic individual psychology and group social structures?

In terms of this blog post, briefly explain which rhetorical modes you plan to use in your essay. The nine rhetorical modes are forms and methods of presenting and structuring information.  Here they are in no particular order . . .

Description: using sensory detail (such as visual imagery) and/or figurative language (such as metaphors or similes) to provide a detailed overview of a subject's characteristics.  For example, in this essay you could describe a photograph . . .

Definition: detailing the essential qualities of the subject or idea.  For example, in this essay you could define "truth" or "community."

Exemplification: providing examples to help explain the subject or idea.  For example, in this essay you could refer to specific photographs as your examples.

Narration: telling a story to help explain the subject or idea.  For example, in this essay you could tell the story that a photograph implies, or you could tell a story of a time you took a photograph.

Cause / Effect: explaining the causes preceding an event or explaining the effects following such an event or action.  For example, in this essay you could explore what would cause a person to share a photograph on Instagram or what the effects of that sharing might be.

Compare / Contrast: explaining the similarities and differences between two or more different examples, subjects, or ideas.  For example, in this essay you could compare and contrast two different ways of interpreting the same photograph.

Division / Classification: explaining the various types and categories of a subject or idea.  For example, in this essay you could divide and classify the types of photographs.

Process Analysis: explaining how to do something, how something was done, or how something should be done in the future.  For example, in this essay you could explain the process by which a person chooses which photographs to share and which to keep private.

Argument: asserting a logical thesis and then supporting that thesis with reasons and evidence.  For example, in this essay you could argue that photography makes people more isolated and leads to fragmented identities . . . or you could argue that photography deepens empathy and brings us closer together in a shared humanity.

Your essay does not need to use all nine rhetorical modes.  Rather, each paragraph should have a clear mode as its central core.  For a four-page essay, you will probably have somewhere between four and seven body paragraphs.  How will you use rhetorical modes as the basis for those paragraphs?

Provide a brief outline of your body paragraphs.  If I were to write this essay, my outline might look like this:

Body Paragraph 1:  I'm going to try to define photography.

Body Paragraph 2:  I'm going to divide and classify the different reasons people take photographs.

Body Paragraph 3: I'm going to explore some of the effects of sharing photographs with others.

Body Paragraph 4:  I'm going to analyze the process (and give examples) by which photography can depersonalize.

Body Paragraph 5: I'm going to compare that process of depersonalization with a process by which photography can foster empathy and lead to positive social change.

"The Image World"

In On Photography, Sontag classifies three different acquisitive functions photography fulfills: photography as "surrogate possession"; photography as "consumer's relation to events"; and photography as "information (rather than experience)" (150).

Choose either the photographs by Paula Zuccotti, Gordon Parks, or Jesse Burks, and explain how that photographer's work embodies Sontag's system of classification.  In your explanation, use another quote from her essay "The Image World."

"Melancholy Objects" and "The Heroism of Vision"

A. Estrada's "Lazy Elephant"

B. Ramirez's "My Beast"

L. Navarro's "Challenge"

M. Hallmark's "You Can't Say No"

E. Tapia's "Just a Wall"

I. Mendoza's "Universal Helper"

R. Saceaux's "Pinky Pogo"

K. Smith's "Wide Open Spaces"

J. Love's "Sea Sees Souls"

D. Bollinger's "Growth"

K. Flom's "Leave Your Worries Below" 

D. Zbysenski's "The Troll"

K. Marshall's "Passion, Purpose, & Determination"

R. Ruiz's "Dog"

R. Bristow's "Love"

D. Akins's "You Are Everything"

C. Parker's "All You Must Do Is Write"

H. Todd's "Achievement"

A. Maldonado's "Happiness"

A. Garza's "Welcome to Rapture"

G. Cernas's "Hope"

M. Ward's "Roxxi, My Little Ewok"

Melancholy Objects and The Heroism of Vision

Read Sontag's essays "Melancholy Objects" and "The Heroism of Vision," and explain how Sontag's argument that "the camera makes everyone a tourist in other people's reality, and eventually in one's own" (57) and "Despite the illusion of giving understanding, what seeing through photographs really invites is an acquisitve relation to the world that nourishes aesthetic awareness and promotes emotional detachment" (111) relates to the photographs by Ole Marius Joergensen and Martha Cooper/Henry Chalfant.

Finally, send me a photograph of an object that is important to you.  Do not explain the significance of the object, but do give your photograph a title.  I am going to post these to the blog, so don't send me any images you don't want to share.

"America, Seen Through Photographs, Darkly"

In "America, Seen Through Photographs, Darkly," Sontag analyzes (and critiques) a retrospective of the photographer Diane Arbus, whose work she compares and contrasts with Edward Steichen.  While both Steichen and Arbus present images of individuals outside of any historical or political context, Sontag argues that Steichen focuses on the positive aspects of this human condition whereas Arbus focuses on those grotesque, uncomfortable universal realities.

For this blog post, look at the more recent photographs by Jana Romanova.  From your point of view, do these photographs have more in common with Sontag's description of Steichen or Arbus? Why?  In your explanation, use a quote from Sontag's essay.

Photography as Social Rite or Defense Against Anxiety

L. Navarro's "Courage"

M. Ruiz's "Sunshine"

E. Tapia's "Farewell"

H. Todd's "Trust"

K. Flom's "Basking in the Beauty of Nature"

M. Hallmark's "City in a Garden"

A. Maldonado's "Stop Growing Up, You Promised Me"

K. Smith's "Life Must Be Ruff"

L. Flores's "One of the Seven Wonders, in My Eyes"

D. Zbysenski's "Brothers"

R. Bristow's "Freedom"

D. Bollinger's "Time Off with Family"

D. Akins's "Running in the Rain"

M. Ward's "Through the Eyes of Innocence"

A. Garza's "Clinging to Childhood"

K. Marshall's "The Joy of Finding Purpose"

B. Ramirez's "Controlled Chaos"

R. Saceaux's "Stress Free"

R. Ruiz's "Namas-cray"

I. Mendoza's "Why Am I Here?"

A. Estrada's "Kid Drummer"

J. Zamorano's "Sea Your Life Away"

C. Parker's "Waves and Crosses"

L. Castro's "I'll Be Back to Help"