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.