Writing Groups Peer Response (5 min)
Make sure you coordinate with your Writing Groups to share your drafts for the Literacy Narrative Revision due October 1.
Like last time for the Literacy Narrative Draft 1, make sure you all know how you are sharing your drafts, who is reviewing them, what the deadline for sending drafts, deadline for getting feedback to each other, etc.
Group Historians: Email me a quick update on how the Peer Response went for the Literacy Narrative Revision: who reviewed what, what the deadlines were, how it went in general. Do this by October 1 by 3pm.
Activity Accountants: keep everyone on task with reminders about upcoming deadlines and other important reminders.
Community Builders and Group DJs: Just do some fun goofy stuff as much as possible.
Remember, too, that you can rotate roles as you see fit. I also typically like to change the groups around mid or 2/3rds the way through the semester to get new perspectives, so you can just wait until then, too.
Style Practice (20 min)
Sentence Variety
Why vary sentences? Here are two passages from your literacy narrative drafts. How are these sentences varied and how does that add to the reading experience for you do you think? If it makes it more readable, why? Is there a rhetorical effect? What is it, if so?
Mohsin Hamid was the first of many Pakistani writers I discovered. Sorayya Khan and Bina Shah amongst them. What I shared with them was language. They wrote in English, but to call it English would be inadequate. We all spoke the language of perseverance, loss, and uncertainty. The language of adaptability. The language of nostalgia and home.
So, my mom made a very conscious effort to talk to me all the time. All the time! She did this because she wanted to learn more about my brain – to see if I could remember things, come up with new ideas, ask unique questions, and so on. These conversations with my mom was where my love for language was cultivated.
Sentence Position
What are the different rhetorical effects of the following sentences with the same information, but that information belonging to different positions (adapted from Martin Camper)?:
- Sailing through the air with ease, the trapeze artists amazed the crowds of tourists all day.
- The trapeze artists, sailing through the air with ease, amazed the crowds of tourists all day.
- The trapeze artists amazed the crowds of tourists all day, sailing through the air with ease.
Literacy Narrative Revision Components (20 min)
Let’s take a quick look at the Literacy Narrative Revision prompt.
Choose at least one of the below components for the Literacy Narrative Revision and think to take some time to articulate to yourself what your plan is for revising in response to that component.
Three main components in revision:
- Thinking about the Literacy Narrative criteria Liao mentions as common in this type of writing
- Thinking more specifically toward a more set genre: the letter or the memoir
- Thinking toward stylistic adjustments and polishing sentences, now that ideas are more set
I am going to pair you off so you can talk to each other about:
- Your revision plan in relation to one of the components above
- How your Writing Sessions went (the ones you wrote about for today)
Rhetorical Analysis: Lenses (10 min)
There are lots of options!:
- Ethos/Pathos/Logos
- Audience
- Purpose
- Genre
- Media
- Constraints
- Exigence
- Kairos
- Gender
- Queer theory
- Critical race theory
- Intersectionality
- Marxist theory
- Postcolonial theory
- Disability studies
- Ecocriticism
- Posthumanism
- Psychoanalysis
Each of these lenses have more information on them in “Tools for Analysis” that was due for Tuesday (9/22).
I just wanted to take a moment to underscore the following:
Using one of these lenses or a combination of them can help focus your analysis in ways that can be helpful. There are SO MANY things you could possibly talk about when analyzing a text, so lenses help focus us to make a meaningful analysis.
Now, not any one of these lenses can work for every single text very easily or usefully. BUT, there is a lens here in this list for every text.
However, for example: Most texts have audiences, many texts make assumptions about gender that can be useful to analyze, most texts are affected by the sort of media they are composed for, many texts can be situated in contexts of colonialism, race, larger environmental concerns, and so on.
A final note: a rhetorical analysis or criticism of any kind is never to be thought of as “well, the maker of this object should DO IT THIS WAY INSTEAD.” It can be that. But, really, the heart of criticism is to notice things and comment on them. There can be a piece of art that works really well as is, but it still is always worth it to point out aspects of it that are notable to highlight.
Tristen Chau Rhetorical Analysis
We will talk more about this piece in the future as you get deeper into your rhetorical analysis assignment, but, for now, I wanted to talk through this question:
which lens or lenses do you think would be accurate for what Chau took on? Why do you think that? Can you point to 1-2 examples that support your claim?
Next Time (2-5 min)
-No class or meetings on Tuesday, 9/29 for Yom Kippur. No Learning Module, nothing due, etc.
-please work with your Writing Groups on when you are going to share an in-progress version of your Literacy Narrative Revision with your group members and deadlines for getting feedback to each other. Activity Accountant: make sure everyone is set on this. Group Historian: let me know by October 1 at 3pm how this went.
-For October 1 at 11:59pm, you will submit your Literacy Narrative Revision.