Sorry about neglecting to update yesterday! We took a break from Nixon and discussed some arguments (and issues) that you all brought in. Your passion for the subjects was fantastic! I’m very excited to do it again next week. Presidential rhetoric can be inspiring, but may seem less immediate than the works you brought in.

Today we wrapped up Nixon’s speech and you began writing your first analysis. We are learning by doing here, so don’t worry if it feels a bit unclear. Here’s an excerpt from a previous student’s work to give you an idea of what we are working toward:

The audience—the average, tax-paying American citizen—has a potentially negative view of any person who may be involved in politics. Due to so may examples of politicians whose moral values have been worse than expected, politicians’ ethos have generally crumbled.

To lift this assumption from his own credibility, Nixon makes clear his modest personal life. He speaks of his two (though small) homes, and of the slight financial stress they have caused. Mention of debt immediately “speaks” to the audience, as they can likely relate to his troubles. Their pre-existing feeling of stress translates into empathy for Nixon.

He takes a more positive approach in his use of emotion in mentioning his family—his wife and child. Yet again, relating to the audience with a kindness toward their family, he uses their feelings of love and adoration to make his own situation relatable.

These are small paragraphs, and not supported with the text (please support your points), but this works well. The student begins each paragraph with an overview of Nixon’s actions, follows with paraphrasing from the speech as evidence (please cite yours), follows that with insight into the audience’s feelings about the topic, then concludes with analysis that shows their new vision of the candidate as a relatable man.

Here’s another example with the same elements more tightly united:

The manner in which Nixon displays American virtue gives him a special edge with the audience—primarily patriotic Americans. He uses the repetition of “I’m proud” (Nixon 3) to convey his inherent pride as an American, and pride in the work that he’s done to accomplish his goals, like any normal citizen would. He later quotes Abraham Lincoln, who says, “God must have loved the common people—he made so many of them” (Nixon 5). This may resonate with the audience, as Abraham Lincoln was a truly model American, and for Nixon to appear as virtuous as Lincoln gives him credibility. A bit later in the speech, Nixon admits that he “loves his country” and thinks it’s “in danger” (Nixon 6) and if he is showing concern for the average and everyday American, then what makes him any different from the rest of America?

This one does nicely in tying Nixon’s words to a belief shared by the audience and relating it to their hypothetical view of the candidate within each sentence.

Tonight (as I have your readings and the beginning of your outlines) take a look at the “Rhetoric” handout I gave you—what genre does this speech fit best within? There are several parts to the “Ethos” section—what appeals named within do you recall from the speech?

More tomorrow, then on to Kennedy! As always, send me an email or post a comment if you have a question or idea.

Sorry I missed a post yesterday! We spent the day writing over the three short stories we’ve read so far. Today, we discussed my feedback on your rough drafts/outlines and continued working on the drafts.

The goal is to find commonalities (you can simply compare your annotations for a starting point here), then place those within the paragraph section of your outline. Once you’ve done that, take a step back and ask, “What do we learn from this? What is the message?” That’ll be your thesis. Note how each paragraph in your outline contributes to your answer, and those will be your topic sentences. From there it is simply a matter of turning the outline into an essay.

As always:

• Avoid retelling the story (your audience has read them!).
• Use proper MLA citations for each work: (Author page number); (Ellison 7).
• Bring the stories together within each paragraph; don’t devote a paragraph to each story.

We began reading and annotating Nixon’s “Checkers” speech in class today as an introduction to ethos. We’ll continue in the coming days, but I’m excited for something a bit different tomorrow: you are to bring in an argument of your choosing in any form. It can be a print advertisement, an essay, a commercial, a speech, a blog post, or anything else you find, as long as it is argumentative. We’ll talk about them in class tomorrow.

As always, if you have any questions, please send me an email or comment below.

We wrapped up the third in our initial series of depressing short stories: Ursula K. LeGuin’s “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.”

After discussion about the nature of the hero, the desire for happiness, and the relationship between rebellion and oppression, I asked you to begin laying out a plan for a paper. Here’s the prompt:

Write an essay in which you explain what a reader should learn from these three stories. Do they all say the same thing? Do some disagree? How are they relevant?

Wrap up your annotations tonight and we’ll begin writing in class tomorrow.

Great discussions over the past few days. Here are a few sources we’ll get to tomorrow:

The Forest of Rhetoric will be our go-to site for information about rhetorical devices, techniques, and history. A wonderful rabbit hole.

Etymonline should be bookmarked on all of your devices; knowing the etymology of a word can make it more memorable, and a working familiarity with roots and such makes figuring out the meaning of words much more precise.

From the board today:

The following contribute to the tone of a work. Know them. We’ll discuss more tomorrow.

• Diction
• Imagery
• Detail
• Figurative language
• Syntax
• Metonymy
• Synechdoche
• Euphemism/dysphemism

If you lost your copy of David Foster Wallace’s speech to the graduates at Kenyon College, I found another transcript here. ((Please note that his language is occasionally not school appropriate; I edited the copies handed out in class, but (of course) these sources are not so edited. We’ll continue to discuss his language, as it is vital to understanding.))

Audio of the speech:

An interpretation: