Fluent Essays

Task: For this essay, you will analyze and evaluate the effectiveness of the rhetoric in ONE of the assigned readings listed below. This means you will need to first identify the occasion, purpose, main argument, and audience of the text. Then, you will analyze how the argument is supported (logos), how the author’s credibility is established (ethos), and how it connects to the audience’s emotions (pathos). You should ultimately be making a claim about the rhetoric’s effectiveness. Assigned Readings: “Rigid Rules, Inflexible Plans, and the Stifling of Language” by Mike Rose “Revision Strategies of Student and Experienced Adult Writers” by Nancy Sommers Organization: For this essay, you must have the following sections in the following order: I. Introduction This section should identify the text’s title, author, and where it was published as well as establishing why the text is worth examining in depth before providing the thesis statement. II. Background - Rhetorical Situation This section should focus on providing the reader with information about the rhetorical situation. You should identify the occasion, purpose, and audience if not mentioned already in the introduction. The main argument should be briefly summarized. You may use quotes or paraphrases to support the other identifications. III. Argument - Rhetorical Appeals This section should analyze the logos, ethos, and pathos. The analysis section can be organized chronologically (the first paragraph covers all notable appeals in the first section of the text, then the second all in the second section, and so on) or by appeal (each paragraph focuses on a single appeal and draws examples from the whole text). Both have their advantages and disadvantages. This should be the longest section of the essay. IV. Argument - Evaluation This section makes the final connections needed to prove your thesis by determining the overall effectiveness of the rhetoric. For this essay, that means proving one of the following three options: 1) ethos, pathos, and logos are very strong, 2) one of the appeals is weak but the other two are strong enough or more important, or 3) two of the appeals are weak but the one most important for convincing that audience is very strong. An appeal is considered effective if it can achieve the author’s purpose for the intended audience according to the constraints of the genre and occasion. V. Conclusion Section This section reminds the reader of the thesis and why the findings are important.­ Tips for Success: Remember that these are both articles written for important academic journals in the field of composition. Choose examples from throughout the text even if you are not using the chronological order. Draft one section at a time. Especially if you find yourself very busy, dividing the essay into smaller parts can give you easier goals. Avoid using first or second person. The kind of essay this is does not call for either. Requirements: Follows given organization pattern (do not include headings) Properly cited textual evidence from one assigned reading 1000+ words (excluding Work Cited page) MLA format The following content is partner providedRevision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers NANCY SOMMERS Nancy Sommers, formerly Director of Composition at the University of Oklahoma, is now Adjunct Assistant Professor at New York University. She has taught writing at Boston University, the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, and the Polaroid Corporation. An NCTE Promising Researcher for her studies of the processes of revising, she is writing a research monograph on revision. [page 378] ALTHOUGH VARIOUS ASPECTS of the writing process have been studied extensively of late, research on revision has been notably absent. The reason for this, I suspect, is that current models of the writing process have directed attention away from revision. With few exceptions, these models are linear; they separate the writing process into discrete stages. Two representative models are Gordon Rohmans suggestion that the composing process moves from prewriting to writing to rewriting and James Brittons model of the writing process as a series of stages described in metaphors of linear growth, conception—incubation— production.1 What is striking about these theories of writing is that they model themselves on speech: Rohman defines the writer in a way that cannot distinguish him from a speaker (A writer is a man who ... puts [his] experience into words in his own mind —p. 15); and Britton bases his theory of writing on what he calls (following Jakobson) the expressiveness of speech.2 Moreover, Brittons study itself follows the linear model of the relation of thought and language in speech proposed by Vygotsky, a relationship embodied in the linear movement from the motive which engenders a thought to the shaping of the thought, first in inner speech, then in meanings of words, and finally in words (quoted in Britton, p. 40). What this movement fails to take into account in its linear structure—first ... then ... finally —is the recursive shaping of thought by language; what it fails to take into account is revision. In these linear conceptions of the writing process revision is understood as a separate stage at the end of the process—a stage that comes after the completion of a first or second draft and one that is temporally distinct from the prewriting and writing stages of the process.3 The linear model bases itself on speech in two specific ways. First of all, it is based on traditional rhetorical models, models that were created to serve the spoken art of oratory. In whatever ways the parts of classical rhetoric are [page 379] described, they offer stages of composition that are repeated in contemporary models of the writing process. Edward Corbett, for instance, describes the “five parts of discourse—inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria, pronuntiatio—and, disregarding the last two parts since after rhetoric came to be concerned mainly with written discourse, thereRhetorical Situation Rhetorical Feature Identification What is it? Textual Evidence What suggests that answer? Explanation Why does that text suggest that answer? Occasion To teach based on the responses of freshman college students and experienced writes Title of essay, Revision Strategies of Student Writers and Experienced Adult Writers Audience Teachers This study was based on the responses of freshman college students and experienced writes. sequence of changes in a composition Purpose To persuade teachers and students that revision is an important key to a good essay Writer sees their revision process as a recursive process, each cycle of writing is important seek to discover meaning in revisions imagine a reader when writing, helps influence their revision process Sommers suggested that writers should focus on the idea of the work, elaborate those ideas, and find a position for their work Argument/Message How to revise a paper She explains that the students did not see revision as something they actually do but as a term their instructor uses Sommer ending words, “Good writing disturbs: it creates dissonance. Students need to seek the dissonance of discovery, utilizing in their writing, as the experienced writers do, the very difference between writing and speech- the possibility of revision”   Rhetorical Appeals Rhetorical Appeal Textual Evidence What in the text makes that appeal? Explanation How does it make that appeal? Evaluation Why is this an effective or ineffective appeal? Logos Four revision operations were identified: deletion, substitution, addition, and reordering. Also four levels of changes were identified: word, phrase, sentence, and theme. These methods were the most common among the writers as processes for revision. Author used comparisons Effective appeal, logic of argument Logos revision is understood as a separate stage at the end of the process—a stage that comes after the completion of a first or second draft and one that is temporally distinct from the prewriting and writing stages of the process Audience will think that what author was saying makes sense Effective appeal, logic of argument Ethos The study included twenty freshmen from Boston University and the University of Oklahoma with SAT verbal scores from 450-600. Also included twenty experienced writers, including editors and journalists. The examination consisted of writing three essays each (twice) with a total of nine essays. These essays were analyzed and categorized identifying different revision operations. Use of credible source Effective appeal, Author’s credibility and character Ethos Nancy Sommers conducted a series of studies over three years in which she studied revision processes of student and experienced writers to see their methods of revision during their writing process expression of experien