Rhetorical Analysis workshop

Here is the Pre-writing list of questions to prepare  you to write your final essay: Rhetorical Analysis Assignment

Here is a useful how to for RA: http://www.wikihow.com/Write-a-Rhetorical-Analysis

Here's another one: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/725/03/

An example of rhetorical analysis of a U2 song! http://grammar.about.com/od/essayassignments/a/Rhetorical-Analysis-Of-U2s-Sunday-Bloody-Sunday.htm

Improving your Style Imitation

Peer Response

Today we will be doing the hard work of helping each other improve your first draft of Steinbeck's syle imitation in order to make it an excellent piece of writing.

In your university groups,  answer the following questions for each member:

Peer Response for Style Imitation

Due Thursday!  (shared in google docs and put in my dropbox on my blog :)

Style Imitation

FRIDAY:  Composing your style imitation

Intercalary Chapter Outline

Once you have found your passage, mark it up!  Take notes on the important stylistic devices at work in that specific passage.

Note where you see:

1. Highly poetic images
2. Descriptions of nature
3. Metaphors, similes, personifications
4. Dialogue as people spoke it
5. Word collages
6. Effective Syntax & Diction =Tone (see handout)

Then, start to write following that passage closely (or not!  Maybe you want to just start writing and go with your sense of Steinbeck.  After all you did just immerse yourself in his novel!).

The ending to GOW and Steinbeck's Signature Style

The ending to The Grapes of Wrath:

Today we will closely examine the ending and evaluate the timed writing you did yesterday, using the Smarter Balanced rubric for Argumentative Writing.

I hope this can lead us to a careful examination of the ending and how it works or doesn't work.

Style Imitation

The first part of your final assessment for the GOW unit is a Style Imitation.  Please follow the instructions on the assignment (follow the hyperlink in the previous sentence.). 

We will go to the lab and review the Study Sync binder, looking for the feedback you received on your essay from Chapter 15. 

Then, you will create a google doc where you can begin typing in the chosen passage from GOW that you want to imitate.  Please come to class Friday with a printed version of the passage to work with.  

"Finished this day--and I hope to God its good."

Today we will consider closely the ending to The Grapes of Wrath.

Two biblical allusions to consider:

1. Moses and the bullrushes-- the biblical leader from the Old Testament who is saved in a basket placed in the bullrushes of Egypt.  

      related---the African American spiritual: 

Refrain:

Go, tell it on the mountain,
over the hills and everywhere;
go, tell it on the mountain
that Jesus Christ is born!

2. Rose of Sharon:  "I [Christ] am the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valley" (Cant. 2:1) 

"This thy stature is like to a palm tree and thy breasts to clusters of grapes" (Cant. 7:7).  

"In the Eucharist, Christians believe that Christ gives himself, body and blood, in the form of bread and wine."  -Center for Learning

We will start with a multiple choice quiz (10 minutes) and then I would like you to practice doing a timed writing about the ending of the novel (25 minutes).

You may use your book.

Thursday we will read and evaluate your responses.

Finding the ghost of Tom Joad

Do you see him?

If you don't, check out this New Yorker article on Pope Francis.

CHAPTER 28: I'll be ever'where--wherever you look."

The last two intercalary chapters:  27 & 29

We read these two together, discussing the ironies, the imagery and the connections to other parts of the text, focusing more specifically on their placement at the novel's end and what is suggested by that.  

Tom Joad's farewell speech....

Below are various video riffs off of this moment in Grapes of Wrath.  Today I would like you to respond in a free write to Tom Joad's farewell speech in an attempt to capture what this scene means to you.  What/who do you see in this speech?  Consider the context of the speech and how that adds to its impact.  Also, what will happen next?  What does his departure mean for the family?

FRIDAY: "You don' know what you're a-doin'."

Chapter 25: The Old Testament Plagues  What is Steinbeck's purpose is making this allusion to the bible?

Chapter 26:  Quotation Quiz and Groups decide significance--share out.

Are there any Biblical Allusions in chapter 26?

Homework:  Read 28 for Monday, 30 for Tuesday....and we're done!

Next week you will be asked to start work on two final pieces for our Grapes of Wrath unit:

• a rhetorical analysis of one intercalary chapter
• a style imitation

THURSDAY: My Eyes Have Seen the Glory...

Today we will finish reading Chapter 23 and look for places in the text where Steinbeck asks us to find the holy in the places where it isn't normally associated.

Then we will read Chapter 25 and answer multiple choice questions about it.  The Battle Hymn of the Republic

Monday's class: Setting up Literature Circles for chapter 22

Agenda

1. Quiz on Chapters 19 and 20 and 21

2. Discussion of the ending of chapter 20 in order to model the activity below. (see our shared google doc folder for the passage)

3. Students met in groups to assign roles and prepare for a discussion tomorrow on Chapter 22.

LITERATURE CIRCLES FOR CHAPTER 22

CONNECTOR:  This means connecting your reading to your own life, to happenings at school or in the community, to similar events at other times and places, to other people or problems that you are reminded of.  You might also see connections between this passage and other parts of the novel or other texts on this subject.

SUMMARIZER:  2-3 sentence summary that covers key points, main highlights, and general idea (“the gist”).

DISCUSSION DIRECTOR:  4 questions about chapter 22  (Why or How questions)

PASSAGE PICKER: Find 3 key passages to present to the class because they relate to big ideas, character development, effective rhetoric/persuasion.

Chapter 19: Thursday's class

Please see my announcement below for information about my interventions next week.  There will be a sign up--enrollment stops at 30.

Rhetorical Analysis:  a marriage between content and form

Today we answered content questions about Chapter 19 in order to get at Steinbeck's purpose and message.  

Then, I asked students to consult their notes to pinpoint two rhetorical or stylistic ("voice") strategies that Steinbeck uses to achieve his purpose here.

Students constructed a thesis that follows the frame: 

Steinbeck uses (don't forget a good modifier here)________________ and ___________________ in order to emphasize/show/ persuade _________________________________________________________________________. 

Homework is to study Vocabulary for tomorrow.  Chapter 22 is homework for the weekend. 

Wednesday's class

Warm up: Chapter 18 multiple choice questions (16-20)

Learning targets today:  

To discuss intertextual connections in Chapter 18.

To identify elements of voice (and rhetorical strategies too) Steinbeck employs in Chapter 19:

VOICE (style):  diction, imagery, detail, syntax, figurative language, tone

RHETORICAL DEVICES: organization, rhetorical appeals, irony, mode, literary elements (plot, character, setting, dialogue)

Tuesday's class: Chapters 16 &17

Reminder: Please review two student papers in studysync.com this week.  Hit the "review" button on your account to do this.  You must leave comments and a rubric score.  

Discussion points from today's class:

GOW

Quiz

16

Identify speaker, context, and significance.

1.  “It’s a hard thing to be named a bum.  I ain’t afraid,” he said softly.  “I’ll go for you an’ your deputy with my mitts---here now, or jump Jesus.  But there ain’t no good in it.”

2.  “Me---I’m comin’ back.  I  been there.”

3. “He felt his way to the mattress on the floor, and he stretched out and cried in his bed, and the cars whizzing by on the highway only strengthened the walls of his loneliness.”

17

4. God gave the Israelites the 10 commandments during their desert exodus.  In chapter 17, the migrants develop “new laws” which the Joads are given at the government camp.  What were some of the “rights” which become laws?  Are they at all reminiscent of the law of Mt. Sinai?  How are they alike/different?

Friday's class: STUDY SYNC on CHAPTER 15

On Thursday, we took a quick quiz on chapter 16 and finished discussing chapters 9-15 in brief.

On Thursday night, please try to watch the 15 minute video embedded in the assignment I have posted on http://studysync.com/ .  I am hoping that the discussion between the "students" will serve as a good inspiration for your writing, so listen carefully and take notes on what seems important.

On FRIDAY you will be working on an assignment on http://studysync.com/ in the computer lab.

You will have a choice between two prompts. 300 words.

Please write your essay and submit it to studysync before midnight on Monday.

HOMEWORK:  Read 17 and 18 by Tuesday as well.  Come prepared with highlighted or post-it passages.

Muley Graves & his philosophy: Chapter 6

"What I mean, if a fella's got somepin to eat an' another fella's hungry--why the first fella ain't got no choice [but to share]." (6)

What do these words indicate about the philosophy or values of Muley Graves?


What about this one?

"Cause what'd they take when they tractored the folks off the lan'?  What'd they get so their 'margin a profit' was safe?  They got Pa dyin' on the groun', and Joe yellin' his first breath, an' me jerkin' like a billy goat under a bush at night.  What'd they get?  God knows the lan' ain't no good. Nobody been able to make a crop for years.  But thems son-a-bitches at their desks, they jus' chopped folks in two for their margin a profit.  They jus' cut 'em in two.  Place where folks live is them folks.  They ain't whole, out lonely on the road in a piled up car.  They ain't alive no more.  Them sons-a-bitches killed 'em."

What about Tom Joad?

"You're talkin' sense...Ever' word you say is sense.  But, Jesus, I hate to get pushed around!  I lots rather take a sock at Willy." 

"No, I jus' tended to my own affairs...If you done somepin you was ashamed of, you might think about that.  But, hell, if I seen Herb Turnbull comin' for me with a knife right now, I'd squash him down with a shovel again."

Or Casey?

"Don't do it...It won't do no good.  Jus' a waste.  We got to get thinkin' about doin' stuff that means somepin."

"...maybe there's a place for a preacher.  Maybe I can preach again.  Folks out lonely on the road, folks with no lan', no home to go to.  They got to have some kind of home.  Maybe...."

Grapes of Wrath: reading assignment for the break

Read chapters 8-15 of The Grapes of Wrath over the three week break.

Take notes on the links between chapters and any themes you notice (post-its are good for this one.), as well as references to animals/human/machines.

You have key questions for each chapter in your take-home packets....use them to do a quick write after you have read each chapter.

Possible themes:

business
ownership
I to We
dehumanization
family
injustice
hunger

there's more....if you see a different pattern, note it!

Chapter 3: The Turtle Crosses the Road

In class today we read Chapter 3 of The Grapes of Wrath, looking at the turtle as a symbol for the Joad's journey in the story.

See reading schedule below.