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?