Rhetorical Appeals Homework
1. Pathos is the use of emotional appeals to make a stronger point.
2. The advertisement I chose is for animal cruelty. It’s the longest commerical ever and really makes their point by making the commercial as sad and depressing as possible. Sarah McLachlan is the spokesperson of the SPCA and they use one of her more popular songs, “Angel,” to make it more effective. The commerical is trying to get you to donate money monthly, to help abused and neglected animals. They show really cute animals that look sad and some that are unhealthy or hurt. Even if you don’t like animals all that much, this commercial is so sad to watch. The pathos are used very effectively and the commercial makes you want to donate the money.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gspElv1yvc
3. The quote I chose is from Atwood. I think that it uses pathos effectively to make the extreme situation seem like the hard life it is to live. He says specifically what they use to make food and what they wear, and it really does make their living conditions seem like a hard life.
“Life has never been easy for the people of the far north. For many centuries they lived
in one of the most unforgiving climates on earth: no trees, no agriculture, extreme cold and
darkness for many months of the year. Using tools made of stone and bone, wearing clothing
made of skins, relying largely on fish and on the meat of seal, caribou, polar bear, walrus, and
whales, they had a culture finely tuned to their environment. In this culture, men and women
were interdependent: hunters provided most of the food, but their clothing was made by
the women, and unless it was made very well the hunter could die: a leaky kamik could
mean a frozen foot. Each set of skills was known to be necessary to the survival of all, and
each was respected.”
2/9
A good literacy narrative needs to have a good story for the audience to enjoy. It can’t just be an informational story without any subject or moral of the story. A good literacy narrative also should be targetted correctly towards a specific audience so they can relate somewhat or at least like what they are reading. It could even encourage or motivate the audience after they read your narrative.
Activity 2
Considering what this article said for literacy development in general, I believe it is true. Everything we say has been said before from someone else’s mouth. Maybe not in the same context or exact same way we said it, but it has been said before. We did not come up with the words or language we use today. It has been here for years and years. There has been old and new ways of saying things, and language is always changing and evolving. This connects to my own literacy development because no matter what I say, technically, I am not the original one who made it up. The way I see it, even if I say something differently than some one else, it has still been said in some other way before I’ve said it. This does help my literacy development because I am able to come up with things to say, but it makes me feel like I am never coming up with anything original in my life. It’s kind of weird actually.
Activity 1
1. My parents and famliy members because they are the ones who taught me to read in the very beginning. Without my parents, I wouldn’t even be alive. They believe that I can do anything if I put forth the effort and try to succeed. Their attitudes are always optimistic, especially when I am being pessimistic.
2. My parents again for basically the same reasons. They believe in me, therefore they want to see me succeed in school and in the future. Their attitudes are always going to be optimistic for me as long as I am putting forth the effort to do well.
3. Anyone who helped me throughout life could be a potential reader for this approach. Books I’ve read, toys I played with, my babysitters, all played an ideal part in my beginning learning stages, as well as all the teachers I’ve had and have now. Most teachers believe we can do anything if we put in the time and efforts.
4. I guess for the competition I don’t really know who would be the ideal reader. I suppose other classmates may have been competition at some points in my schooling and if they were to read it they could relate to what I have to say. They probably believe they had competition too at least once in their life and feel the same way.
5. Any teachers I’ve had could be an ideal reader for this approach. They bring the other side of the story into my side. If I had bad experiences with them then they could see where I was coming from and compare it to what I was coming from. They may believe that I am in the wrong, but you never know. They could end up agreeing with me sometimes. Their attitudes would probably be somewhat agreeable to mine or feel like they didn’t do their job well enough because I had a bad experience with them. Teachers probably feel like they failed in their mind when a students’ needs weren’t fullfilled from their teaching.
2/4 blog
1. My parents, family members and my friends sponsor my literacy. They are all very supportive with my education decisions and encourage me to do well in school. Especially if they know I am having trouble in a class or taking a class I don’t like very much, they will encourage me to get through it and try my best.
2. I would say my parents sponsored my literacy development because they are the ones who introduced me to everything before I went off to pre-school and kindergarten. They taught me the first things you start to do in life; walk, talk, draw, etc. Without them I would have been lost going into pre-school.
3. Access played a huge part in my development as a literate person. Without access to resources like my parents, books, games and toys, I would have never learned as quickly and as early as I was able to.
4. There were not really competitions associated with my literacy development at first, because my brother and sister are older than I am so there wasn’t all that much competition between us when we look at first learning how to walk and read and stuff.
5. I think that if I had good experiences in school growing up, then what I learned during those years would have stuck with me and influenced me more so than if I didn’t enjoy or had bad experiences with teachers or classes. I know this is true because there have been a few select teachers I’ve had and schools I’ve attended growing up, that I disliked and had terrible experiences with and I don’t remember much from those years because the fact that I didn’t like them. On the other hand, I have had great experiences with other teachers and classes and that reflects what i’ve both learned and remembered in the long run.
2/4 What is a narrative?
A narrative is a story told by someone. Narratives can be for many purposes like for entertainment or learning. My experience with narratives is not a lot. I don’t really remember writing a lot of narratives recently, but I feel like when I was younger I had to write a lot more narratives.
Visual Narrative feedback response
After talking with my writing group and listening to what they are all doing for their projects, we all have similar ideas. We all have similar ways we use literacy throughout our day to day lives and our visual narratives will reflect that. I am going to use a posterboard display to show how I began to use different forms of literacy and up to how I use literacy now. Using mostly magazine cut outs and maybe some pictures from the internet, I hope to be able to show everyone what literacy means to me. As well as, how I began using literacy more and more in my everyday life. I don’t want this just to show that I can read and communicate with others because that is obviously apparent. I want to show that I use literacy for almost everything in my life. You need literacy to do almost everything in life. Without it who knows where we would be right now. Reading is something that I came to enjoy in my teenage years. I never really like to read, but after chosing one book to read on my own and being able to read whatever I wanted, made me love reaidng. Now I somewhat like to write also. Literacy is very important in my life. Without it, I wouldn’t be able to do many of the things I enjoy doing, or that help me communicate with others. I hope that my ideas I have, are reflected just as well in my visual literacy narrative.
My visual narrative
For my visual narrative I am making a poster board and showing all the different ways that I use literacy. I will show in the begininning when I really did not enjoy reading. Then go into some of my favorite books I do enjoy reading. I am going to try to use mostly magazines for my pictures.
I agree completely with the article, The Elements of autobiography and Life Narratives. If you think about what the author said about drawings, how he used literacy to draw pictures, then used words to make the pictures come to life, that is exactly what literacy should be. You are using more than one form of literacy to make something more understandable and come to life. Do you agree with this as well and if not why not?
1/26
A good visual narrative needs to be entertaining. If you are just watching a slideshow of pictures, that is not very effective. It also should be clear to getting your point accross to your audience. I think music is helpful to have in the background as well. It needs to be creative so your audience is not bored while watching it.