What is a Rhetorical Analysis Essay?
A Rhetorical Analysis Essay is a writing piece that signifies the author's approach to gaining an intended audience towards their purpose in writing by connecting their message to the further appeal of the audience. The intended audience is the focal point to the development of an effective rhetoric writing, where it consists of critical thinking and innovative organization among the structure of ideas conducted. These techniques contribute to the overall argumentative cause, that consist of a thesis statement that’s followed throughout the entire theme of the essay, using sufficient evidence to support claims like conducting quote analysis prior to explaining and connecting it to the audience interaction (feelings) to the author's message, making the writer a reliable and credible rhetor. As part of the WR 37 Intensive writing requirement, me and my fellow peers have been working on the GA essay for several weeks now with the help of metacognitive reading assignments, Perusal annotations, McGraw-Hill Connect, class discussion/activities and short timed writing assignments to develop our further understanding of the elements of rhetoric.
Artifact #1
(Comparason between thesis statement)
Original: Although Gloria Anzaldúa text, "How to Tame a Wild Tongue '' follows the conventions of a memoir in which she remembers, reflects and reminisces on experiences from the past to the future. She uses both the literacy narrative and academic discourse genre, to demonstrate obvious conventions. For instance she used both the english and spanish language in her writing to further her point and connect with male American readers, While also using symbolic representation upon something that seems completely different, prior to using personal experiences. Which helps her with developing further connections upon the cultural differences and racism that separates a person and their native language, due to feeling ashamed and embarrassed.
Final: Gloria Anzaldúa uses Literacy narrative and Academic discourse genres, to demonstrate conventions in which she reflects and reminisces on experiences from past events to future conflicts. As she utilizes personal experiences with language to express metaphor as a convention, by showing her ability and knowledge among literacy. Where she demonstrates symbolic representations upon events that seem completely different, to communicate her message effectively. While also using Academic diction as a convention, with the use of 2 languages to further her point and connect to American scholars who are primarily males. By translating some of her Spanish phrases into English, while also setting a formal tone, yet including slang. Which helps her develop connections upon the cultural differences and racism that separates a person and their native language, due to feeling ashamed and embarrassed.
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These excerpts show a distinction between my original thesis statement that needs correction within explaining thoroughly the conventions I’m utilizing pertaining to the genre with an argument and the final thesis statement that’s modified with it conveying an arguable claim that states the main ideas, prior to the use of genre conventions.
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Analytical Reflection/Curation
From the side by side comparison, I learned how to construct a thesis statement that’s both arguable, yet sets the main idea about the topic to take a stance on an issue that can be supported without adding repeated words. Since my original thesis statement lacked an argumentative purpose that can be opposed throughout the essay, while identifying the topic clearly but in a vague way that’s unprovable. It set an unorganized structure of thoughts because not only was my thesis not argumentative, it was a reception of words that were used in the very beginning of my introduction sentence. Repeating words or phrases can distract the reader from your message or create boredom within the transitions of paragraphs that signify something that was already discussed. Being unique and new in your writing allows for more growth and effective interaction between your essay and the intended audience. While a well developed thesis statement, revolves around a theme that's going to be consistent throughout the essay while initiating support to the overall argument. Prior to the GA Essay, it utilizes writing genres and their conventions to demonstrate the audience connection to the author’s message with the use of techniques and examining the appeals set through the structure of a thesis statement, all in one for the introduction of the topic. For instance, my revised thesis statement shows an explicit coherent argument that can be argued, yet demonstrated to show the validation in your initial claim.This signifies two course objectives about developing arguable claims among the learning of metacognitive analysis and applying key concepts related to genre and rhetorical situations, that includes conventions, audience, context and purpose into my pieces of writing. This particular moment of learning demonstrates that I’m strengthening a key skill in critical writing by utilizing basic elements to construct an organized essay with the use of rhetorical situations. This learning is important to writing a GA essay because it structures the tone of the essay and the overall theme that will be discussed through context. Therefore, it demonstrates that I’m becoming a member of an academic discourse community within the choice of words used to display my style of speech to spark a conversation among the intended audience. The mastery of this skill enhances my academic ethos with persuasive rhetorical devices that speak to a person's sense of right and wrong through the development of a thesis statement.
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Artifact #2
(Comparison between transitional sentences in body paragraphs that introduces Academic discourse and it’s convention)
Original transitional sentence (Draft # 1)
Revised transitional sentence (Final Draft)
These excerpts show the difference between my body paragraphs that initiated transitional words to the overall introduction of academic diction and it’s convention with example from draft #1 that needs modification and the final draft that exceeds all modifications and corrections, prior from feedback.
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Analytical Reflection/Curation
From the side by side comparison of my body paragraphs, I learned that I showed growth through the use of effectively using transitional sentences, by connecting each thought process or idea and connecting it to the following paragraphs with the use of main ideas and introducing the relevant genre conventions that I’m utilizing. This particular learning, demonstrates the key skill that corresponds to the course objectives of structuring and organizing a Rhetorical Analysis Essay with the components of presenting a thesis statement within the introduction paragraph that institutes a historical background as the hook, body paragraphs that analyze the quotes used for evidence (more than 3 paragraphs), and the conclusion that demonstrates the audience realization or final comments on the author's message rather than restating the thesis or any other information that has been discussed throughout the body paragraphs.This demonstrates a key skill in understanding rhetoric and how I’m able to apply rhetorical situations to others' acts of communication by writing an effective rhetorical writing that circulates around the idea that the author uses language to influence an audience and analyze how their argument and message is being conveyed, with what techniques or strategies. This learning is important because it establishes the fundamental elements of a GA essay and its purpose on the persuasion of the audience, with good structure and organized thoughts not only to make sense, but connect to the overall theme of the topic being discussed. This gives me a broader insight of the different dynamics of essays and when to utilize each element in writings, in order to move onto WR 39C with the course objectives.This learning demonstrates that I’m becoming a member of an academic discourse community since I was able to communicate my argument through the use of genres in my body paragraphs, with the use of transitional sentences to develop more detailed information that requires sources. Mastering these skills enhance my academic ethos by critical innovative thinking and self-reflection.
Artifact #3
( McGraw Hill- Connect assignments)
Practice session: Integrating Sources in your writing
APA Format Citation
MLA Format Citation
Point of error (Draft #1)
The genre that formulates the purpose and message of the text, is Literacy narrative Academic discourse. Literacy narrative is a story that exemplifies own experiences with writing and reading (Lichtenstein 2019). Academic discourse is the language being used upon communication to enhance an issue (Palmquist 2009).
Point of Revision/understandin (Final Draft)
The genres that formulate the purpose and message of the text are Literacy narrative and Academic discourse. A literacy narrative is a story that exemplifies the author’s own experiences with writing and reading (Lichtenstein 23). Academic discourse is the language being used in communication to enhance an issue (Palmquist 20).
These excerpts show the different characteristics among an APA format of citation that was used in the first drafts of my GA essay and the MLA format citation that was later utilized in my final GA Essay.
Results from practice session
Analytical Reflection/Curation
From the Connect practice sessions from McGraw Hill, I learned how to identify MLA text style and format for academic writing, distinct to APA citations. With identifying sentences that use quotation marks correctly when it’s directly stated from an author, prior to when a statement is paraphrased. This demonstrates the key skill per the course objective: Credit the original ideas of others through proper attribution and citation, in accordance with academic writing conventions. This particular activity was a perfect practice because it showed your advancement through the questions being answered correctly and the ones that weren’t with time reliability. If you answered questions correctly, you would move on to the next question but if you answered the questions incorrectly, you would stay in the same level of question resulting in more time spent with the overall assignment. This demonstrates that I’m strengthening a key skill in my writing skills because I was able to construct and finalize my source of citation in my 3rd final draft in an accurate matter that resulted in me changing the author and the year which is considered APA citation, to the author and its page number which is considered MLA citation and what the rhetorical essay consist of. That is why it’s important to write the GA Essay since it’s constructed through the MLA format. This activity gave me clarity and insight and provided me with a better understanding of the different characteristics among APA and MLA format.This learning demonstrates that I’m becoming a member of an academic discourse community by understanding how to write in the disciplines, not just following the rubic. Being able to mentally know the steps to writing an effective essay, prior to it’s genre. Mastering this skill enhances my academic ethos with establishing my speech of writing by sounding honest to my intended audience and demonstrating to them my expertise with the use of accurate form of citation.
Artifact #4
(Peer Review)
Recieving feedback:
Jade Lynne Dunaway:
For the Portfolio page: The portfolio looks very similar to Teen Vogue’s. I noticed that Teen Vogue uses 13 Arial and you are using 13 Times New Roman. You follow the convention of memoir by telling genuine personal experiences of questioning yourself as a minority living in the United States which is guided by the event quinceanera and how you felt about it. (Mexican culture conflicts with American culture). You present at least two scenes with action, dialogue, and have a physical location of each of the scenes. Your message is quite clear: embrace the culture root of yours because it is unique and just as valuable as modern-major culture. Your target audience will be people from age 14-22 and from latin root who encountered the issue of fitting into American Anglo culture. For the portfolio page: Teen Vogue uses 13 Arial and you used 12 Arial. Other than that, you did a really good job on the portfolio page.
This excerpt gives a visual representation of my peer giving me feedback on my website portfolio regarding my model text imitation.
Giving feedback/peer review:
These excerpts give a visual representation of the feedback I gave to my peer regarding the structure of her GA essay.
Analytical Reflection/Curation
Giving peer review allows me to engage with other students' work by incorporating critical thinking skills and acknowledgment within connecting their mistakes to my own. Not only am I able to reflect on their work but also mine for future references and corrections among my own writing. For example, Emma tried to convince her auidnece through her emotion but when doing so she stated " It's hard to tell". This shows that emma is unaware and uninformed about the topic she is discussing, making herself seem untrustworthy as an acdemic writer. This could e.ffect her writing because her intended auidence can lose focus and engagment among her message. From this, I learned not to add phrases like "I believe ", "Maybe" , and " I think" into my final IP Multimodal Essay inorder to gain an audience appeal. Prior to receiving peer feedback on my portfolio page regarding the model text imitation of "Teen Vogue". I learned that I'm not using the same font as the actual website, I'm actually using 13 Times New Roman instead of 13 Arial throughtout my entire memior. This is helpful and something that I will incorporate in my final portfolio because it meets the rubric requirements of imitating the model text entirely which was something I lacked. My understanding of giving and recieving peer feedback can be applied to any future courses in an academic setting. By referring to individuals around me or past classmates that know my style of writing. So they can revise my work and give me additional feedback to better my skills as an academic writer. Meaning that when you recieve feedback, you don't always have to make those corrections, it gives you room to chose as a writer what steps are needed to make your writing stronger. Overall, these excerpts illustrate what I’ve learned within the value of giving and receiving feedback by improving formal mistakes and evaluating performances in order to significantly do better in areas that seem more confusing to me and be able to meet the requirments of the IP Multimodal Essay rubric .
Conclusion/Reflection
Due to the class assignments that I’ve been completing and utilizing throughout these past weeks, as a connection to my GA Essay and the IP Multimodal Essay. I feel that I’ve mastered my academic understanding of Rhetorical Analysis prior to my GA essay since I established the basic rhetoric components into my writing pieces with the use of genres and their conventions. Helping me conduct an effective speaking and writing piece towards my argumentative claim, in order to persuade the intended audience. I showed strength in the structure of my quote analysis by breaking down the quotations and giving an in depth explanation among the metaphorical use of language and diction that was utilized. I examined each idea until I reached it’s significant meaning and connected it to the author’s intended audience, by illustrating vivid imagery to make the interpretation easy to provoke the reader's emotion. In addition, to my IP Multimodal Essay, I feel that I've mastered the genre conventions among a memoir where I include myself as the first-person in regards to telling a nonfiction story about my past with the use of an experienced and innocent voice. Where I utilized rhetorical devices to show my emotion through descriptive context to gain my auidence, regards to my imitation of the model text among teens of color that range from 14-16. Connecting this to my feedback regarding how I demonstarte my memoir in Teen Vogue. As I had errors of complication where I showed a weakness of imitating the website incorrectly by using the font of 13 Times New Roman but as I start to turn those weaknesses into strengths as I changed it into 13 Arial, my final portfolio will meet all the requirements regarding the rubric.
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Artifact #5
(Comparison of Genre Conventions)
IP Multimodal Essay
Convention: Experienced/innocent voiced with vivid imagery
It's 2014, I’m sitting on the grass under the pine tree in my backyard, as ants crawl on my shoulder and eat the last bits of my red apple. Playing with my barbie dolls that look just like me; brown skin dolls with black long hair that cosplay as a fifteen year old quinceanera, as they wear pink puffy dresses. Seeing my dolls in cultural attire makes me want to wear a sparkly glittery dress with rhinestones that shimmer from the corset top to the bottom of the puffy gown just like my hispanic dolls. Making me want to relive a day as a princess that was once read upon my childhood books. As a brown little girl, whose roots are strongly connected to Mexican culture; a quinceanera is all I can dream about. Anticipating the moment of having the mother and father daughter dance, filled me up with so much excitement as I brushed my dolls hair, pulling one strand after another.
Convention: Character development
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It’s Spring March 2022, I’m 18 years old wearing a pink Mexican embroidered Floral top that’s hand stitched among every colorful flower that brings our culture to life: Roses, dahlia, poinsettia, and mexican sunflowers where I bought from the calles from mexico. My hair is in two long braided ponytails that are tied into a black bow to match my shirt. I’m finally wearing black embroidered huaraches with the same flower pattern I have on my top.
GA Essay
Convention: metaphorical language: As she utilizes personal experiences with language to express metaphor as a convention, by showing her ability and knowledge among literacy. Where she demonstrates symbolic representations upon events that seem completely different, to communicate her message effectively.
“ We’re going to have to control your tongue, the dentist says, pulling out all the metal from my mouth. Silver bits plop and tinkle into the basin. My mouth is a motherlode. The dentist is cleaning out my roots'' (Anzaldua, 33). The dentist represents the racial oppression that American society puts on native speakers since it shows the dentist's eagerness for wanting to drift her cultural roots away and the language that signifies her identity, by taking her native language away.
Convention: Academic diction as a convention, with the use of 2 languages to further her point and connect to American scholars who are primarily males. By translating some of her Spanish phrases into English, while also setting a formal tone, yet including slang.
Provoking anger among male Americans because they didn’t expect her to include bilingual language in her text, by translating her Spanish statements into English. This furthers her communication skills and connections with defying linguistic conventions. For instance, “Ruca means girl or woman, Valo means guy or dude , chale means no, Simon means yes, churro is sure. Through a lack of practice and not having others who can speak it, I’ve lost most of my Pachuco tongue”
Analytical Reflection/Curation
In my IP Multimodal Essay, I utilized the two genre conventions among my innocent voice to demonstrate my credibility as a writer with the use of vivid imagery to reveal my thoughts of emotion by explicitly stating a scenario from my childhood and how I felt among the quinceanera tradition as it conveys the unaware persona I was when the events occured, while also utilizing character development to show my progress upon embracing my cultural and ethnic background as I start to wear traditional attire, so my audience pertaining to teen vogue ( brown teens ranging from 14-16) can connect and reflect upon events that may relate to them. In addition to my GA essay, I utilized the two genre conventions of metaphorical language as Anzaldua demonstrates symbolic representations upon events that seem completely different, to communicate her message effectively by using the dentist as the means to extract her tooth but in reality he’s removing her ethnic roots, taking her native voice away. While also utilizing different languages as Anzaldua translates some of her Spanish phrases into English, while also setting a formal tone, yet including slang to indicate her rebellious structure of writing so her intended audience ( American scholars who are primarily male) can specify that her tongue is a motherlode and no one can limit her native language away as it’s something that they (Americans) wouldn't expect. By analyzing these excerpts side by side prior to being a memoir, I learned that the genre conventions help the text flow in a chronological order of events where the story finds a more personal and emotional arc to follow with just an aspect of one's timeline as it’s an examination of oneself. As In my GA essay, Anzadula was able to acknowledge that she shouldn't be ashamed of her native tongue because it creates her identity and strength among her own cultural roots by establishing the use of her native tongue, Spanish, to prove her point across. While in my IP Multimodal Essay, I was able to acknowledge the value that my latina roots hold to developing my identity and the importance of my cultural beliefs while accepting my dark skin, brown eyes and dark hair as beautiful, with retrieving character development and the innocent voice that lead to my progression of thought.
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Artifact #6
(Rhetorical Devices)
IP Multimodal Essay
Rhetorical questions :
Asking myself, “What should be my name?” “ What should my first post be?” “ Who should I follow?”. It was a fun teen experience that wasn’t harmful. Atleast at that moment I thought.
Personification:
Months pass, It’s Fall September 2017. It’s a cold rainy day, the branches were hitting the rooftop of my window as the wind howled in sound and swirled through the open cracks and into my bedroom, that let in a fresh cold breeze.
GA Essay
Hyperbole:
The Chicano Movement was created for protecting Chicano’s formal rights, to institute equality among education, restoration of land, and gain fundamental rights. They intended to end discrimination and stereotypical ideas that many Americans formed about Mexicans, with personal opinions and assumptions by embracing the Mexican/Chicano identity. Resulting in racial trauma and emotional damage, that’s created among discrimination of one’s native language. Undoubtedly, it demonstrates a dramatic sequence of events that cause mental and emotional injury based on discrimination, which can lead to psychological impacts on self- worth and the ability to feel guilty about speaking one's native language.
Anecdotes:
“I remember being caught speaking spanish at recess-that was good for 3 lick on the knuckles with sharp ruler”
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Analytical Reflection/Curation
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Two Rhetorical choices that I employed in the writing of the IP Multimodal Essay compared to the GA essay are rhetorical questions and personification. While for my GA Essay I utilized hyperbole and anecdotes. For my IP Multimodal Essay, I applied rhetorical questions in which the audience can make a critical observation upon their own thoughts and ideas among questions that are unanswerable but can connect to the writer in a personal level by inferring own views since it has more of an effect when readers draw their own conclusions to reach the message of the overall text. I also applied personification with the use of “ The wind howling” as it provides an innovative way to look at certain familiar ideas in a more creative and eye catching way to gain my audience attention pertaining to teen vogue ( brown teens ranging from 14-16) as I make the non-living object lively and more vivid. These conventions compare to the objective voice to the point of view I created in my GA Essay because I applied hyperbole as I included historical background that occur in past time about “The Chicano Movement” to prove my point upon Anzaldua’s message, of not letting the closing linguistic borders control her language with the use of exaggerated claims for a greater impact as I expressed strong emotion. By including “Resulting in racial trauma and emotional damage, that’s created among discrimination of one’s native language” to evoke a sense of reflection among her white audience that intervene with the native language spoken among individuals but yet is limited. I also applied anecdotes since Anzaldua utilizes it throughout her writing to give the reader an example of the struggles she has as a child pertaining to learning the English language since she sees herself speaking Spanish the majority of the time as she states, “ “I remember being caught speaking spanish at recess-that was good for 3 lick on the knuckles with sharp ruler”. Gives the reader an example of the consequences that were given if she spoke Spanish, this effect creates a sympathetic response from the audience.
This shows a similarity among genre conventions as hyperbole and conventions as in my memoir I used historical in a sense that it surrounds my overall main idea of home, family, and cultural by including how has a child I wanted a quinceanera but overtime as I got older and was introduced to social media, I was influenced of not wanting to express my ethnic background. These differences are in point of view significant because they demonstrate the structure of each genre of writing and how it influences a certain group of audience prior to the convection being used to gain the persuasion of the raeder regarding the message being conveyed.
Conclusion/Reflection
As I compared the genre conventions utilized upon my GA essay and the IP Multimodal Essay on how they help convey my message prior to gaining the persuasion of my intended audience. I learned that it’s important to identify a text’s genre and its conventions because they usually have an objective reason on why they may exist in a storyline, satisfying the reader's expectation regarding their imagination and them being able to illustrate events through imagery prior to rhetorical context. Not only does it help readers comprehend the theme of your writing but as an academic writer, it helps you figure out how your audience may act, respond, and interact in the situation in which you are writing about. As it’s a guide for orienting readers to a genre based text, in regards to anticipation on what they are likely to find and how they can use the information to make their own assumptions and point of views. The concept of genre helps prepare me for different kinds of writing that I’ll be asked to produce while at UCI and beyond because I will be able to structure and organize any writing piece for the accommodation of any audience and gain their appeal. Since I will be able to make strategic choices of what information to include and how I can present it; choosing a genre consists of deciding what issues will be the main idea and what role the readers will play. For instance, when you encounter a literary genre pertaining to a memoir like my IP Multimodal Essay, you know to read it thoroughly and follow the baseline of the plot/storyline so it will give my audience the same idea too.