I HAVE A DREAM

There is no individual who used rhetoric better than Martin Luther King, Jr. He changed the world and started a revolution, all from behind a podium. Im sure we are all familiar with his speech, so I am going to pick out a few points where he kills the rhetorical game :)

Firstly, King uses alliterations often. At times in his speech, his words sound like a poem or a song, and those are the quotes people don't forget. Example: Rise from the dark and desolate…the marvelous new militancy…trials and tribulations…"

He also uses allusions, referencing common themes in American's pasts. These are things we all share and can relate to. For example, in I Have A Dream, King said "Five score years ago, a great American…signed the Emancipation Proclamation."

Finally, King states a lot of his points twice in a row. This also makes it stick in the mind of listeners, and it also makes the statement more intense. "America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” 

What do you guys think about rhetoric in King's famous speech? Can you find other examples of the techniques I presented above? 

Mediating Language at Home

I live in an apartment with two of my friends.  Most of the time, everything is great.  We have a lot in common, so we do a lot of things together.  We do projects together (our latest project is building a wood lathe), and we generally get along really well.  However, living with anybody can cause animosity.  One of my roommates is a very opinionated person.  He’s a great guy, but he is very stubborn. Sometimes I wish he would compromise more.  One of the things that gets on my nerves the most is when he doesn’t clean his dirty dishes.  Whenever he uses a dish, he just throws it in the sink, claiming it needs to “soak” before it can be washed.  In reality, he could just rinse it off and put it in the dishwasher.  Unfortunately, he doesn’t see it this way.  When confronted about them, he claims that he will do them later, but invariably, either my roommate or I end up loading the dishwasher.  The problem is, the sink gets so full we can’t load all of the dishes in the dishwasher, so the sink is only half empty, and it quickly fills up again.  These situations are very trying, and it very important to use mediating language when dealing with them.  If not, angry roommates can make life difficult and not enjoyable.  Mediating language is there to make sure that we’re still friends when we move out.  I’ll be happy when that is the case, but I also wish that he would do the dishes more often.

If I Taught This Class

This class was a lot different than I was expecting.  If I taught it, I would do some things different, but all in all, I enjoyed the class.  I really liked how the class was structured overall.  We started out very small, just figuring out some problems in our community, and we ended up writing a research paper aimed at proposing a solution to one of those problems that we originally came up with.  I really liked how the assignments, for the most part, were aimed at getting us to explore different rhetorical ideas, and building on those ideas up to the final paper.  The most helpful assignments were the presentation and Assignment 2.1, where we had to argue both sides of our argument.  The presentation helped with the organization of my arguments.  I was able to group arguments and find sources that pertained to each group.  Assignment 2.1 was helpful because it is easy to forget that there are two sides to an argument, and that if you don’t address the other viewpoints, you won’t be very convincing in your argument.  It is easy to list all of the reasons why you think you are right.  It is much harder to formulate arguments for why someone else is wrong.  The biggest thing that I would change about the class is the structure of the blog.  I feel like part of the reason that there are so many people posting on the blog so late is that there was a lot of ambiguity as to what we should write about.  We didn’t know what to write about, so we just didn’t write.  If the blog was given more direction, or specific prompts for some of the posts, I think that we would be much more compelled to do the posts.  In addition, I think that this would allow for much more discussion in the comments. All in all, I’m glad that I took this class, and I think I am a better writer for it.

Movie Trailers

Have you ever watched a movie trailer and been really excited to see the movie, but then you go to the theater and walk out wishing you had your $15 back?  If it was a comedy, they put every joke in the trailer, and the rest was filled with awkward dialogue and little plot.  If it was a horror movie, they put every jump scare and blood curdling scream in the trailer, but overall the movie was underwhelming.  Too often this is the case.  You know why this happens?  Because the directors of the movie trailers got an A in their college rhetoric class.  They are intimately aware of who their audience is and what makes them tick.  They know how to sell movies.  They can make any movie, no matter how mediocre it is a whole, shine in a trailer.  It’s all about knowing your audience and using that information to carefully edit and string together scenes that will get people interested.  It is quite analogous to the introduction to a paper.  That’s where you catch the attention of the reader, and make them want to continue reading.  If the rest of the paper is not well written, they will have the same feeling as you did when you walk out of the movie theater after a bad movie. The most important part of your paper is the introduction, because even if you have a good argument, nobody is going to read it if the intro is not interesting.  However, make sure you don’t have a good intro with no meat in the rest of the paper.

My Favorite Part of the Class

My favorite part of the class was the different medium presentations. It really let me delve into different research aspects of my topic without doing an entire research presentation. For my medium, I chose to write a blog. My favorite part of the blog was interviewing one of the students from a nearby, low income school that I tutor. Even though it was not in my community, I feel that I gained perspective on what it feel like to go to school in a low income school, and be a minority. (I am a minority and did go to a low income school, but it wasn't the same). But it was enriching experience hearing from another person about how they felt about their school and how they felt about being in a primarily minority school. It tied well into the school district I was focusing on where almost 96% of the district is minorities. I feel that research and overall statistics are important, but  behind those statistics are real people, an aspect that people tend to forget about. I feel that having the interview in my blog strengthened the pathos, and provided a first hand student perspective of being in a disadvantaged school situation. After that interview, I felt more than ever there was a definite inequality in education.

Language is Weird

My friend and roommate recently told me about an exchange that he had with a teacher of his and his academic adviser.  He has a Co-Op this semester, so he is not taking any classes.  He works 9 to 5 every day, so it was difficult for him to meet with his academic adviser to discuss his registration for next semester.  Most of his contact, he did via email with his adviser and the chair of the aero department.  In one such email, he was complaining to the both of them that the schedule for his classes didn’t make sense.  Somehow, two of his classes were scheduled at the same time, and they were supposed to be taught by the same teacher.  In the email, he made it very clear that he needed advice as soon as possible.  In the subject of the email, he put “PLEASE RESPOND” in all caps.  In the body, he included something to the effect of “the schedule is whacked.” He received a quick response from his professor, however his academic adviser was not very happy with his email.  She felt that his email was not professional enough for the setting.  This is a great example of how your audience determines how your writing will be interpreted.  She also did not appreciate the use of caps in his subject.  She thought that it was too demanding.  Audience is everything in your writing.  My friend had to write a very carefully worded email to apologize to his adviser.  This is a very real example of what we learned in class.

Comedians: Master of Rhetoric

The 2013 White House Correspondents' Dinner was a wild success that year. A comedian is a person who job it is to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh with through jokes, slapstick, or amusing situations. Being a comedian is very different as they need to make funny and do stand-up face of a large audience. Jokes can be anything from word play, gags, subtle or humorous intention. A comedian need to be a master of rhetoric because their stand-up act and jokes require it. Presidents Obama made jokes about the government and have a good time. Conan O'Brien took the stage that Saturday night and was the comedian who spoke at the White House Correspondents Dinner. He gave about thirty minute speech to close the annual dinner attended by celebrities and politicians. He made funny the politicians, news networks, and several other current events. They could easily get into serious trouble if they make wrong jokes about certain issues or events. O’Brien uses satire, but he mainly used anodyne, not to offend anyone. O’Brien used comedy to touch on several issues and events occurring in the media and the government doing that time period. The some of the people in the crowd do not react that strongly because some of them take it too seriously.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJvS4aTcUyQ