Your second rhetorical device is due Monday in class. Ideally, you’ll print it, but you can also share it via Google Docs.
Please remember to do the formatting correctly and to take your device from either the Henry V or Julius Caesar speech we read in class.
These are the templates you can use for the rhetorical device assignment.
Your revisions (printed, attached to the checklist, and stapled to your first draft with all changes bolded) are due Friday in class.
The revision guide is available in the downloads section of the web site.
And here is a sample paragraph from 2014 to help see how you might improve your essays. Please remember to only use this as a guide. Make sure your essay reflects your own language and thought.
Sample Body Paragraph 3
Finally, Carson argues (paragraph 4), through a series of questions, that the blame for the destructive use of pesticides lies not on the farmers, but on the people in charge that are misleading them misleading them. Her excessive use of hypophora combined with anaphora of the word “who” reveals the extent of the damage caused by the poisons and creates a feeling of desperation. She compares the “ever-widening wave of death” to “ripples” in a “still pond,” pointing out that if the use of pesticides continues as it has been, the situation will only get exponentially worse. Carson’s imagery with the “lifeless remains of birds” strives for an emotional response from the readers. She is striving to garner sympathy and anger. She also juxtaposes the “heaps” of dead blackbirds resulting from pesticide application with the “leaves that might have been eaten” if the poisons weren’t used, revealing what is truly sacrificed for a greater crop yield. Carson continually asks who “has the right to decide … that the supreme value is a world without insects,” suspensefully searching for someone to blame. In the end, Carson reveals that the “authoritarian temporarily entrusted with power” is the one responsible for these mass killings. By calling the person in charge an “authoritarian,” she conjures up thoughts of power-abusing dictators. The word “temporarily” suggests that the “authoritarian” isn’t thinking ahead to the long-term effects of pesticide use and is, instead, only focused on the present. This is a dangerous quality for a leader, especially when the fate of the environment is at hand. In addition, Carson contrasts the sole leader making these destructive decisions with the “millions to whom beauty and … nature still have meaning,” demonstrating that she doesn’t blame the public entirely, but suggests that they have the ability to make a change. Carson believes that the public has been cruelly misled, effectively directing the readers’ anger towards the “authoritarian.” By writing that the fault lies in the person wrongly entrusted with power, the public gets inspired to question the leader as Carson questioned them.
Your essay about policing in the United States is due by the start of class on Wednesday. Please be sure to read the prompt and follow all of its requirements, including the use of sources and MLA citation.
Don’t forget that first drafts should reflect careful editing and attention to detail.
You will have some class time on Tuesday to work on the essay.
