Blog Elements

Below are a few general issues that you should consider as you write your revisions of your Kelley analysis essays:

Analysis means how and why. How and why.
Need to avoid literal analysis/summary of any sections of the piece. Focus on analyzing her use of language and strategies, not telling what she said.
Don’t divide the piece in such a way that you create tiny, insignificant paragraphs.
Commas go inside quotations marks.
Topic sentences should be focused on arguments above subjects.
Use the term pathos when appropriate. Isn’t it in this piece?
Thesis statement should definitely say something more sophisticated than “Kelley uses rhetorical devices…”
Stop telling me that a particular line or phrase “catches the reader’s attention.” More sophisticated analysis!
Tone is the author/speaker’s attitude towards a subject.
Embed quotations correctly.
Make sure you have an adequate number of points of analysis. Rather than belaboring a single point, address many points.

If you are interested in reading an essay the College Board gave a high score, check it out here. It doesn’t follow all the rules we’ve discussed and certainly has some issues, but it’s an interesting piece to look at.

Despite the fact that we just finished the environmental ethics unit, I thought some of you might be interested to learn that those tight, cramped gestation crates used for pigs might soon go away in the United States thanks to McDonalds, of all corporations.

From the New York Times:

The effect on the industry will be huge, because in the world of big-time meat supply, there are two kinds of producers: those who sell to McDonald’s and those wish they could. When, in 1999, McDonald’s requested that its suppliers give caged hens 72 square inches of space instead of 48 (72 is still smaller than a piece of 8×10 paper), not a single factory-farmed hen in the country was being raised with 72 inches of space. Yet the entire supply chain was converted in just 18 months, and 72 square inches is now effectively the industry standard.

There is no real downside here: the McDonald’s move may not be bold, but it’s the right one; its timetable may not be swift but it’s probably the best that anyone could expect. Yes, sows will still be raised in what can only be called industrial conditions and no, the numbers of animals killed for meat will not decrease. But we can expect that this is not simply a P.R. ploy, and that the results will be positive.