Freshman Composition Section C2
MW 11:00-12:15 with Prof. Olivia Wood
Due 11/30
Find TWO examples of Scarcity Appeal
And TWO examples of some of the cognitive biases (so, maybe you find one example of anchoring effect and one example of confirmation bias)
Provide any necessary context for understanding the examples
Then analyze how these tactics are being used to persuade the audience
Humor Appeal:
Fear Appeal:
Something that I learned in this unit that I did not know before was the political activism that gripped the nation from the late 60s to early 70s. I had assumed that US citizens have always generally backed the country when we enter a war, as a common enemy has the general effect of uniting the people. This was the case in the American Revolution and both of the World Wars. However, in the case of the Vietnam War, I did not know that there was such a large part of the American population that opposed the US’s involvement. We specifically focused on student activism, which I believe was a good choice as it increased the material’s relevance to us as students ourselves. The theme of political activism for this unit was one that exposed me to the intricacies of the political environs during the Vietnam War and changed my understanding of the aims of the civil rights movement. It had never crossed my mind that apathy to the cause was such a great obstacle to overcome for civil rights leaders, but MLK’s words in his Beyond Vietnam speech conveyed that convincing people that inaction conflicted with his goals was a great burden to him. “A time comes when silence is betrayal”
While I feel that I learned everything that my professor expected of me in this unit I do have a couple questions regarding the anti-war movement opposing the Vietnam War. My central curiosity is to what degree these protests affected the withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam, if at all. Secondly I would have liked to learn more about the key civil rights leaders involved in the movement and what sparked the rapid activism in the 60s for social justice. Despite slavery’s abolishment taking place half a century prior, what was the catalyst for change from the 60s-70s that was not present in previous decades?
A main strength of my writing in this unit was the research that I did for the topic. While it could be argued that I was given the tools through the library session and some of my sources came from the class materials, regardless the sources I used for my paper were extremely relevant to my topic and useful in proving my claims. I am most proud of my use of comparisons across different people as evidence to show the similarities between them. If I were to revise my writing I would make sure the sentence structures were better as I rushed to complete the paper, and I might change the sequence of ideas, as I felt at the end that perhaps I should have said some things before others.
I would rate my engagement in the unit as very high as I completed all my assignments and put in a lot of effort in my responses, however participation in person was very low for me as I have trouble speaking publicly, despite having some things to say. Something that I did in this unit that helped me be successful was doing the readings so that I would understand what the professor was talking about. Besides understanding during class I also saw that the readings would directly improve my writing as I had more ideas to comment on and rhetorical devices to experiment with. In the last unit there was a greater emphasis on writing skills and understanding rhetoric, which I thought had a broader application on our lives in the future. This unit focused more on political history and the uses of rhetoric throughout it, and while it is important to show examples of how rhetoric has been applied with varying degrees of success in real-world situations, I would argue that these examples should be limited in their use; their purpose is showing students why they should learn about rhetoric. I think showing examples of rhetoric should be a resource used in every unit as opposed to just one.
I think that I performed worse in this unit as a student as I submitted a couple of assignments past their due date and I have not been able to improve much on my participation. However, I am satisfied that my writing has improved since the last unit thanks to the rhetorical devices we practice in the book and the exposure of information we get from class. I hope to progress steadily to achieve my goals as a writer.
The Women’s Suffrage Movement- for the beginning we have to go back in history to October 28th 1886, when President Grover Cleveland took the stage on Liberty Island, New York. He dedicated the Statue of Liberty, a gift from France representing freedom and democracy. But suddenly women’s rights leader Lillie Devereux Blake and 200 tother women sail by on a boat. They/re golding a sign that reads “American women have no liberty”. At this time women in the USA didn’t have many rights. And they haven’t had it since the first settlers arrived. That time:
-Women weren’t encouraged to go to college (few colleges for women existed anyway).
-Women were expected to marry and care for their children, husbands, and households.
-Once women did marry, they were entirely dependent on their husbands.
-Women couldn’t own property, and they had to give any money they made over to their husbands to manage them.
-Women weren’t allowed to vote.
By the mid -1800s women started to fight back, demanding suffrage, or the right to vote. These women were called “Suffragists”. Women were fighting for theirs rights for so long by small steps e.g strikes with amount of 300 women. These women been putting masking tape on their mouths which had to show that they don’t have a right to speech. Other popular move was protest signs and popular sentence these days was “How long must women wait for liberty”. However the biggest impact started in 1917, when the USA entered World War 1. Many men went to Europe fight, and many women volunteered there as nurses. Women also filled Jons in the states that had been held by the men now overseas. Realizing how important women were, President Woodrow Wilson changed his mind about the suffrage movement and started supporting women’s right to vote. Unfortunately most of these women were white, and other races had to keep fighting for their rights.
In 1935, Mary McLeod Bethune, the daughter of former enslaved people, founded the National Council of Negro Women to advocate for more equal opportunities for Black women in housing, education, employment, and healthcare. The organization still exists today.
In 1972, thanks to the ongoing strong voices from women, Congress passed Title IX, a law that makes it illegal for schools to discriminate based on gender.
In 1981, Sandra Day O’Connor became the first female Supreme Court justice. In 2007, Nancy Pelosi became the first female speaker of the House.
Today, women around the world continue to be inspiration for other women in other countries to fight for their rights. It’s sad that in 21 century not all of people have liberty. In my opinion that movements are necessary and should be promulgated.
1. For sure there are many things that I learned by this unit, but first thing that comes to my mind is looking more for propaganda, how does it works, what was the beginning etc. I mean I really get to know more about it.
2. That thing is exactly same things like in a previous point. I get to know more about propaganda and that even made me to learn more about it.
3. Personally I’m focused to learn better “office talk”, but I’m doing it by my own also.
4. I’m the most proud about “This I believe” essay, because I really had no idea about what should I write and to be honest I done it 1 day before final due. I’m really proud that I found something about I can write.
5. There are many things that I could do better. I always say like something can be better, even if something is awesome, that can be do better. So I would write better my “This I believe” essay.
6. Those were really cool, I like them. Thing that I like the most is our professor’s approach to the students and topics.
7. I made huge research of my whole life while trying to find topic for my “This I believe essay”
8. There’s nothing in my mind right now that I would like to do in 2nd Unit except learning “office language” which I pointed previously. If there will be something more I will notify my professor.
9. In my opinion Internet is the best support and actually I used it couple times for this unit, so we already got the best kind of resource/support.
10. As I pointed previously I got really good professor who know how to teach and she’s also kind which is really important, that was really import for me for my college classes I really enjoy that classes.
11. Propaganda topics was really cool and I really enjoyed that, I’m still learning about them, researching informations etc. so if that would be back in next unit I will be really happy and excited.
Some things that I felt like I have learned was the ability to gain the audiences attention a lot better by using different forms of Rhetorical devices that I never fully understood before. Being able to learn how to grab the readers attention using different techniques and skills was something that I really enjoyed learning how to do.
One thing that I already knew was metaphor. But the more I read about how metaphors can be used to make your language sound more nice, I am now able to have a better idea of what message I can send by using something else.
I would like to learn a little bit more about Anti-thesis. I don’t really have questions about it but I do think that understanding anti-thesis is where I am stuck at.
A strength that I would say I had during this unit was being able to jot everything I had in my mind down on paper before beginning revision. I would always stress about how a first draft needed to be perfect. This unit, I was able to find a better plan of action in order to reduce that stress and I was able to accept that a first draft doesn’t need to need to be perfect. It’s always important to be able to write your ideas down on paper first before anything.
Something that I would like to do differently is to add some dialogue do give a little bit of an in-depth experience for the reader to make them feel like they are actually in my shoes.
I think that my participation was fairly decent and I always had something to respond to and share my ideas on.
Something that helped me be successful this unit was being able to use prior knowledge in my english classes as well as using my present knowledge to have an understanding of what exactly I wanted to write for my essay.
I would like to try and get a head start instead of waiting until the last minute to complete an assignment because I feel like I could have had more ideas if I simply just started a little bit early.
I do not wish that I had any additional information for this unit. All of the information that I learned and had was more than enough.
Every piece of information that was presented this unit didn’t give me any problems whatsoever. My favorite activities would have to be either bandwagon or fear appeal.
I would like to discuss a little bit more about propaganda and in depth on the positives and negatives of it.
The following passages are from “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” written by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. There are very few question marks in the paragraphs, yet Dr. King has effectively used hypophora through implied questions and answers. Read this excerpt and underline all instances of hypophora.
While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling my present activities “unwise and untimely.” Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries would have little time for anything other than such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statements in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.
I think I should indicate why I am here In Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the view which argues against “outsiders coming in.” I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every southern state,
with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some eighty-five affiliated organizations across the South, and one of them is the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Frequently we share staff, educational and financial resources with our affiliates. Several months ago the affiliate here in Birmingham asked us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct- action program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented, and when the hour came we lived up to our promise. So I, along with several members of my staff, am here because I was invited here I am here because I have organizational ties here.
But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their “thus saith the Lord” far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco-Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid…. You deplore the demonstrations taking place In Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city’s white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative….
You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are quite right in calling, for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.
Exercise 2:
Your future may depend on who is elected.
Liberty, Equal rights, and Independence
Vote for people who align with our values.
Because people would then have more money.
You are showing your emotions and feelings towards someone which is a good self-trait.
Human are more intelligent than Animals in different aspects.
Rhetorical Question Exercise
Write 5 original rhetorical questions to help your readers arrive at—and agree with—the point to which you have been leading them. The first one has been done for you as an example.
1. Write 5 original rhetorical questions to help your readers arrive at—and agree with—the point to which you have been leading them. The first one has been done for you as an example.
1. Why should we not protest selling our natural resources to the highest bidder?
2. How else are we supposed to go finish our homework?
3. Why are we here?
4. Is it possible we can finish this earlier?
5. What is happening to me?
6. Why do I have to do this?
As a kid growing up, I believed that everything was easy to get my hands on and that finding a good-paying job was just as easy. For me, life was kind of like fun and a rollercoaster at the same time. There are lots of challenges and obstacles you have to go through in order to get what you want. As a young kid from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, it wasn’t as easy as other people painted it to be. I grew up in a city where not a lot of people could get out. Growing up wasn’t easy, and I had to start from the beginning. From having no friends, not knowing the place I was brought to, struggling to learn English and having no communication skills with others around me, at the time, money wasn’t something I didn’t have, and my parents worked hard to support me and my little sister. It was hard at times when help was needed, but we still got through those hard times and challenges.
My parents were both young at the time; my father was about 26 and my mother was about 21. They were learning at the time to be the best parents they could possibly be, but, of course, they were not always the best all the time. My father dropped out of college because he felt empty without playing his favorite sport, American football, and my mom also dropped out of high school due to having me at the time. They gave up their education and dreams to raise me and my sister, so my parents always expected me to be this nice kid that was going to grow up and have lots of money with a career, like any other Hispanic parent would think at the time for their child. My parents have always supported me throughout all the circumstances in my life and have given me advice on almost everything you can think of in this world. There were certain moments that were very hard for me, and nobody was there for me, so during those times I had to figure it out for myself. Making that translation in life was hard for me because I was struggling to keep up and overcome that struggle.
My younger self wouldn’t understand why I was brought to a whole different country. All I knew was that this place had a lot of opportunities and lots of buildings and people. I came from the Dominican Republic, where not a lot of kids had the opportunity to go to school or have the money to support their families. As a kid, my parents always expected me to be the person they imagined I would be, but I always told them that it wasn’t as simple as they thought. My father would always tell me that I should do what they say when it comes to my future, but I told them that a kid has the right to do anything in life, not just become the person they wanted me to be. It took a long time for him to understand, but he soon noticed that as long as this kid makes money and supports his family, then he will be good in the long run.
Younger me was always a quiet one and often didn’t like to talk out loud or in front of people because I was afraid that people would judge me for not knowing English. This would affect me in class because I would not even raise my hand or talk out loud during a class discussion. When it came to parent-teacher conferences, my teachers would say I would mostly lack motivation and need help with my social skills in class. The teachers at my school didn’t teach well and were always ignoring students. But out of all the teachers in my school, there was always one teacher that saw in me and knew that I had the potential to succeed and overcome those challenges, but I didn’t see that in me at the time. I was struggling to keep up with other students in class, and my English was terrible. It was to that point that I even got bullied for not knowing English. It got to the point where I did not want to go to school or even be near anyone because I was afraid that I was going to get made fun of again.
Moving on and meeting new friends while in school was a big accomplishment for me and played a big role in the person I am today. Having friends in and outside of school made it really easy for me to socially interact with new people I didn’t know and also helped me discover new places I didn’t know. I was raised to be a straight “A” student, especially by Hispanic parents in general. They want their kids to be as perfect as possible and to have lots of money, with a career, and a woman that can cook and talk to them as well. My father was always strict and tried to prevent me from hanging out with the wrong crowd and staying away from negative influences. I really appreciate him doing that and raising me to be the person I am today. But there were certain times when he was way too strict with me, and it really interfered with me socializing with others around me.
Overall, the challenges I have faced through my years of living in New York City were not easy for me and my family, but as life went on, I have learned to overcome those challenges and better myself as a person. Learning is an important part of growing and bettering yourself to be a better person. Something I’ve learned and witnessed firsthand in life is that you have to work hard to get what you want and get where you want to go. I can say that I learned a lot and overcame lots of challenges and hard times when growing up in the city. I believe now that it is not easy to get what you want in life. Now I have to work hard to get what I want. Some might hide them from others, and some might have none at all. Besides that, growing and learning are such a big part of maturing and releasing at the end that it was worth the risk and the challenge to continue to push to become the person I am today.
