Monday, September 24, 2012
Scaring Voters in the Middles- September 23rd
First, I apologize for not posting yesterday. There is no excuse for my forgetfulness, and I am sorry for any inconvienience that I may have caused you. That said, I have written a post and would love to have your feedback on it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/02/opinion/sunday/kristof-scaring-the-voters-in-the-middle.html?ref=abortion&_r=moc.semityn.www
Scaring the Voters in the Middle
The details in this piece are stunning. It is a political piece, and a contraversial one, and the details that they chose to incluede do try to persuade the reader to come to their side. The author leaves out Obama's stance on abortion and instead focus soley on the opinions of the Republican party, painting them in a shady light. "Mr. Romney, if you don’t know your own position on abortion, how are we supposed to understand it?". It's a running joke that Romney is a horrible flip-flopper, and this quote is meant to invoke feelings of dark amusment.
"When teenagers in places like Darfur, Congo or Somalia survive gang rapes, aid organizations cannot use American funds to provide an abortion." The imagery in this is that of a young woman in a third world country, beaten and horribly abused, is presented with the news that she is carrying the child of one of the men who raped and tortured her. And there is nothing she can do about it. She'll have to have a constant reminder of what happened to her. It's a very dark and deep and horrifying scene to imagine, and even more so when we know that there might have been something we could have done to help her. The author is skilled in the way they paint this picture to stir our emotions.
Its the last line of the piece that really puts the icing on the cake though. "Some Americans don’t even seem to have had any sex education by the time they’re elected to Congress. Like Todd Akin." Obviously, Akin must have had some sex education in his lifetime, but in the author's opinion he isn't acting like he has had any at all. They wrote like this is all ridiculous, and by the time I was finished, I agreed with them. This is an excellent persuasive article.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Though certainly a quality review of the article, you didn't follow the ap lit guidelines very well. I think that you first quote was meant to be an example of detail, but I don't see how it was. If it was, great, but you should explain how it is. Your example for imagery was a strong one and you did a great job of explaining it. The last quote you use, you don't say which type of technique it is or explain it as a technique. Though if it wasn't for the necessity to stick to the rules of ap lit, I'd think your analysis was great.
ReplyDeleteI think it would help if you split up the paragraphs with line spacing. It would make it easier you to see where each paragraph begins and ends and overall make it easier to read and review. I do like the use of your example about imagery. You explain it very well and did relate it to imagery. You should also use 3 of the 5 DIDLS, to provide a more complete analysis of the article. The other examples that you give, just say that, this is persuasive and don't explain how they are persuasive.
ReplyDeleteThe analysis in this response seemed a little thin. You gave the quoted example and the gave a quick analysis of it but didn't really delve into what techniques were given and how those techniques created effects and meanings. You were clearly persuaded by the end of the article so the technique must have been good. What techniques really pulled you in? You mentioned imagery which was analyzed well, but what about diction, details, language or syntax? Was imagery the only technique in the article? It might help you next time to make a list of examples for each of the areas of rhetoric and then you can use that list to decide which areas to analyze. Paragraphs, as Mohan mentioned, would also make it easier to read and understand the flow of the analysis.
ReplyDelete