I have assimilated…hernia hernia

We’ll start with the rhetorical flow chart…Either go lo-tech (big piece of paper) or high-tech (inspiration file) and create a set of boxes to help anyone make decisions about what to look for when analyzing the rhetorical strategies of piece of writing. Here’s 1st period’s work. Here’s period 3 (also as a .pdf).

Then, we’ll use the student-created flow charts with the following prompt:

Next, in small groups, we’ll answer the following questions about “Notes on a Native Speaker.”

1. What is the purpose of the list that opens the essay?  How is it meant to engage the reader?
2. How would you describe Liu’s attitude towards being “white, by acclamation” (par. 2)?
3. How does he define “assimilation?”
4. In pars. 7-10, he describes himself at a crisis point. How did he get there? What’s the problem?
5. Explain the paradox in paragraph 42. How could it be resolved?
6. What’s the deal with the hair? Why is it such a concern for him?
7. What is the overall organizational structure of the essay?
8. Note the authorities Liu cites.  How do they establish his appeal to ethos or logos?
9. What is the main claim Liu is making in this piece?

Finally, I want to look at a short excerpt from Tom Wolfe’s Kandy Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby.  How does Wolfe use unconventional style choices to elicit and invoke the place he is describing?

HW: Become a Wolfe-ian.  Describe a place or event as you imagine Tom Wolfe would.  Go overboard on the onomatopoeia. 200-300 words