We’ll start with Liu’s “Notes on a Native Speaker.” In small groups, answer the following questions.

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?

From there, I’d like us to share our Wolfe-ian pieces: first in small groups, then in the whole group. How would we characterize Wolfe’s style? Short-write.

Finally, we’ll look at a piece from Katherine Boo called The Marriage Cure.  We’ll check out the first 4-5 paragraphs, comment on rhetorical style and then finish the piece for Friday.  On Friday, we’ll knock out the in-class rhetorical analysis essay.

Resources: Here are 3 anchor papers based on the Alfred M. Green AP prompt we did earlier. This is the scoring commentary which explains which paper got what score and why. I hope this helps you prepare for the in-class rhetorical strategy essay we’ll be doing on Friday.

HW: Read Boo’s piece. Take notes on style issues throughout and how you might learn from it were you to create your own creative non-fiction piece. We’ll also do the rhetorical analysis, in-class essay on Friday.

Image credit: nyike.com

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

Today, we’ll either re-familiarize ourselves with the MC questions we did for homework or start a new set of Multiple Choice questions.  I’m also hoping to try a cell phone polling system.  We’ll see. The point here is to get an idea about what types of questions to expect.

Next, we’ll read for about 20 minutes from “Arms and the Man” by Kathy Dobie. We’ll then discuss her style and try and flesh out a 3-4 bullet pointed description. Then, we’ll try to imitate her style while describing our “experience” over last weekend.

Finally, I want to take a shot at the rhetorical strategies flow chart. Here is the Inspiration file to get you started. OR, you can create your own low tech version with some big paper.

HW: Read Notes of a Native Speaker (in your 50 Essays anthology)and analyze it as a rhetorical text. What is the purpose, context, and audience for the piece. What methods does Liu use to connect with his audience and acheive his purpose?

Image Credit: The Hatfield Clan, Wikipedia