Analyzing Literature and Reading Rhetorically Resource 1

Questions Rhetorical Readers Ask What questions does the text address? Why are they significant and who cares about them? Who is the intended audience? Am I a part of this audience? How does the author support their argument with reasons and evidence? Is it convincing? What is omitted from the argument? What devices are used to hook and keep me reading? Does this work for me? Why? How does the author seem credible? Is it credible to me? Are the writer’s values, beliefs, and assumptions similar or different than my own? How do I respond to this text? Will I challenge or back the text? How has it changed my thinking? How do this author’s evident purposes for writing fit with my purpose for reading? How will I be able to use what I’ve learned? Why? How?

Ben Lusk- [email protected]

Analyzing Literature and Reading Rhetorically

Reading Logs Reading logs are designed to help you remember what you have read and to take notes of interesting or particularly important passages in the work. In addition, you will have an accurate account of how the author achieves their purpose, theme and style. In a notebook with plenty of space, create a four-column journal with the paper running sideways landscape style. Column 1 Copy an important or catch quote from the work and be sure to include the page number of the quote. Column 2 Note the type of rhetorical strategies used in the selection: structure, syntax, diction, tone, use of detail, imagery, repetition, figurative language, poetic devices, symbolism, etc. Column 3 Write your dialectical thinking in the third column. Dialectical thinking is thinking that asks you to respond to the quote or to discuss the quote’s significance to the overall theme, tone, syntax, or style of the author. Other items to include: make judgments, identify problems, raise questions, make connections to real life, make connections to other pieces of literature you’ve read, make inferences, develop insights and perceptions, make comparisons, draw conclusions, answer questions, note similarities, identify unstated assumptions, predict probable consequences. Column 4 Any additional ideas that occur after discussion, clarifications made by the teacher, further reading, or additional research made on the topic.

An example using Invisible Monsters

Ben Lusk- [email protected]

Analyzing Literature and Reading Rhetorically “Evie is standing halfway down the big staircase in the manor house foyer, naked inside what’s left of her wedding dress, still holding her rifle.” Page 11

Syntax- the juxtaposition of what is expected of a person in a wedding dress with the burned dress and the holding of a rifle

Since this is the beginning of the story, we have seen the end and the purpose of the story is to show us how our characters got to this point.

My guess is that what we think we know about the characters will quickly change as the story unfolds

Last Lines Read the following short passage and then underline your favorite line from the selection. After doing so, choose one of the following five questions to answer about that line

1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

I wonder about… I didn’t understand… I want to know more about… I am unsure of…. Give a personal response to the line

Invisible Monsters

Where you’re supposed to be is some big West Hills wedding reception in a big manor house with flower arrangements and stuffed mushrooms all over the house. This is called scene setting: where everybody is, who alive, who’s dead. This is Evie Cottrell’s big wedding reception moment. Evie is standing halfway down the staircase in the manor house foyer, naked inside what’s left of her wedding dress, still holding her rifle. Me, I’m standing at the bottom of the stairs but only in a physical way. My mind is, I don’t know where. Nobody’s all-the-way dead yet, but let’s just say the clock is ticking. Not that anybody in this big drama is a real alive person, either. You can trace everything about Evie Cottrell’s look back to some television commercial for an organic shampoo, except right now Evie’s wedding dress is burned down to just the hoopskirt wires orbiting her hips and just the little wire skeletons of all the silk flowers that were in her hair. And Evie’s blonde hair, her big, teased-up, backcombed rainbow in every shade of blonde blown up with hairspray, well, Evie’s hair is burned off, too. Chuck Palahniuk Invisible Monsters

Ben Lusk- [email protected]

Analyzing Literature and Reading Rhetorically

My Name In English my name means hope. In Spanish it means too many letters. It means sadness, it means waiting. It is like the number nine. A muddy color, it is the Mexican records my father plays on Sunday mornings when he is shaving, songs like sobbing. It was my great-grandmother’s name and now it is mine, she was a horse woman too, born like me in the Chinese year of the horse – which is supposed to be bad luck if you’re born female- but I think this is a Chinese lie because the Chinese, like the Mexicans, don’t like their women strong. My great-grandmother. I would’ve liked to have known her, a wild horse of a woman, so wild she wouldn’t marry. Until my great-grandfather threw a sack over her head and carried her off. Just like that, as if she were a fancy chandelier. That’s the way he did it.

And the story goes she never forgave him. She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow. I wonder if she made the best with what she got or was she sorry because she couldn’t be all the things she wanted to be. Esperanza. I have inherited her name, but I don’t want to inherit her place by the window. At school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth. But in Spanish my name is made out of a softer something, like silver, not quite as thick as sister’s name – Magdalena – which is uglier than mine. Magdalena who at least can come home and become Nenny. But I am always Esperanza. I would like to baptize myself under a new name, a name more like the real me, the one nobody sees. Esperanza as Lisandra or Maritza or Zeze the X. Yes. Something like Zeze the X will do. The House on Mango Street After choosing which selection you would like to work with, figure out which question you would like to answer and write it in your notebook. Share with your group if you are in one, or with the class if that is what is necessary. There is no pressure to get the answer to the question “right” since there is not “right” answer. Doing this activity in conjunction with answering the five questions about the title of the piece should give you a good start to doing some good interpretation; in fact, you have already done some already. You should think about these questions whenever you read anything whether that is the newspaper, a novel for class, or your science book. They are the essential questions for understanding.

Ben Lusk- [email protected]

Analyzing Literature and Reading Rhetorically

Resource 2 Kenneth Burke The Parlor Metaphor Imagine you enter a room. You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about. In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone on before. You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument, then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him/ another comes to your defense; and another aligns himself against you, to either the embarrassment or gratification of your opponent, depending upon the quality of your ally’s assistance. However, the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion stiff vigorously in progress.

Ben Lusk- [email protected]

Analyzing Literature and Reading Rhetorically

Resource 3

THE BROKEN HEART by John Donne He is stark mad, whoever says, That he hath been in love an hour, Yet not that love so soon decays, But that it can ten in less space devour ; Who will believe me, if I swear That I have had the plague a year? Who would not laugh at me, if I should say I saw a flash of powder burn a day? Ah, what a trifle is a heart, If once into love's hands it come ! All other griefs allow a part To other griefs, and ask themselves but some ; They come to us, but us love draws ; He swallows us and never chaws ; By him, as by chain'd shot, whole ranks do die ; He is the tyrant pike, our hearts the fry. If 'twere not so, what did become Of my heart when I first saw thee? I brought a heart into the room, But from the room I carried none with me. If it had gone to thee, I know Mine would have taught thine heart to show More pity unto me ; but Love, alas ! At one first blow did shiver it as glass. Yet nothing can to nothing fall, Nor any place be empty quite ; Therefore I think my breast hath all Those pieces still, though they be not unite ; And now, as broken glasses show A hundred lesser faces, so My rags of heart can like, wish, and adore, But after one such love, can love no more. Ben Lusk- [email protected]

Analyzing Literature and Reading Rhetorically

Poetry Annotation

1. Title Questions- Ask 3-5 questions about the title 2. Read and paraphrase each line 3. Circle repeating words • Nouns • Adjectives (tone) • Verbs (tone keys) • Pronouns and their progress 4. Find 5-6 lines that connect 5. Revisit Title Questions 6. Develop interpretation Determinations to make: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Is the speaker sincere or insincere? Is the attitude of the speaker intellectual or emotional? A combination? What does the author’s attitude tell us about their point of view? What are the locations, purposes, and outcomes of the tonal shifts?

Other Methods 1. Identify 5 questions you have about the title of the poem before you ever read it 2. I will read the poem to you; only underline or highlight striking sentences or phrases, don’t interpret 3. Two other people will read the poem; do the same as above 4. We will split into two groups; one looks at the poem as simple, the other, difficult. Both will do a TP-CASTT and the additional suggestions above 5. Individually, you will take the annotations and make them into a strong thesis statement that incorporates a conjunctive adverb (however, therefore, moreover, etc) discusses tone and attitude and answers the question of the prompt in a sophisticated manner. 6. You will develop a universal meaning to the poem and outline a possible response using the assertion, evidence, and commentary model.

Ben Lusk- [email protected]

Analyzing Literature and Reading Rhetorically

Resource 4

If on a winter's night a traveler Italo Calvino You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino's new novel, If on a winter's night a traveler. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought. Let the world around you fade. Best to close the door; the TV is always on in the next room. Tell the others right away, "No, I don't want to watch TV!" Raise your voice--they won't hear you otherwise--"I'm reading! I don't want to be disturbed!" Maybe they haven't heard you, with all that racket; speak louder, yell: "I'm beginning to read Italo Calvino's new novel!" Or if you prefer, don't say anything; just hope they'll leave you alone. Find the most comfortable position: seated, stretched out, curled up, or lying flat. Flat on your back, on your side, on your stomach. In an easy chair, on the sofa, in the rocker, the deck chair, on the hassock. In the hammock, if you have a hammock. On top of your bed, of course, or in the bed. You can even stand on your hands, head down, in the yoga position. With the book upside down, naturally. Of course, the ideal position for reading is something you can never find. In the old days they used to read standing up, at a lectern. People were accustomed to standing on their feet, without moving. They rested like that when they were tired of horseback riding. Nobody ever thought of reading on horseback; and yet now, the idea of sitting in the saddle, the book propped against the horse's mane, or maybe tied to the horse's ear with a special harness, seems attractive to you. With your feet in the stirrups, you should feel quite comfortable for reading; having your feet up is the first condition for enjoying a read. Well, what are you waiting for? Stretch your legs, go ahead and put your feet on a cushion. on two cushions, on the arms of the sofa, on the wings of the chair, on the coffee table, on the desk, on the piano, on the globe. Take your shoes off first. If you want to , put your feet up; if not, put them back. Now don't stand there with your shoes in one hand and the book in the other. Adjust the light so you won't strain your eyes. Do it now, because once you're absorbed in reading there will be no budging you. Make sure the page isn't in shadow, a clotting of black letters on a gray background, uniform as a pack of mice; but be careful that the light cast on it isn't too strong, doesn't glare on the cruel white of the paper, gnawing at the shadows of the letters as in a southern noonday. Try to foresee now everything that might make you interrupt your reading. Cigarettes within reach, if you smoke, and the ashtray. Anything else? Do you have to pee? All right, you know best. Ben Lusk- [email protected]

Analyzing Literature and Reading Rhetorically

Prose Annotation 1. Underline the first and last sentence in a selection, chapter, or series of paragraphs. • The tonal shift should be apparent in the change of the sentences • Shows direction of the action • Insight and Understanding 2. Who, what, where, when, why • Questions must be answered in a selection either at the beginning or at the end • 1st four are plot driven, the fifth ensures that there is some analyzation 3. Note sentence patterns • Long sentences= factual information (adult) • Shot sentences= emotional information (child) 4. Reader rhetorical questions in the margins 5. Circle or underline interesting or striking phrases or sections 6. Circle tonal shift words (yet, but, nevertheless, although, even so, unless, etc.) 7. Biblical Allusions- mark them and understand why and where they exist and for what purpose 8. Non-biblical allusions- mark them and understand why and where they exist and for what purpose. 9. Mark surface and underlying irony- understand the purpose 10. Figurative language 11. Syntax and diction 12. Sincerity, attitude, point of view 13. 5-6 lines or sections that connect

Ben Lusk- [email protected]

Analyzing Literature and Reading Rhetorically

Resource 5

Other Prose Rhetorical Questions What is this text about? How do we know? Who would be most likely to read and/or view this text and why? Why are we reading and/or viewing this text? What does the composer of the text want us to know? What are the structures and features of the text? What sort of genre does this text belong to? What do the images suggest? What do the words suggest? What kind of language is used in the text? How are teenagers, or young adults constructed in the text? How are adults constructed in this text? Why has the composer of the text represented the characters in a particular way? Are there gaps and silences in the text? Who is missing from the text? What questions about itself does the text not raise? In whose interest is the text? Who benefits from the text? Is the text fair? What knowledge does the reader/viewer need to bring to this text in order to understand it? Which positions, voices and interests are at play in the text? How is the reader or viewer positioned in relation to the composer of the text? How does the text depict age, gender, and/or cultural groups? How does the text construct a version of reality? Whose views are excluded or privileged in the text? Who is allowed to speak? Who is quoted? Why is the text written the way it is? Whose view: whose reality? What view of the world is the text presenting? What kinds of social realities does the text portray? What is the real in the text? How would the text be different if it were told in another time, place, or culture? What kind of person, and with what interests and values, composed the text? What view of the world and values does the composer of the text assume that the reader/viewer holds? How do we know? What different interpretations of the text are possible? How do contextual factors influence how the text is interpreted? How does the text mean? How else could the text have been written? Ben Lusk- [email protected]

Analyzing Literature and Reading Rhetorically How does the text rely on inter-textuality to create its meaning?

Ben Lusk- [email protected]