Rhetorical Analysis Exercises
#1 Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand
Read and annotate the passage. Answer the accompanying questions.
Passage
In the predawn darkness of August 26, 1929, in the back bedroom of a small house in Torrance, California, a twelve-year-old boy sat up in bed, listening. There was a sound coming from outside, growing ever louder. It was a huge, heavy rush, suggesting immensity, a great parting of air. It was coming from directly above the house. The boy swung his legs off his bed, raced down the stairs, slapped open the back door, and loped onto the grass. The yard was otherworldly, smothered in unnatural darkness, shivering with sound. The boy stood on the lawn beside his older brother, head thrown back, spellbound.
1. The first sentence consists of four clauses. They are numbered below.
Sentence: In the predawn darkness of August 26, 1929, (1)in the back bedroom of a small house in Torrance, California(2), a twelve-year-old boy sat up in bed(3), listening(4).
a). How is “predawn darkness” different from early evening darkness or middle of the night darkness?
b). What importance is there in describing the house as “small” and the boy’s bedroom as in the “back” of the house?
c). Why might it be important to identify the boy’s age? Why is twelve a significant age?
d). What type of emphasis does Hillenbrand create by separating the word “listening” from the rest of the sentence?
2. Hillenbrand makes uses of a series of verbs to describe the boy’s actions. He “swung,” “raced,” “slapped,” and “loped” from his bedroom to the backyard. What do these verbs tell you about the boy’s character?
Task: Examine your responses to the close reading questions that accompany the passage. Construct a written response that makes use of those observations.
Prompt: In a well-developed paragraph, analyze the rhetorical strategies Hillenbrand uses to characterize the house and the boy.
Writing Revision: Your topic sentence or claim should appear at the beginning of the paragraph. Revise it so that it includes better vocabulary and a stronger argument.
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#2 Five Days at Memorial, Sheri Fink
Read and annotate the passage. Answer the accompanying questions.
Passage
At last through the broken windows, the pulse of helicopter rotors and airboat propellers set the summer morning air throbbing with the promise of rescue. Floodwaters unleashed by Hurricane Katrina had marooned hundreds of people at the hospital, where they had now spent four days. Doctors and nurses milled in the foul-smelling second-floor lobby. Since the storm, they had barely slept, surviving on catnaps, bottled water, and rumors. Before them lay a dozen or so mostly elderly patients on soiled, sweat-soaked stretchers.
1. What does the phrase “at last” suggest about the state of affairs at the hospital?
2. Fink describes those marooned at the hospital as surviving on “catnaps, bottled water, and rumors.” Explain what the items in the list convey about the mental and physical state of the doctors and nurses.
3. The final sentence of the paragraph is a fragment.
Sentence: Before them lay a dozen or so mostly elderly patients on soiled, sweat-soaked stretchers.
a). Why might Fink choose to save the description of hospital patients, the reason the hospital exists, for the end of the paragraph and then provide only a fragmentary description?
b). Instead of describing the “elderly patients,” Fink describes the stretchers. Explain the effect of Fink’s description and why she chooses to describe objects instead of
Task: Examine your responses to the close reading questions that accompany the passage. Construct a written response that makes use of those observations.
Prompt: In a well-developed paragraph, analyze how Fink’s language contributes to her argument about hospital, its employees, and its patients.
Writing Revision: Examine how you have incorporated evidence in your writing. Rewrite your lease effective evidence sentence so that it more concisely introduces the evidence and cites a brief reference to the text.
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Exercise #3
The Glass Castle, Jeanette Walls
Passage
I was sitting in a taxi, wondering if I had overdressed for the evening, when I looked out the window and saw Mom rooting through a Dumpster. It was just after dark. A blustery March wind whipped the steam coming out of the manholes, and people hurried along the sidewalks with their collars turned up. I was stuck in traffic two blocks from the party where I was heading.
1. In the first sentence, Jeanette Walls omits using the pronoun “my” when describing her mother. She also chooses to capitalize “Mom” when she doesn’t need to do so. What do these two rhetorical choices tell you about how Walls’ views her mother?
2. The phrase “wondering if I had overdressed for the evening” is completely at odds with the phrase “saw Mom rooting through a Dumpster.” What is the effect of this contrast and why does Walls choose to juxtapose her thoughts about evening wear against her mother’s
dumpster diving?
3. Examine the bolded language in the sentence below.
Sentence: A blustery March wind whipped the steam coming out of the manholes, and people hurried along the sidewalks with their collars turned up.
a). What does this language tell you about the setting of Walls’ story?
b). Explain why the setting is of such importance when introducing Walls’ mother who is “rooting around in a Dumpster.”
Task: Examine your responses to the close reading questions that accompany the passage. Construct a written response that makes use of those observations.
Prompt: In a well-developed paragraph, analyze how the rhetorical strategies employed by Walls characterize this unexpected sighting of her mother.
Writing Revision: Highlight your first piece of evidence and the commentary that follows it. Identify what your analysis is lacking and revise/rewrite your commentary.
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