Rhetorical Situation Worksheet
Your name:
| Michael Torres |
Completing this worksheet may take more time than you think. It’s worth the time. The information you gather will help you later when writing up assignments. But more importantly, the process of addressing each of the questions below will slowly work to change how you read texts. Keep in mind that some answers will not be obvious or even observable in the text, and so you may have to do some critical thinking and, at times, even some online research. Use full sentences. Take as much space as you need.
Context & Exigence: What topic/conversation is this text responding to? What year is the text published? What is the exigence–that is, what motivating occasion/issue/concern prompted the writing? The motivating occasion could be a current or historical event, a crisis, pending legislation, a recently published alternative view, or another ongoing problem.
| This was published in 1988. The discussion within this text is about Black English and teaching it to the students Jordan was teaching. It was done because of how intrigued her students were by the way they spoke, and mentions Willie Jordan, a student who sought forth in learning more about the culture and going beyond it. The essay was published in an article as a response to the death of his sibling. |
Author: Who is the author of this text? What are the author’s credentials and what is their investment in the issue?
| The author is June Jordan and she was a poet, teacher and an activist who stood up for black culture. The essay of course was written from her experience with her students. |
Text: What can you find out about the publication? What is the genre of the text (e.g., poem, personal essay, essay, news/academic article, blog, textbook chapter, etc.)? How do the conventions of that genre help determine the depth, complexity, and even appearance of the argument? What information about the publication or source (magazine, newspaper, advocacy Web site) helps explain the writer’s perspective or the structure and style of the argument?
| This was published in an article, however it is an essay that makes claims about the experience it was teaching her students Black English and the engagement she had with one particular student, Willie. She writes as well about the hardship he dealt with the loss of his sibling. |
Audience: Who is the author’s intended audience? What can you infer about the audience (think about beliefs and political association but also age, class, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, profession, education, geographic location, religion, etc.)? Look for clues from the text (especially the original publication) to support your inference.
| I would say the audience goes towards the Black community as it is discussed throughout the impact of Black culture and how it’s even been stripped away from students to fall into the “English” that this society decided upon. There is big implications as well how it should become accepted that there exists this Black English as well and how even other societies in the world function around English in their own sense. |
Purpose: What is the author trying to accomplish? To persuade, entertain, inform, educate, call to action, shock? How do you know?
| Jordan is accomplishing her awareness of how Black culture has its voice still and the injustice that was done from the killing of Willie’s brother. It is to educate people and call attention about the English language and how she even feels this language of English is susceptible and calls it “suicide” speaking it. |
Argument: What do you believe is the main claim/idea/argument that the author is trying to communicate? What stance does s/he take?
| I believe that the main idea is that society strips away Black culture and the attention of it should be called. I also believe she does a great way of trying to introduce Black English to her students as it is their way of speaking and makes it a unit for them. |
Evidence: How is the argument supported? Types of support include reasons and logical explanations as well as evidence. Types of evidence include anecdotes, examples, hypothetical situations, (expert) testimony, quotes, citing sources, statistics, charts/graphs, research the author or another source conducts, scientific or other facts, general knowledge, historical references, metaphors/analogies, etc.
| Examples exist throughout the entire essay as she discusses her personal teachings. Other evidence can count as text from a book she used within her class where she takes account of the Black English the author uses within the book. |
Rhetorical Strategies: What aspects of this text stand out for you as a rhetorical reader? In other words, what do you observe about what the author strategically does (consciously or not) in hopes of appealing to their audience? List here as many observations as you can make about what the text does.
| Ethos definitely stands out, as well as Logos. She does use statistics within her essay to discuss how other countries use English and the population affected by it as well. She also makes personal connections with her students which connect to ethos. |
Citation: Add the correct MLA or APA bibliographic entry for this text. Use easybib.com if you prefer.
| ”That one question contained several others, each of them extraordinarily painful to even contemplate. How best to serve the memory of Reggie Jordan? Should we use the language of the killer- Standard English- in order to make our ideas acceptable to those controlling the killers? But wouldn’t what we had to say be rejected, summarily, if we said it in our own language, the language of the victim, Reggie Jordan? But if we sought to express ourselves by abandoning our language wouldn’t that mean our suicide on top of Reggie’s murder?” (Page 9, Jordan) Page 2 as a whole |
Notes: What do you want to remember about this text?
