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. 

The topic of conversation is about what is deemed normal. This speech took place in 2016 and essentially Saleem discusses his personal issues of not being able to speak properly and his insecurities from it that stemmed from his days in childhood. He dwells further to how he is judged for the way he speaks, whether his stutter or accent, he’s ridiculed by some people online and define him as being abnormal.

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 Safewat Saleem, a Pakistani man who works in the field of design, animation and video editing. His investment into this speech is primarily talking about his personal experiences from early childhood to during his early works.

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?

The genre of this video is a personal speech. Because of this genre, he gives off examples of his experiences which depths into the heart of his speech of the struggles he endured from this and just how it’s affected him to this day. This of course was published by TED talks which is an organization famously known for posting many other speakers speeches online so that many are able to hear.

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 believe that the audience of this speech goes out to many of those that have felt like outcasts, minorities and even children. Saleem makes mention of how within jobs or schools, or even anywhere else, minorities are belittled due to the idea of favoritism and he gives examples how because of your gender or race, you may receive little help from a tutor as compared to another. This connects to children as well since he exemplifies the low amount of colored main characters in children’s book, which only creates a divide for children that can feel their being represented within books.

Purpose: What is the author trying to accomplish? To persuade, entertain, inform, educate, call to action, shock? How do you know?

Saleem’s purpose is to inform others about what his experiences as a child was like and claiming how he was viewed as abnormal for his refusal of speaking due to his insecurities.

Argument: What do you believe is the main claim/idea/argument that the author is trying to communicate? What stance does s/he take? 

The argument that can be taken into account is the idea of what is normal in our society. This argument is further enhanced with the idea of what’s normal in language, how one speaks, in this case how Saleem speaks. Towards the end of his speech, he acknowledges Homer’s writing of how the color Blue wasn’t defined as normal since other civilizations never identified it as part of normal, and this correlates with the real world today. The idea of normal is just a set of expectations, it’s subjective as well from favoritism per person, and Saleem argues that there shouldn’t be this standard of “normal” rather just have everything be accepted because there is no difference.

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. 

Evidence included is via life experiences throughout his work and childhood, as well as citing Homer, an author from Ancient Greece. Not to mention, statistics from the year 2013 and 2014 to make his claim about children’s books.

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. 

Strategies he includes consist of Ethos and Logos, this is due to the personal connection he creates with the audience of anyone that’s ever felt belittled about their speech and felt insecure. Logos is of course shown from the statistics he uses in which logic is played to support his argument.

Citation: Add the correct MLA or APA bibliographic entry for this text. Use easybib.com if you prefer.

”have you forgotten your name” (Saleem).

Notes: What do you want to remember about this text?