EnglishA3212

In the narrative essay, "Your Friend/My Friend, Ted" (2017), Beth Johnson explores different theories that could have led her friend to his suicide. In her writing, Johnson leads by painting a vivid picture of Ted's friend pleasant childhood, his childhood friendships, and his seemingly happy life as a father and husband. The author immediately follows this by digging deeper into his life's events in order to remind her readers that people often show us the glamorous shots of their lives, but we never know what people truly experience. In our opinion, the intended audience of this work is not limited to one specific group of people, on the contrary, this essay is a reminder to all humanity to always have compassion for others because you never know what they are going through. Something useful from the reading to consider in our writing includes how the author connected with her audience. Johnson writes in a way that keeps us in a state of suspension and...

In the rhetorical essay “The Other Steve Harvey” (2017), Steve Harvey argues that color is the first thing people see when looking at someone else. Harvey begins his work by providing some evidence on how racism creeps into his mind, even though he's not racist. He is addressing a problem that our society needs to work on, in order to change our perspective of color.  The author's intended audience all are Americans, because how our ex-president Barack Obama said, " we all need to work in our prejudices." The purpose of this essay taught us how racism can impair our thought process. By addressing this issue, Steve Harvey demonstrates the reasons behind acts of violence and vitriol towards African Americans in society.  Being more conscientious of what we write remains something to take away from the writing. Racism in America is inevitable, especially for African Americans. The Founding Fathers built America on the premise that white people, mainly males, w...

  In the narrative essay, “The Trick: Notes Toward a Theory of Plot” (2017), Marilyn Abildskov explores the ulterior motives the main character has behind caring for her sick friend. In this work, the author provides many causes why human want to feel needed by others and how we would do inconceivable things to fulfill this longing inside of us. Abildskov uses the interactions of main character in the story to display how ulterior motives are part of human nature. People are always hiding their actions and choices. The intended audience of the essay consist of people that enjoy reading stories with plots that makes them reflect about humanity. Something that we gathered from this composition includes how the author connected with the audience through the sentiments of pity toward the main character. We understood that the same character planned the entire plot. He also manipulated our perspectives about the narrative. The teacher was sick. She suff...

In the rhetorical essay “Notes on Lazarus” (2016), Rick Moody explores some of the improvisations that made over the story and person of Lazarus throughout history. In this essay, Moody provides arguments about each interpretation of the resurrection of Lazarus, coming from songs, paintings, movies, and writings to mention some. Moody writes about Lazarus to see other’s perspectives of the story, which seems to have traumatized him as a child. The intended audience of his work are the people that like the author, believe in this resurrecting story from the Bible, but feel like there is something more that wasn’t say about it.. An example includes being multidimensional in writing. Rick Moody demonstrated his multidimensional aptitude by showing various views regarding Lazarus in different formats. It also showed writers how to become fearless. Moody placed himself in a precarious position. The story of Lazarus was a sensitive topic. He managed to find a perfect balance between b...

  Edwidge Danticat in her fictional essay, “All the Home You’ve Got” (2017), claims that at the end of the day, your body is your only real possession in the world. In the opening of her essay, Danticat develops her thesis by reflecting on the religious beliefs of her family. Despite cherishing and praising Danticat, she describes how her parents abused her. It was a traumatic experience for her that plagued her even as an adult. However, she wrote about it to bring closure to such a dark moment in her life. It allowed her to forgive the people that hurt her. Danticat wrote about her experiences to reach out to other victims of abuse. She believed that although these things happened to them, they shouldn't feel that God forgot about them. The way Danticat develops and splits the story into different sections is something I found interesting and applicable to my writing. By doing so, she allowed the readers to follow the thought process and the composition of her work. I lik...