Name______
Date______
Period______
The following excerpts are taken from Days of Obligation, an Argument with my Mexican Father. Read the excerpt and annotate the text, pay attention to the author’s use of figurative language.
It was always a man’s voice. Mexico pleaded with my mother. He wanted her back. Mexico swore he could not live without her. Mexico cried like a woman. Mexico raged like a bull. He would cut her throat. He would die if she didn’t come back.
1. What specific figurative language techniques does the author use, and what is the effect of those techniques on the reader?
Annotate the text again-this time and pay attention to structure.
It was always a man’s voice. Mexico pleaded with my mother. He wanted her back. Mexico swore he could not live without her. Mexico cried like a woman. Mexico raged like a bull. He would cut her throat. He would die if she didn’t come back.
1. What specific choices in structure do you think the author is using, and what is the effect of the structure on the reader?
In the space below write a two-paragraph analysis which connects choices in rhetoric to purpose. Furthermore, you should discuss the effect of the choices on the reader. One paragraph should address figurative language and one should address the author’s choices in structure.
Name______
Date______
Period______
Read the following excerpt from Black Boy by Richard Wright. Annotate the text, looking specifically for rhetorical techniques. Once you have given the excerpt ample attention, write a two-paragraph analysis which connects the rhetorical techniques to the author’s purpose. You should also write about the effect on you the reader.
Hunger stole upon me so slowly that at first I was not aware of what hunger really meant. Hunger had always been more or less at my elbow when I played, but now I began to wake up at night to find hunger standing at my bedside, staring at me gauntly. The hunger I had known before this had been no grim, hostile stranger; it had been a normal hunger that had made me beg constantly for bread, and when I ate a crust or two I was satisfied. But this new hunger baffled me, scared me, made me angry and insistent. Whenever I begged for food now my mother would pour me a cup of tea which would still the clamor in my stomach for a moment or two; but a little later I would feel hunger nudging my ribs, twisting my empty guts until they ached. I would grow dizzy and my vision would dim. I became less active in my play, and for the first time in my life I had to pause and think of what was happening to me.
Name______
Date______
Period______
Read the following excerpt from Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. Annotate the text, looking specifically for rhetorical techniques. Once you have given the excerpt ample attention, write a three-paragraph analysis which connects the rhetorical techniques to the author’s purpose. You should also write about the effect on you the reader.
He sat at a wickerwork desk writing letters, the captain. They stood attending, the captain’s man with his black hat in his hands. The captain wrote on nor did he look up. Outside the kid could hear a woman speaking in Spanish. Other than that, there was just the scratching of the captain’s pen.