Rhetorical Analysis Paragraphs

Rhetorical Analysis Paragraphs

One of the most powerful ways the film moves its audience is not through facts, such as the average 1600 pounds of garbage each New Yorker throws out each year, but emotionally thorough Colin Beavan’s not-quite-on-board wife, Michelle Conlin.Conlin’s transformation from uncaring consumer to thoughtful activist is what really makes the audience interested in the environmental message of the film.In the beginning of the project she is grudgingly willing to go along with her husband’s no impact plan in order to be a supportive wife. However, through the film viewers see her struggle as she weighs her desires (for Starbucks and mass transportation) against what is good for the environment (locally grown foods and bicycling).Though initially she is driven into environmentalism only to support her husband’s project, she ends up enjoying many aspects of living more environmentally.Her struggles—as opposed to her husband’s self-righteous activism—resonate with the viewers, who areprobably more like her than him.

In addition to Conlin’s transformation, the family’sadjustment to their no impact lifestyle is inspiring.Though the lifestyle change brings plenty of marital angst, there is also ample family joy. Where once Colin and Michelle focused more on television and indoor activities on the weekends, now the audience sees them lovingly watch their daughterplay at the park or frolic in fountains to stay cool. The couple takes a bike ride to a beach they had never explored in New York City. The lack of electricity has limited what they can do and how comfortable they can be inside, so they seek entertainment and comfort outside. Also, images ofIsabella gleefully stomping on laundry in the bathtub, giggling at fireflies, and ogling compost worms warm the heart and lead audiences to believe nature is lovable and should be protected.Though at first most of the no-impact changesseem terrible, the film shows how these alterations can have positive outcomes: the family seems closer andmore in connection to the outside world.

Basic format to follow:

1. Topic sentences: Makes a supporting point for thesis about how the film persuades/does not persuade its audience.
2. Explanation of topic sentence through one major example: Goes into more specific details about how topic sentence actually works in film
3. Evidence from film—what images, dialogue, specific examples illustrate the point
4. Explanation of topic sentence through another major example: Goes into more specific details about how topic sentence actually works in film
5. Concluding sentence/Transitional sentence to next paragraph if needed

Another sample paragraph for reference:

Throughout Christopher Smith’s article, “Perils and Promise: Destroy an Embryo, Waste a Life,” he uses several different methods to effectively appeal to his reader’s emotions. One of these methods is a story a young girl, which attempts to make the reader see embryos and children as interchangeable. The young girl, Hannah Strege, started out as nothing but a frozen embryo in a fertilization clinic. Because she was adopted as an embryo, Hannah lives today as healthy, beautiful girl with a wonderful family. After this story, Smith provides statistics that claim thousands more embryos could adopted just like Hannah. Readers, thus, cannot help but feel guilt and sympathy towards these embryos that are considered “leftover” or “spare” by individuals all across the country (Smith 24). Smith constantly portrays these human embryos such as Hannah as helpless or weak beings who need to be defended, which again tends to bring the readers to feel sad but also protective and as if they are the ones responsible for the fate of the embryos: whether they can have a wonderful life like Hannah or whether they will be destroyed for a science experiment. Finally, Smith uses careful vocabulary throughout his article to manipulate readers’ emotions. When he writes about how Hannah was an embryo in a “frozen orphanage” and that there is “no such thing as a spare of leftover person” he draws attention to the cold and sterile language that scientists often use when describing unborn embryos (24-25). Overall, Smith was strongly persuasive to his reader’s emotions, which tends to cause them to think twice before taking sides on this topic.