Zen Parables

Zen Parables Explained

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Style in Rhetoric, The Five Canons, Style Analysis Examples

STYLE IN RHETORIC Remember to consider some of the overall frameworks of rhetoric, which Aristotle called the art of finding all the "available means of persuasion".  The largest framework is that of the rhetorical triangle, meaning audience, subject, and speaker.  In other words, you must know who you are trying to persuade, what you are trying to persuade them to do, and who is doing the persuading. Under this, consider the rhetorical appeals: Ethos, Logos, and Pathos. The rhetorician, or the persuader, can use their credibility or trustworthiness, also known Ethos, to get their audience to listen to his or her every word.  In order to listen to a person, you first have to trust them.  Next, you have Logos, or reason.  Logos comes from an old Greek word that means "word" , "reason", "computation" and "account."  This is where you can use scientific knowledge, numbers, or logic to get your point across.  You are appealing to the th...
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Avoiding "Dead Wood" and Painting a Picture in Our Writing

        "Dead Wood" is obvious cliche'd language that "floats there" and doesn't give the reader anything to latch onto. Here is a sample opening statement to a student's essay: "The internet is a culmination of technology that has been brought together to create a platform for shared information."  Doesn't "culmination" already mean "brought together"? What if instead we said: "The internet is a culmination of technology that creates a shared platform for information." Then again, what if we used active verbs? "Culmination" is an "tion" word, what many writers call "zombie words"; in other words, they are not active.  We can make words like this more alive if we put them in the present tense: "The technology of the internet culminates in shared information." Or, what if we paint a picture instead.  What if we drop the sentence entirely? Everyone knows what the...
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Henry David Thoreau: "Where I Lived and What I LIved For"

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Journal Entry: What is complicated in your life?  What causes you undue noise and stress?  What do you feel that you could do to simplify your life in some way? What does the simple life look like and feel like for you? Objectives: --Students will read a text from 1800's, becoming used to a more difficult writing style. --After we read, students will showcase their ability to write a style analysis paragraph on their own. In the last text we read, "The Chase", Annie Dillard argues that you need to throw yourself into life one hundred percent.  Life should be thrilling and full of passion. However, if we go back by about one hundred years in American History, we have another author, Henry David Thoreau who was trying to figure out that big philosophical question: "What is the good life?"  He had a slightly different take on this question. Basically, Thoreau was upset with the way his daily life was going.  In the late 1700's, the age of t...
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