Cover letter
Whilst brainstorming for phase 2’s assignment, I often found myself questioning how an author comes to incorporate an appeal to his or her rhetoric within their writing. I have always found it troublesome to fully comprehend the compositional techniques and strategies that are used by authors, detailing each and every moment of their recollection of a personal experience. However, with the conclusion of the second phase of this English Composition class, I can safely say that I have successfully grown to understand the general application of persuasion within many pieces of writing; much of what has been possible from the different literary features that are exposed throughout their entirety. From learning how to dissect the rhetorical situation of my chosen author’s narrative, to analyzing his various rhetorical appeals of pathos/logos/ethos, I was able to tailor my comprehension of his work in order to appropriately convey the overall idea that the author aimed to express. With this, I was able to successfully portray that by centering his focus around the personal struggles that an individual comes to face when one’s background and identity is criticized, author Safwat Saleem begins to build credibility through his successful incorporation of chronological events, his emotional appeal through personal anecdotes, and his acknowledgement of the opposition’s argument.
Evidently enough, the audience that was targeted throughout Saleem’s narrative was towards people who share common struggles with speech in their own society, as a means of appeasement to those who share this disadvantage. With this, he also intends to inform others of the necessity behind accepting people for all their differences, as the world isn’t built off of white and black only. With coming to write about his own struggles and hardships that spanned throughout the entirety of his life, Saleem builds his own credibility through utilizing various appeals of pathos and ethos within the experiences that he provides insight upon. In terms of emotional appeal, Saleem strengthens his story by appealing to pathos, as his inclusion of personal dialogues brings the audience closer to understanding the experience that he has gone through, where speech has grown to become one of his many flaws. Not only, but in terms of ethical appeal, Saleem also strengthens his story by appealing to ethos, while elaborating on the aspect of discrimination and favoritism within society that he examines. With this, the comprehension of such ideas set forth is shown widely across the multitude of people that appealed to his personal strife.
Other than cross examining the different aspects of rhetorical appeals and strategies used within this piece, I have also come to acquire many other meaningful insights within this phase, in regards to language and literacy. Amongst the multitude of different concepts and terms introduced within this assignment period, I’ve found myself resonating with writing strategies such as providing the counter argument to one’s claim. Going back to my first time reading Saleem’s work, I found it greatly significant that Saleem’s acknowledgement of the opposition to his claim had never looked down upon his central focus of his work. Instead, his acknowledgement portrayed an even stronger appeal to his audience, as he worked towards expressing the overall purpose behind his work; the idea that society must continue to keep challenging the broad spectrum of normal speaking standards, so that all may overcome this profiling and develop as one entity of a society.
As a result, I believe that my piece of work comes to showcase an effective achievement of “recognizing and practicing key rhetorical terms and strategies when engaged in writing situations”, a Course Learning Outcome that I’ve targeted throughout this phase of the semester. After completing multiple rhetorical analysis handouts on pieces written by renowned authors such as Safwat Saleem, I’ve come to understand how authors tend to uniquely target their own audience in different ways, through effectively persuading a stronger comprehension of their situation at hand, with efforts made in appealing through rhetorical strategies.
