From Inquiry to Academic Writing A Practical Guide, 3rd edition

48 CHAPTER 2 | FRom REAding As A WRiTER To WRiTing As A REAdER

WRiting a RhetoRical analysis

By now you should have a strong sense of what is involved in rhetorical

analysis. You should be ready to take the next steps: performing a rhetori-

cal analysis of your own and then sharing your analysis and the strategies

you’ve learned with your classmates.

Read the next text, “The Flight from Conversation” by Sherry Turkle,

annotating it to help you identify her situation, purpose, thesis, and audi-

ence. As you read, also make a separate set of annotations — possibly

with a different color pen or pencil, circled, or keyed with asterisks — in

which you comment on or evaluate the effectiveness of her essay. What

do you like or dislike about it? Why? Does Turkle persuade you to accept

her point of view? What impressions do you have of her as a person?

Would you like to be in a conversation with her?

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Collie 3

the current format for textbooks results in teachers and students

having a confused and incorrect view of American history. Eventually,

he concludes that “muddling through just maintains the status quo and

guarantees incoherence in textbooks and hence learning” (para. 9).

His next suggested approach is using textbooks written by

experts. This option could set clear national standards about what

students should be learning about history by those most informed. This

option, however, also has its faults as Tyack argues that the experts

differ in their opinions. Furthermore, the public does deserve some

input about material to be taught to its children, which this option

would take away.

Tyack’s final option is “a pluralistic model of history that

contrasts with both muddling through and textbooks by experts”

(para. 12). Tyack argues that “such perspective-taking lies at the core

of historical understanding of a socially diverse nation. Pluralistic

history can enhance ethnic self-respect and empathy for other groups”

(para. 13). Tyack supports this point of view with quotations from a

professor of history, which gives credibility to this option. In addition,

Tyack does not discuss any possible difficulties in pursuing this type

of textbook, even though he stated earlier that each option has both

benefits and faults. In this, Tyack appears to be considering multiple

possibilities for textbook reform, but, at the same time, he dismisses

two of the options and advocates for a particular course of action

through his writing strategy.

He summarizes

the author’s

second possible

solution to the

problem but

explains why the

author is not sym-

pathetic to that

position.

Although it would

seem that the

author lets read-

ers draw their own

conclusions, the

student explains

how Tyack uses

research to give

credence to this

last solution to

the problem. This

is the one solution

that the author is

not critical of.

02_GRE_5344_Ch2_029_054.indd 48 11/19/14 4:03 PM