Thursday, June 30, 2011

Rhetorical Analysis of Barbara Jordan's statement on the articles of impeachment

3 Context points
  • Jackson mentions that the audience of Jordan's speech consists of 34 members of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee.
  • Jackson says that the purpose of the statement is to convince the committee that what Nixon did was illegal and he needed to be impeached.
  • Jackson also says that not only was Jordan trying to convince the committee members, but the entire american public who was watching on television.
3 Textual points
  • Jackson shows how Jordan tried to appeal to the emotion of the audience by showing that the thing she loved, the constitution, was in jeopardy of being under attack.
  • Jackson mentions how Jordan was showing that she is a trustworthy person by quoting founding fathers of the constitution such as James Madison.
  • Jackson then tells how Jordan mentions words like "burglars", "arrested", "break-in" and "fabrication" to show that the logical choice is to impeach Nixon.
Original Observations
  • Jordan quotes Woodrow Wilson saying that when the president breaks the law political parties need to be put aside and justice needs to be put into effect.
  • Jordan appeals to the minorities and women in the audience by showing that they now have the power to be involved in the constitutional powers they are assigned and she does not want to see them not use their important power that they have received over the years. 

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Introduction Post

I am not the best writer, and I need to improve my skills in multiple areas. I am decent at the focus of a paper, but I struggle with conventions and grammar. During high school I did not have a lot of formal writing assignments, which included only 2 major research papers that only were approximately 4 pages in length, a few persuasive essays that were only about 2 pages, and some comparative and reactionary papers dealing with articles or novels discussed in class. In English 15 I hope to become a better writer overall. Which includes strengthening the content of the paper and having a better word choice to enhance the topic of the paper.