Tom Hanks's Oscar Acceptance Speech for Philadelphia

Allow me to re-blog a video David shared on his blog today.

Here's Tom Hanks accepting the Oscar for his role in Philadelphia. Apparently they were showing the top 3 acceptance speeches, and Hanks's was #2!

A) It's a great speech
B) I'm pretty sure that's Emma Thompson presenting the award (she's the star of Wit, another film I hope to show you and had wanted to show this week)
C) Check out a young Alec Baldwin in the crowd.

Thanks again for sharing, David!

Figure of Speech Example #3

"There comes a point where enough is enough"

Third Example of Sententia

It is important to understand other people's mistakes. Forgive and forget.

Example of Epistrophe

"What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?"
Romans 8:31 (New International Version)

Apposition

Final Example:

The Heat's Lebron James, a small forward, and Dwayne Wade, a point guard, will take on the Knicks' Amar'e Stoudemire, a center, and Carmelo Anthony, a small forward.

(This shows how overuse of apposition can become extremely confusing to read)

Epizeuxis Example #3

"Words, words, words" - Hamlet

Synecdoche

He enjoyed tossing the good old pigskin. Pigskin is a term used in place of football since old footballs were made out of pig liver. Now whenever the term is used it is thought of as a football.

Another Example of Exemplum

"In "The Two City Dwellers and the Country Man," told by the father, the three traveling companions of the tale's title are on a pilgrimage to Mecca. Near their destination, their provisions are nearly depleted, and the two city dwellers attempt to cheat the country man by telling him that whoever of them dreams the most extraordinary dream shall get the last of their bread.

As the city dwellers sleep, the country man, alert to their intended deception, eats the half-baked bread before retiring.

The city dwellers relate their made-up dreams. One says he was taken to heaven and led before God by angels. The other says that angels escorted him to hell.

The country man says he dreamed the same things that his companions dreamed and, believing them to be forever lost, one to heaven and the other to hell, ate the bread.

The son tells his father the moral of the story: "As it says in the proverb, ‘He who wanted all, lost all.’" He says that the two city dwellers got their just comeuppance. The story says that he wishes they’d been whipped, as the antagonist in another story he has heard, was beaten for his chicanery. His comment is a transition to the next tale, causing the father to ask his son to tell him this story. Thus, the roles of the father and his son are reversed, as the father, who was the storyteller, becomes the listener, and the son, who was his father's audience, becomes the narrator."

"The Norton Anthology of Western Literature, as stated in Wikipedia"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exemplum#.22The_Two_City_Dwellers_and_the_Country_Man.22

Animetabole Example #3

"Fair is foul and foul is fair."-- the witches, from Shakespeare's Macbeth

Asyndeton Example, Again!

"We shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardships, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty."


-J. F. Kennedy, Inaugural Speech

Example of Euphemismos

Freedom Fighter

saying this rather than callling this person a rebel.

http://www.examples10.com/e/euphemism/

Another Example of Distinctio

So I'm going back to my Jewish Day School roots for this example...

Because the Bible is not always clear at times, there are many commentators that work to clarify ambiguous words. Rashi is one of the most famous commentators who uses distinctio a lot. Here is an example:

Bible: God said to Moses, "Thus tell the people, "You have seen that from heaven I have spoken with you."" (Exodus 20:18)


Rashi explains what it means when it says they saw that what was spoken to them by clarifying the special supernatural event that occurred: 
They saw the sounds; they saw that which is usually heard, that which was impossible to see under different circumstances. [Rashi 20:15)




Distinctio. 

HeLa Cells: Ethical Questions about our Diseased Bodies

"A Lasting Gift to Medicine That Wasn't Really a Gift" by Denise Grady

Here's a New York Time's article I read last year that I thought might be of interest to the whole class. It's about the discovery of HeLa cells, which are a really important line of cells used in labs everywhere for various kinds of experiments. These cells were named after Henrietta Lacks, the patient whose cancerous cells gave rise to the line. As you might imagine, their widespread use has made the production of these cells quite lucrative. In short, her family later fought for the right to receive compensation for the use of their mother's cells. Questions that this article raises are: should a person have monetary rights over their diseased body parts? How might this hinder medicine? How does Mrs. Lack's African-American descent figure into the debate?

Slate.com Article about School Lunches and Childhood Obsesity

Here's an article I came upon about the ongoing debate regarding what to do about childhood obsesity.

"School Lunch is Not the Answer," by Jane Black 

It's from Slate.com.

Keep in mind that this is a popular source (not academic), so it may serve more as a starting point, rather than a place from which to quote extensively.

We'll discuss the difference between popular and academic sources during Library Day.

Anaphora

My last example of Anaphora is as follows:

"Sally is a hippie girl one day
Sally is a rock chick the next
Sally is a hip hop lady and a drip drop lady..."

Shwayze, "Sally is a...", 2009

The italicized words Sally is a demostrates the anaphora in this example.

View the song on this youtube clip.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcAO8Pm3q10

Example of Paradox

"I must be cruel only to be kind."

- Shakespeare, Hamlet


Hamlet must be harsh towards his mother in order to save her from becoming more depressed about the her dead husband's betrayal.

Citation: enotes

Conduplicatio Example #3

"This afternoon, in this room, I testified before the Office of Independent Council and the Grand Jury. I answered their questions truthfully, including questions about my private life - questions no American citizen would ever want to answer."

-William Jefferson Clinton

Example of Anadiplosis

"I am Sam, Sam I am."
(Dr. Seuss, Green Eggs and Ham)

Rhetorical Analysis Group Project: Group Assignments

Here are your group assignments for the Rhetorical Analysis Group Project:

Group 1: Yoohee, David, Adil, John

Group 2: Tiffany, Alysa, Kelly, Ebrahim
 

Group 3: Alex C., Will, Rosa, Mark
 

Group 4: Matt, Alex R. Jason, Eranell, Nell 

Distinctio Example

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NzqgRoRJWw

Daughtry explains how his girl may have believed he was sorry,  but really he did not mean it. He meant something else. Thanks for the distinction.

Appositio

From an Esurance commercial:

"...It's just the staggering amount of money I save people on average when they call me, the saver, to switch their car insurance to Esurance."

Example of Epistrophe

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Example of Paradox

"There are normal ways of being ill (ways that our society regards as appropriate) as well as anomalous ways."

- Arthur Kleinman, The Illness Narratives: Suffering, Healing, and the Human Condition

Citation: Page 5

Synecdoche

Example- "Matt was tickling the ivories." as in playing the piano(keys used to be made out of ivory)

Euphemismos

"The Big C"

saying this instead of just saying the more heart wrenching word, cancer



http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/euphemism/common-examples.html

Epizeuxis Example #2

"Give me a break! Give me a break! Break me off a piece of that Kit Kat bar!"

(Advertising jingle for Kit Kat bar)

Conduplicatio Example #2

To that the world assembly of sovereign states, the United Nations, our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace, we renew our pledge of support- to prevent it from becoming merely a forum for invective, to strengthen its shield of the new and the weak, and to enlarge the area in which its writ may run.

(JFK Inaugural Address)

Animetabole Example #2

A common expression that is an example of an antimetabole is:

"When the going gets tough, the tough get going."

Second Example of Catachresis

"He looked at the price and his pockets ran dry"

Exemplum Example # 2

Many Americans are unaware of the amount of drinking that occurs on college campuses. For example, its is shown that 83% of college students drink.

Figure of Speech Example #2

"Do whatcha gotta do"

Second Example of Sententia

"In order to maintain our true, nationally defining diversity, it obligates journalists to be bold, writers to be full-throated and uninhibited, and those blunt instruments of the free press, cartoonists like me, not to self-censor. We must use it or lose it."

From Doug Marlette's "I was a Tool of Satan", published in Columbia Journalism Review.

Another Example of an Asyndeton

"But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground."
-Abe Lincoln, Gettysburg Address

Hypophora Example #2

What makes a king out of a slave? Courage! What makes the flag on the mast to wave? Courage! What makes the elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist, or the dusky dusk? What makes the muskrat guard his musk? Courage!"

-The Cowardly Lion from The Wizard of Oz

http://grammar.about.com/od/fh/g/hypophterm.htm

Anaphora

Another example of anaphora is:

"Mad World!
Mad Kings!
Mad Composition!"

William Shakespeare, King John, II, ii

The italicized word mad demonstrates the anaphora in this example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaphora

Blogging Prompt #4: Experience and Other Evidence Final Topic Choices

For this week's blogs, please write a one to two paragraph blog entry on your final paper topic. Succinctly introduce the Experience you are working from, and develop your academically-minded research idea. Be sure to indicate the Stasis questions you are thinking of/ intend to answer in this paper, and again, please stay within the first two stases (Definition, Cause/ Effect).

Regarding tone: Please aim for more formal language that we usually strive for in our blogs (so please use complete sentences and your academic voices). The goal here is that you be as clear as possible on the direction of your paper so that your group members and I can comment on your ideas and help you stay on track and focused.

As always, your blogs are due by 9pm on Sunday. Please read and comment on your group mates' blogs by 9pm on Monday. 

Lastly, please post another example of your figure of speech to the class blog by 9pm on Sunday.

New York Times Article on Storytelling and Health

Here's an article from The New York Times on Thurs, Feb 10, 2011 about the health benefits of patients telling their stories and listening to others'. It mentions the lack of studies that have been done on this phenomenon, and draws attention to one recent study and its results. 

"When Patients Share their Stories, Health Man Improve," by Dr. Pauline W. Chen. 

Check it out by clicking the title, which I've turned into a hyperlink to nytimes.com.

Rather than flooding your inboxes, I'll be posting articles of interest (and labeling them as such) here when I come across any that might be useful. I invite you to do the same!

:)

A Recent Memory...

when we bleed we bleed the same

I have another memory I want to share. So the other day, I went to the gym, rocked out on the elliptical to one of my favorite bands, Muse (listen to the song I linked above -- it's good. Also, it feels central to my story). So there I was, feelin' good, mentally preparing for teaching ENGL 101 to this awesome group of students, and thinking "you know, this reading is kinda tough... and they do have that summary assignment due today... but we'll see how it goes."

So I come to class, set up my stuff, and am really impressed with how they really try and get this whole "Stases/ Stacies" thing. I mean, what's that all about, right? But yeah, they tried, and I think they're starting to get it, which is good, cuz they need to understand it for their upcoming assignments.

Anyway, when we finally got to exploring the readings I'd assigned -- about storytelling, the very human need to tell others what we think and feel, about being dynamic, changing people, with multiple sides, and how writing can help us write our own life stories.... well. Yeah. That didn't quite go how I thought it would.

Don't get me wrong! I had a few superheroes come to the rescue of the class and really try and grapple with the text. Right or wrong, all I wanted was for them to try. So it got me thinking about this Muse song, "Map of the Problematique." I think I need that map. I think the Stases/Stacies will help me.

So here are the questions I'm asking myself based on that memory:

1. Definition: What defines a "successful" class? I mean, we got through some Stasis Theory... but those readings... Did my students think it was a flop?
2. Cause/Effect: What happened/ How did it get that way? Why was there such a marked drop in participation yesterday? (Was it too much reading... and then... they didn't read?)
3. Value: Should I/they/we consider a class like that good or bad? I'm thinking it's good this happened so early in the semester, because I want to make sure I do what I can on my end to make sure it doesn't happen again.... But what to do...what to do?
4. Action: This is where I really need your help. What can we do to make sure we don't have a room full of mostly silent folks again? Especially when all I'm asking is for people to make at attempt to find some meaning in what we do. Do I assign less reading? Do you prefer more group work? Do we read paragraphs together in class, and analyze them as a team? Would you like if I sent out discussion questions beforehand, so that you know precisely what I will be asking you to do in class? ... Pop reading quizes are also an option for some instructors, but I'm not gonna lie -- I don't like that tactic. So what should we do? 

For this week's class-blogging assignment, please post a comment responding to TWO of the questions I posed on this post by Sunday at 9pm. One of the questions you address must be from the Action Stasis -- what we/I need to do about it, as outlined above in #4. The other must address one of the other Stases (1-3).

Please understand that I just want you to be honest and let me know how I can help us all get the most out of our time together. When I left class, I just thought, Huh. OK. I think these readings are so cool (otherwise I wouldn't have chosen them!), and those people are so smart. I just felt that you may not have gotten as much out of them as you could have. And I feel responsible for fixing that. I'm still trying to figure out what these readings mean, too. I have some ideas, but I continually learn from you as well. 

So I guess what I'm trying to say is, when we bleed, you and I, we bleed the same.

Oh. And if you like Muse, here's another one of my FAVORITE songs by them, from their album "Absolution" (how appropriate, no?).

...love that electric guitar...

Blogging Prompt #3: The Experience and Other Evidence Memo

Memo on Three Potential Topics

For this week's blog, please write up an overview of THREE potential topics for your Experience and Other Evidence Paper. You are far more likely to pick a good topic in the end if you have a range of topics to choose from; therefore, you must write about three different topics or you will not get credit for this memo assignment. 

For each of the three topics, write a separate paragraph explaining what topic you have chosen. First, describe your personal experience that relates to the topic.  Then come up with at least one question that could be asked about your topic; remember that the easiest way to do this is to think of some assumption that your personal experience might be able to challenge. Finally, think of at least one academic audience that might be interested in this question. For example, would students taking a particular course have a reason to be interested in the question that relates to your topic?

Due by 9pm on the Monday on your individual blogs.

Commenting on your groupmates' blogs is optional this week, though do feel free to do so! Collaboration and input almost always results in a better final product, so let your classmates know what you think of their ideas.

Appositio

Example: The Packers quarterback, Aaron Rodgers, was the Superbowl MVP.

Asyndeton Example: Julius Caesar

"I came, I saw, I conquered."
By: Julius Caesar

http://quotationsbook.com/quote/40532/#axzz1DEZjPr6I

Example of Euphemismos

Sam was of humble origins
humble origins being a euphemismos for poor


http://www.yourdictionary.com/esl/Euphemism-Lessons.html

Examples of Distinctio

"It depends on what the meaning of 'is' is." --Bill Clinton

Example of Epistrophe

"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me."
1Corinthians 13:11 (New International Version)

Example of Anadiplosis

"Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering. I sense much fear in you."

(Frank Oz as Yoda in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace)

http://grammar.about.com/od/ab/g/anadiplosis.htm

Example of Catachresis

"Mow the beard, Shave the grass, Pin the plank, Nail my sleeve."

-from Alexander Pope's Peri Bathous, or the Art of Sinking in Poetry

http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/pcraddoc/poemport.htm

Example of Sententia

"Yet if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, "The judgements of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

Lincoln, Second Inaugural Address, 1864

Example of Paradox

"All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."
-- George Orwell, Animal Farm

Citation: The Quotations Page

Example of Synecdoche

In the Olympic relays, relay teams are often referred to as their country, for example: Jamaica, America, Great Britain. Same with other world competitions, such as the world cup.

Example of Antimetabole

"Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." -- John F. Kennedy


http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-antimetabole.htm

Example of Epizeuxis

"Oh her eyes, her eyes
Make the stars look like they're not shining
Her hair, her hair
Falls perfectly without her trying

She's so beautiful
And I tell her every day

Yeah I know, I know
When I compliment her
She wont believe me
And it's so, it's so
Sad to think she don't see what I see"


Bruno Mars - "Just The Way You Are"


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjhCEhWiKXk

Example of Exemplum

"The Greeks and Persians of old did not need great machines but used their ingenuity. All we need is our minds and the resources around us."


http://changingminds.org/techniques/language/figures_speech/exemplum.htm

Example of Conduplicatio

"I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood."


-Martin Luther King Jr., I have a Dream


http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm

Example of Hypophora

"Oh, you see that skin?
It's the same she's been standing in
Since the day she saw him walking away
Now she's left
Cleaning up the mess he made"

-John Mayer, "Daughters"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZLbUIa7exE

Figure of Speech Example

" Next time there won't be a next time" Phil Leotardo in The Sopranos
http://grammar.about.com/od/e/g/epanalepsisterm.htm 

Example of Anaphora

Here is an example of an Anaphora:

"Anaphora will repeat an opening phrase or word;
Anaphora will pour it into a mould (absurd)!
Anaphora will cast each subsequent opening;
Anaphora will last until it's tiring."
(John Hollander, Rhyme's Reason: A Guide to English Verse. Yale Univ. Press, 1989)

The italicized words demostrate the anaphora (also ironic).

http://grammar.about.com/od/ab/g/anaphora.htm

Blogging Prompt #2: On Confessions

I'm a Madonna fan. 

 And this video is an example of a simile. 

No, we're not playing "Truth or Dare." For this week's blogs, I would like each of you to respond to this week's readings on doctor confessions. Both Wear and Jones's "Bless Me Reader for I have Sinned" and Atul Gawande's "The Final Cut" provide poignant examples of the ways in which confessional writing by doctors has begun to infiltrate our culture. Wear and Jones's article does a nice job of establishing the history of confession as a public act, while Gawande's own reflection on the decline in the number of autopsies performed draws heavily on his own perceived shortcomings as a doctor (one might even read his piece as as confession regarding the arrogance of the medical establishment).

For this week's blog assignment, I ask that you take some time to think about some of the issues surrounding confession (broadly defined) that we raised in class -- What is the difference between confession and apology? Why does it matter that we make such a distinction? As Wear and Jones point out, Foucault argues that "One confesses in public and in private, to one's parents, one's educators, one's doctors, to those one loves. One confesses-- or is forced to confess" (Foucault quoted in Wear and Jones 217). Are there moments when confession is appropriate? Inappropriate? Use this entry as a chance to meditate on the ways in which you believe drawing from personal experience in your writing can be helpful, as well as where you think it might get in the way. 

Note: Don't feel compelled to answer all of these questions. I just wanted to give you some food for thought. The main goal is to get you thinking about how confession and personal experience can work in writing, both academic and otherwise. We'll keep coming back to these questions over the course of the semester.

As usual, posts are due on your individual blogs by 9pm on Sunday. I'll be remixing some blog groups, so stay tuned for those assignments. 

Write on.