Rhetorical Reading for Jalisa Sterling: "Why Me, Why Not Me?"

Starling's "Why Me, Why Not Me?"

Starling

Jalisa Starling, author of “Why Me, Why Not Me?”(2014) is a personal essay that explains a tragic death of her family and how it was difficult growing up. Starling explains her personal experiences from her youth in transition to an adult. Her purpose is to show how she accepted God back into her life in order to understand why things happen the way they did. Her intended audience is all people who have difficulties accepting the death of loved ones.

 

Starling’s narrative expresses how a personal tragedy affected her life. It’s striking for a student essay. I feel her narrative is relatable to everyone because tragedy has an effect on the outcome of one’s life. I also feel I could relate to Starling’s story through my own forms of tragedy, which both destroyed and renewed my faith in God. I understand the toll that takes on a person. The grief and emptiness. My loss was much different than hers, but I experienced it with the same confusion and the same constant wondering thought of “why me?” I too know how hard it is to fall and then rise again all while searching through the clouds of despair and lost faith. The struggle is always difficult, but it also makes you wonder if the strength gained was worth the pain suffered.

            Jalisa Starling begins her personal essay with musings of superficial and minor inconveniences of everyday people. She believes simple “why me” situations such as losing a wallet, cracking a cell phone screen, and break ups “wouldn’t even compare to the life changing events that aren’t even thought of in your world (Starling 162).” Starling, for the most part, accuses the audience of having only minor conveniences in their life by assuming with the word “your”. She then reveals that her entire family was murdered. The writer continues on with the retelling of her day the day before the news of her family reached her. As she recalls the memory, her tale is full of trivial things ten year olds are worried about. Starling recalls, “[She] had one important phone call to [her] mother about [her] hair (Starling 164).” Jalisa Starling calls it “important” because at the time, it was priority to her. Upon reveal of her family’s massacre, Jalisa quotes her prayers to God and at this point, the personal essay turns from retelling of the memory to her personal struggle with God. Starling expresses her personal demons as, “[She] felt like [she] had one foot on God’s side and one foot on the Devil’s (Starling 167).” Starling reached her clarity as she finally reached the final stage in grief years later as she came to terms with God. The personal essay comes to a conclusion as Starling reflects on her journey with God and her triumph over a true “why me” situation. Starling concludes with a title drop that instead of asking “Why me?” She asks, “Why not me?” 

Precis by Pernida Freeman.

Opinion by Jensine Maxis.

Analysis by Aja Taylor.

Green's "How It Feels To Be Falsely Accused"

The Life of Harrison's "How It Feels To Be Falsely Accused

Josh Green, the author of "How It Feels To Be Falsely Accused"(2014), is a narrative essay that explains how Clarence Harrison was wrongfully accused of rape, robbery, and kidnapping. Green explains this by giving examples of Harrison's life before and after prison. His purpose is to give advise to others that is wrongfully accused in order to obtain justice. His intended audience is those seeking justice, or those trying to help seek justice for someone who has been falsely accused.

             In his narrative essay, Green explores the loss of freedom experienced when falsely accused. I can’t possibly imagine how difficult it must have been to lose all personal freedoms under the pretext of a crime you didn’t commit. Green’s description of the events as they took place gave me further insight to the injustice of the legal system and how its attempt at remedying failures through financial restitution does little to replace the time lost or pain suffered. I also found the line “when they took my youth from me, they also took my future away” to hold much validity in not only its power but its truth. How good is one’s future without a past, a foundation to build it from? I could also feel the speaker’s gratification over just being free as well as a variety of other emotions, such as grief over loss time in regards to his family. Though his language is simple, Green’s diction helps to convey the emotions of the speaker to the reader effectively.

             Josh Green begins this excerpt by informing the audience of the background beyond the following passage. The italicized information is clearly Green being the informant; however, the un-italicized passage is not very clear on if Green is participating in a form of persona writing or if Clarence Harrison (the accused) is giving his own account of the injustice against himself. The voice of Harrison starts with the moment of the jurisdiction, relaying the inner turmoil and the disappointment of the women who raised him. He continues to say, “Fighting in there was like recreation, something to do, entertainment (Green 221).” The way the experience is relayed is very personal and as if Green had recorded an interview with Harrison—almost like Green took the words right from Harrison’s mouth without any editing for propriety. Before Harrison was accused, “[he] knew Atlanta very well.” But while he was incarcerated, the cars—once big, boxy Cadillacs—evolved into smaller, sleeker cars that were similar to “little flying saucers (Green 222).” The world seems to become almost alien to him as all familiarity has been snatched unjustly. Harrison claims, “You’re out here physically, but mentally you’re still in prison (Green 222).” Prison is what Clarence Harrison has learned to survive for seventeen years and it will be hard to get out of that mindset. Being accused falsely is a flaw of the American justice system as many innocent people are blamed due to carelessness on the part of our criminal justice investigators. Harrison states that “when they took [his] youth from [him], they took [his] future away (Green 222).” As Harrison was incarcerated, life went one while all he knew remained at a standstill.

Precis by Pernida Freeman.

Opinion by Jensine Maxis.

Analysis by Aja Taylor.

Rhetorical Reading for Mark Larson

Rhetorical Reading of Larson’s “Watch Your Language”

Larson’s “Watch Your Language” (1992) is a journal entry that explores the challenges of students have with learning language. Larson explains this through his personal experiences. His purpose is to help others to become better with learning language  in order to become successful. His intended audience is students and teachers.






              Larson compares the box he was placed in as a child in regards to his language skills to that of a hurdle or “fabricated obstacle”. I agree with him that placing a label on a child regarding their language can be damaging and confusing, only leading that child or even adult to believe that they have to speak or write or even communicate a certain way, as if they are being forced rather than using a particular form of language of their own free will because they understand how and why. It is easy to rebel against something when that something exhibits qualities a part from one’s own, showing a lack of acceptance.  I also respect his insight on the experience he gained when he himself became an educator of English, wanting to correct his way of teaching that reflected the way he was taught by replacing it with a system of support where each students’ experience with language is not discouraged but incorporated with the new codes they are being taught.

In “Watch Your Language: Teaching Standard Usage to Resistant and Reluctant Learners” Larson remarks, “we continue to recite these rules to hapless would-be writers and public speakers, instilling in them a fear of the hobgoblins and hurdles to which they can easily fall victim if they do not proceed with caution (Larson 3).” Mark Larson speaks of ways of getting language through to certain learners similar to himself. He recognizes that to force learners to memorize rules, it causes them to trip up and make mistakes, thus making the learner an outsider to specified guidelines. Making a student an outsider makes them more defiant in learning and in adapting to social norms, because what is the point if they will be ostracized for something they do not understand? However, Larson does not believes that everything goes. He says, “One is to help kids recognize errors that jeopardize a writer's intention… to make kids aware of what Maxine Hairston (1981) calls "status markers" such as substandard verb uses…” He wants children to understand basic errors so there are no misunderstandings in message or basic grammar skills because to him not “anything goes”. Larson proposes issues, analyzes why the issues are and offers a final solution with three rules: “1. Support the language each student brings to school… 2. Provide them with input from an additional code… [and finally] 3. Give them opportunities to use the new code in a non-threatening, real communicative context (Larson 4).” Larson believes there is no way anyone should discourage anyone’s way of English, therefore creating disgruntled learners. Still, he believe in structure so there are no barriers in communicating in the English language.

Rhetorical Reading for James Baldwin

Baldwin’s Theory, “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me What Is?”

 

            Baldwin’s, “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me What Is?”(1979) is a personal essay that explains the role of language spoken by different people. Baldwin explains this by giving examples of how black people who came from different tribes, each with their own language, and were unable to communicate with each other. The purpose of Baldwin’s essay is to describe the differences in language in order to understand what black language is. Baldwin’s intended audience is a mixture of different cultures.

           I appreciate how Baldwin brings to light that language, especially black language, has nothing to do with the language itself but the role it plays. The sounds, the words, the articulations are all a reflection of a current reality. That’s how all language is, no matter who it is from. Each person’s language becomes their own due to their circumstances, who they are speaking to, and what situation they are in. I also connected with Baldwin as he explained that black language in a way is used as a form of protection against the white American. I actually never thought of it that way, but as a black American myself, I understand. It’s almost as if to say the dialect of black Americans created by black culture is a different language set apart entirely by the dialect of white Americans created by white culture, although in many ways they are one in the same. I personally think that American language has become divided in this way because of the lack of interest Americans have in not just getting to know one another but in truly understanding their neighbor. Although we say that in one nation we are free, in that same nation we are also oppressing ourselves through lack of unity. A country all about self cannot thrive when there is no foundation of unity to stand upon, thus creating our lack of unified language, which does not have to be the same, just understood.

          We speak based on the realities given to us. Our speech is transmuted into our patterns based on how or why we speak: to protect, to earn, and—obviously—to communicate. To say one word in any part of the world using their language in that specific region could give away “your parents, your youth, your school, your salary, your self-esteem, and, alas, your future.” James Baldwin speaks of how whites in America would not sound the way they do now without appropriating black sound, words, and culture. By trying to “[imitate] poverty, trying to get down, …[trying to do] their thing, and [to do] their despairing best to be funky” whites were appropriating what they were not during The Beat Generation—another generation named from a black phrase. Baldwin speaks of how whites have twisted and turned the language into a misunderstood version of itself such as turning the sexual phrase, “jazz me, baby” into The Jazz Age. Baldwin comments on how the “white man” could not begin to understand Black language due to the reality it was created from—the reality where “the slave was given, under the eye, and the gun, of his master, Congo Square, and the Bible… under these conditions, the slave began the formation of the black church, and it is within this unprecedented tabernacle that black English began to be formed” because the whites would have to come to terms with its codes and face themselves—their history—in the “mirror in which [they] froze [themselves].” Baldwin proceeds to close out with a powerful line, saying, “ in a country with standards so untrustworthy, a country that makes heroes of so many criminal mediocrities, a country unable to face why so many of the nonwhite are in prison, or on the needle, or standing, futureless, in the streets--it may very well be that both the child, and his elder, have concluded that they have nothing whatever to learn from the people of a country that has managed to learn so little.”

Precis by Pernida Freeman

Analysis by Aja Taylor.

Opinion by Jensine Maxis