DuBois – The Souls of Black Folk: Of the Meaning of Progress”

Strong writers compose their sentences/paragraphs/texts in a certain way for a certain reason. In other words, writers make decisions, either consciously or unconsciously, in order to have some effect on you as a reader, whether that is to persuade you of something, to make you think, to affect emotionally in some way, the list goes on. For instance, some writers feel the need to include detailed imagery or employ metaphors, others might use statistics or logic, and others might cite other writers or an expert. Another way of thinking of this is that writing is a record of a series of decisions – word choice, paragraph length, sentence structure, etc.

Because authors write and organize their texts in a certain way to produce a certain effect or to convey a particular understanding, it is our job as readers to identify these moments and to question how these decisions contribute to the overall meaning of the text or to central ideas put forward by the text. So, with this in mind, please respond to the following prompt:

1. Why did DuBois choose to write this as a story instead of an essay? In other words, what does writing this in the form of a personal narrative allow DuBois to do that he wouldn’t be able to do in an essay? (100 words)

2. Identify a rhetorical decision/rhetorical device that DuBois employs in his text and explain the effect that move/device has on how one reads and understands the text as a whole. How does that particular device/decision contribute to the meaning of the text? (100 words).

If you’re not the first to respond, you should make an effort to build on the ideas and observations of your peers. You can either respond to a peer’s post directly, or you can create your own post in which you mention other peers’ responses.

Because authors write and organize their texts in a certain way to produce a certain effect or to convey a particular understanding, it is our job as readers to identify these moments and to question how these decisions contribute to the overall meaning of the text or to central ideas put forward by the text. So, with this in mind, please respond to the following prompt:

1. Why did DuBois choose to write this as a story instead of an essay? In other words, what does writing this in the form of a personal narrative allow DuBois to do that he wouldn’t be able to do in an essay? (100 words)

2. Identify a rhetorical decision/rhetorical device that DuBois employs in his text and explain the effect that move/device has on how one reads and understands the text as a whole. How does that particular device/decision contribute to the meaning of the text? (100 words).

Rereading Homework Assignment – The Great Family of Man

“The Great Family of Man”. As you read:

• Make note of at least two (2) words or short phrases you don’t understand. How are they used in context?
• Find two moments in the text that trip you up, or that you have difficulty understanding, and pinpoint what it is you don’t understand. Formulate these into questions that you can ask.
• Identify one claim you can see Barthes making. What, in your own words, is he trying to say? And about what
• Identify one aspect of the text that you now understand better from your rereading. What did you learn, or what became more clear, through rereading?