Hi, I'm Dawn Knight, an English teacher from Westfield High School in Westfield, Indiana. And today I'm here to talk to you about the rhetorical analysis essay. Specifically, we'll be looking at evidence selection and commentary.
Just a reminder, you can download the passage and prompt if you want. You have access to it here. You can print it, you can follow along with it, or I will talk us through as well if you don't want to do that.
Also, you might want to check out the previous video. We're going to be talking about the same prompt as we did in the last one, where we talked about thesis statements. This time we're talking about evidence selection and commentary.
So the prompt that we're working with is Mary Oliver's Owls. The following is an excerpt from the essay Owls by Mary Oliver, a poet and essayist who won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Oliver's writing focuses on the wonder of the natural world.
Read the passage carefully. Write an essay that analyzes the rhetorical choices Oliver makes to convey her message about nature. In your response, you should do the following.
So the last time we talked about responding to the prompt with a thesis that analyzed the rhetorical choices. This time we're looking at selecting and using evidence to support your line of reasoning and explaining how the evidence supports your line of reasoning or the commentary. When we select evidence, it's going to be focused on the thesis.
So we're going to use one of the thesis statements that we talked about in the previous video for the purpose of analyzing this passage today. So the thesis we'll work with is Mary Oliver uses imagery and paradox to convey her message that her relationship with nature is complex. She both reveres and fears it.
So evidence needs to do two things here because we're always focused on the thesis statement as the building block of our essay. We need to make sure that we're selecting evidence that illustrates imagery or paradox and that shows the complexity of her relationship with nature. So there's a line of reasoning on the screen. And again, I have two body paragraphs on here just to illustrate this idea.
You might have three or four body paragraphs. It depends on your thesis statement. It depends on what the prompt is asking you to do.
I'm using two for the purpose of this. And I just want to remind you that two very well-written body paragraphs, especially since this is a timed essay. is going to be better than three or four just okay ones.
So we want to have those well-developed body paragraphs that focus on the thesis statement. So we're going to focus on body paragraph one first. You'll notice here that we're going to focus on imagery.
And so our claim for that first body paragraph might be that imagery is used by Mary Oliver to convey her complex relationship with nature. I'm going to give you a second if you want to pause and take a look at the first paragraph. We're going to talk through this, and again, you have access to the passage.
But take a second here, pause, read that first paragraph, and then we're going to talk about selecting evidence from it that we might want to use for that first paragraph. And just hit play when you're ready to go. So I pulled a couple of pieces of evidence for us to take a look at.
The first one, the screech owl I can imagine on my wrist, and I can imagine sitting quietly before that luminous wanderer, the snowy owl. So remember we need imagery and we need it to show the complex relationship. Here this definitely has imagery, but it doesn't really reveal anything about Mary Oliver's relationship with nature.
Now let's look at the second example. I have found the headless bodies of rabbits and blue jays and known it was the great horned owl that did them in. Again, some imagery here, but it doesn't really reveal anything about Mary Oliver's relationship with nature. And then finally, Mary Oliver can imagine the screech owl on her wrist or sitting quietly before that luminous wanderer, the snowy owl.
However, she says, The great horned I can't imagine in any such proximity. If one of those should touch me, it would be the center of my life and I must fall. Definitely imagery here. And we see that complex relationship. And Mary Oliver is talking about how she feels when she sees it and that it would be the center of her life.
So this is a good piece of evidence because it does both of those things we need it to do in order to focus on answering the thesis. All right, now let's look at body paragraph two. Here we're going to focus on paradox because, again, our thesis is that Mary Oliver uses imagery and paradox to convey her message, so it makes sense to organize our body paragraphs around that. Again, you can pause here.
We're going to look at two different paragraphs this time, so pause and read the paragraph, and then when you're ready, you can hit play. And then do the same thing here for this second paragraph. And I'll talk through some pieces of evidence from it again. Just hit play when you're ready.
Okay, so we're looking for evidence that shows paradox and that helps reveal the complex relationship with nature that Mary Oliver feels. So one example of evidence from this paragraph, each flower is small and lovely, but in their sheer and silent abundance, the roses become an immutable force. This is definitely paradox. We don't typically think of small and lovely roses being a force. So there's definitely paradox there, but we don't see the complex relationship with nature.
And then there is the idea of red and pink and white tents of softness and nectar. This isn't paradox. It's imagery, but we don't see that contrast of what would not make sense to us, like a small rose being an immutable force. Here we just see images.
And we definitely don't see that complex relationship with nature. And then finally, I dropped to the sand. I can't move. I am restless no more. I am replete, supine, finished, filled to the last edges with an immobilizing happiness.
And is this not also terrible? Is this not also frightening? So we definitely see paradox here. The idea of happiness being terrifying doesn't seem to make sense, but upon further investigation, it does because it does show that relationship. And then it shows the relationship and its complexity that she finds both happiness and fear in nature.
I will tell you that this idea of selecting evidence is one of the weaker areas I see. when I look at these essays from my students. And that's because there's this tendency to just find something like, oh yeah, that's paradox, or oh yeah, that's imagery, but not looking to see, does it actually support my claim?
And so here, that other component, that idea of revealing the complex relationship is very important. So just some reminders, commentary should go beyond summary. It should explain how the choice helps convey the message.
So here we're looking at how does the imagery or how does the paradox help convey the complex relationship with nature? It should show the complexity of the relationship, not just tell. So we might want to think about, you know, this shows.
What does this show? And then another thing that I've talked to my students about is if you assume your reader hasn't read the passage, it forces you to explain. further and in more depth.
So assume your reader hasn't read the passage and explain in that kind of a depth to them. And remember, the commentary is explaining how the evidence supports the claim. So let's look again at paragraph one. We've chosen some evidence. Now we're going to work on the commentary for it.
Remember, we chose this as our best evidence to show imagery that reveals the complex relationship. So Mary Oliver can imagine the screech owl on her wrist or sitting quietly before that luminous wanderer, the snowy owl. However, she says that she can't imagine being in such proximity that if one of those should touch her, it would be the center of her life and she must fall. Now let's look at how we might explain this piece of evidence.
Here, Mary Oliver uses imagery to show the contrast between the beauty and power of nature. The former she finds inviting and the latter terrifying. First, she uses imagery to illustrate the beauty in nature, like the white gleam of the snow owl's feathers. This nature she seems to revere. She wants to observe and interact with it, even imagining a screech owl on her wrist.
In the next part of the paragraph, however, The images that she uses portray a darker side of nature. She seems to fear the great horned owl, which she says are the pure wild hunters of our world. She describes them as swift and merciless and describes the headless bodies they leave behind.
Unlike earlier, she cannot imagine being close to nature in this darker form, saying that to do so would make her fall. Her relationship with nature is clearly complex. She is struck by the beauty, but fears the power as is represented in her interactions with owls. Okay, so it's your turn.
This time we're looking at paradox. So remember, we chose the last example with I drop to the sand, I can't move, I'm restless no more being an example of both paradox, but also being a good example of how her complexity with nature is revealed. So pause here and try to write commentary that goes beyond summary. where you're anticipating talking to a reader who hasn't read the passage and having to explain how this example reveals the complexity of her relationship with nature. And when you're ready, hit play.
Okay, I'm going to explain or give you an example. Yours might sound different, and that's okay. There is not one right answer, but this would be a good one to model and look at, you know, did you do something similar?
So here Mary Oliver describes through parallelism how her relationship with nature makes her happy, so happy that it eases her restlessness and she feels like she can't move. This is immediately followed, however, with two paradoxical rhetorical questions that indicate that the happiness she finds in nature is terrible and frightening to her. Throughout the passage, she uses imagery to convey both the beauty and power of nature. The paradox here, however, delves deeper into the complexity of her relationship. It is not only that nature sometimes brings her joy and sometimes fear.
The use of paradox shows how both of these emotions can happen simultaneously and can be caused by the same aspect of nature. What is beautiful is also terrifying, and what is terrifying is also beautiful. So some reminders.
Evidence and commentary should be aligned with the thesis. The evidence should focus on how a specific rhetorical choice helps convey a specific message, and it should explain how the specific choice helps convey the specific message. All right, thank you so much for joining me.
Remember to be kind to yourself and to others, and I hope you'll come back for another video. Thanks so much.