Example Student Formal Academic Summaries
& Rhetorical Analyses (FAS & RA #1)
 Webpublished with students' permission ~ Thank you! ~ Cora
 Short Cuts  Fall 2002: Noell Devenny (on Coles) | Matt Lilley (on Coles)
Winter 2003: Heather Hynes (on Adler) | Jennifer Walker (on Twain)
Anonymous 1 (on Elbow)
 More Example Student WR 121 Writing:
(1) Out-of-Class Essay Examples
Go to: http://www.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/wr121/essayexamples.htm
(2) In-Class Essay Examples
Go to:  http://www.cocc.edu/cagatucci/classes/wr121/essayexamples2.htm

Noell Devenny
WR 121, Prof. C. Agatucci
Formal Academic Summary & Rhetorical Analysis #1
14 October 2002 

Coles, Robert.  “I Listen to My Parents and I Wonder What They Believe.” Redbook February 1980. 

         Rpt. The McGraw-Hill Reader: Issues Across the Disciplines.  Ed. Gilbert H. Muller. 8th ed.

         Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2003. 438-442.
 

Robert Coles, Psy.D., esteemed Pulitzer Prize winning author of Children in Crisis volumes 1 & 2,  accounts in his essay “I Listen to My Parents and I Wonder What They Believe,” numerous interviews with children regarding how they understand and deal with the world, community, and family moral issues in their daily lives. He narrates what children have described to him during personal interviews and how they emulate their parents’ moral beliefs. He states that children learn by example, what their parents show and teach them about “right and wrong.” A nine-year-old Louisiana boy states,  “God made everyone--but that doesn’t mean we all have to be living together under the same roof in the home or the school” (qtd. in Coles 440). Children are also influenced by peers, their families’ social standing in the community, and by cultural beliefs surrounding them. Sources outside the family then become especially important if the family’s moral beliefs are deficient.  A nine-year-old girl living in Texas stated:  “I saw a kid steal in a store, and I know her father has a lot of money--because I hear my daddy talk. But stealing’s wrong” (qtd. in Coles 442). Coles believes that children need parental guidance with moral issues in order to avoid the possibility of endangering themselves while seeking answers from inappropriate sources. He strongly urges parents to take an active role in responding to the moral inquiries children make thus enabling them to make proper choices about “right and wrong.”

Rhetorical Analysis

            Robert Coles is an author, psychologist, and Pulitzer Prize winner for his general non-fiction work on Children in Crisis volumes 1 & 2. He later expanded this book to five volumes in which he covered a broader spectrum of child studies.  He has interviewed and counseled children all over the country for years, gaining insight and valuing their feelings about major issues, many focusing on moral concerns. In his essay, “I Listen to My Parents and I Wonder What They Believe,” Coles documents with comments on some of these moral uncertainties voiced by children.

            “I Listen to My Parents and I Wonder What They Believe” was originally printed in Redbook Magazine, Feb. 1980. Given that Redbook is primarily a woman’s magazine, his initial writing was geared more towards a female audience, perhaps more specifically mothers. In that respect, it implies that Coles targets mothers for being more emotionally attuned to their child’s needs.  Coles’s ideal audience may be parents in educated professions, such as doctors, psychologists or educators. He attempts to enlighten these parents about how children think and solve moral dilemmas in their lives. This information would be least relevant for singles that don’t have or don’t work with children on a regular basis. These individuals are least empathic to a child’s needs.

 This essay exemplifies the author’s thoughts by using children’s stories to describe moral problems. Coles provides a glimpse, through his personal experience and professional expertise, of some of the moral issues that weigh on children’s minds. He shows through interviews how children are influenced by their parents’ actions and reactions to issues with more prodigious social ramifications. The eight-year-old girl in Appalachia whose father is a coalmine owner and his irresponsibility for the worker’s deaths further exemplifies this.

This child is torn between family loyalty and compassion for those who are less fortunate than her (438-439). Coles also relates the moral turmoil of a nine-year-old white boy from Louisiana during the early 1960’s whose father is an “ardent segregationist.” The child is confused of his feelings about attending school with colored children based on his father’s prejudices.  He discovers through his own personal observation and experiences that “coloreds” aren’t really all that different from himself or his “white” peers (440). In both interviews, the author is sketching a picture of how children deal with their moral conflicts. That they seek guidance from those around them, the girl, from her mother and her peers, the boy, from his mother and his religious faith, to make an appropriate decision for the “right or wrong” reaction. 

Coles’s ability to entice children to speak with him about these moral issues, gives credit to his compassionate and caring nature. He is obviously a figure children feel they can trust and disclose some of their deepest concerns to.  He has only the children’s best interests at heart but he is adamant in his crusade of parents taking more active roles and paying closer attention to their children’s moral upbringing.

© 2002, Noell Devenny
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Matt Lilley
WR 121, Prof. C. Agatucci
Formal Academic Summary & Rhetorical Analysis #1
7 October 2002 

Coles, Robert.  “I Listen to My Parents and I Wonder What They Believe.” Redbook Feb. 1980. 

         Rpt. The McGraw-Hill Reader: Issues Across the Disciplines.  Ed. Gilbert H. Muller. 8th ed.

         Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2003. 438-442.
 

Summary:

        Robert Coles discusses the importance of parents listening to their children’s moral and ethical dilemmas in “I Listen to My Parents and I Wonder What They Believe.”  He comments that parents often do not see that their children make important ethical decisions.  Parents are blinded by the notion that their children live in innocence and that they are far too young to be confronted with such issues.  Coles provides many first hand experiences that he has had with children who have been faced with events that demand great consideration of personal values.  One example involves a young girl whose father owns a coal mine where several men had been killed.  The girl has deep sympathy for those who died but at the same time she can not lose respect for her father. Another example describes a white boy’s feelings about desegregation in the South. His father hates the idea of his son going to school with black kids.  The boy, however, has had no problem with the black students and he likes them just as much as any of his white peers.  Coles concludes the essay by stating that each parent needs to begin listening more closely to their children so they may help them work out ethical dilemmas.  He also points out that the problem may in fact be rooted in the parents’ ignorance about their own personal morals and beliefs.
Rhetorical Analysis:                                                        
        As a psychologist Robert Coles has been devoted to the study of children.  He has spent many long hours listening to the thoughts, ideas, and beliefs of young children.  Through the study of these children Coles has learned how attuned they are to moral issues in their lives.  His essay emphasizes how important he feels it is for parents to begin understanding the difficulty that children face in solving their ethical dilemmas.  He says, “It is time for us parents to begin to look more closely at what ideas our children have about the world ...before they become teenagers...and begin to remind us of how little attention we did pay to their moral development” (441).  Coles’s main purpose is to use his research to educate parents across the U.S. that children are not sheltered by “childhood innocence.”  He wants to inform parents that their children need guidance through their complex problems.

        Illustration is by far Coles’s largest development tool.  He provides detailed examples from his research to support is points.  Coles includes many long conversations with children who have dealt with very controversial issues like desegregation and workers’ rights. He uses these controversial examples as a way to make a strong impact on the reader.  Then he uses more common examples like a child’s inner debate about cheating to make children’s moral issues more personal for the parents.  By using these illustrations, Coles was able to establish the importance of his point and then make the reader feel personally affected. 

        Coles's tone is also one of his most important tools in this piece.  He chose to write his essay just as if he was going to speak to a small group of parents he knows well.  Coles uses “we”, “us”, and “our” throughout most of his essay: e.g.  “Yet some of us parents still cling to the notion of childhood innocence in another way” (438).   He stays as far away from a patronizing tone as possible.  Pointing fingers at the reader is very ineffective.  By including himself in his statements he was able to make the reader feel like it was not his/her problem alone.

© 2002, Matt Lilley
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Heather Hynes
WR 121, Prof. C. Agatucci
Final Draft: Formal Academic Summary
    and Rhetorical Analysis #1
27 January 2003  

Adler, Mortimer J.  “How to Mark a Book.”  Rpt. The McGraw-Hill Reader: Issues Across the

         Disciplines.  Ed. Gilbert H. Muller. 8th ed.  Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2003. 42-47.
 

Summary:

            Mortimer J. Adler gives college students one essential tip in his essay entitled, “How to Mark a Book,” and that is to own your textbooks!  Adler states that to own a textbook is not merely to buy the work.  Instead, ownership requires the reader to make the material a part of himself.  To do so, Adler contests that one must engage actively in the author’s words.  Adler recognizes the reasons some people have for refusing to write in a book.  He acknowledges the confusion people face when told to actually mark on the pages.  Many people have the false impression that it would be disrespectful to write in or on another’s piece of art.  But Adler truly believes that the author would want his audience to gain something from the reading.  Adler believes that this gain comes from thinking, which, in turn, stems from engagement.  Marking up a book is much more important than merely reading it, because it keeps the reader’s mind from drifting, contests Adler.  It also requires thought and application.  By writing in the book, the reader has an easily accessible memory-refresher every time he opens the pages.  Adler outlines specific activities to be used when marking a book.  His suggestions include underlining, starring, circling of key words or phrases, and writing in the margins.  For those common excuses people come up with to avoid active reading (otherwise known as marking the book), Adler addresses these concerns and comes up with solutions.  For instance, someone might say, “there isn’t enough space for me to write in the book,” and Adler would tell him to buy a small pad of paper and insert the notes into the book.  Another reason someone might have is, “writing slows my reading time down.”  Adler says that reading is not a race, and, oftentimes, reading slowly helps the brain obtain and retain the information better.  The last excuse Adler addresses is, “I won’t be able to lend my books to friends.”  Adler shuts this one down by recommending that books be personal, like a diary, and advises friends to get their own copies.

Hynes 2

Rhetorical Analysis:

            Mortimer J. Adler was a man who believed that philosophy and knowledge should be incorporated into every person’s life.  In his essay, “How to Mark a Book,” he outlines specific learning strategies to achieve the above goal.

            One technique he employs is the use of analogies.  This opens the doors to a whole new perspective.  Many readers might find his comparisons help improve their understanding of the actual points Adler is trying to get across.  For example, Adler compares the difference between purchasing a book and owning a book by transferring this theory to buying a piece of meat: “You buy a beefsteak and transfer it from the butcher’s ice-box to your own.  But you do not own the beefsteak in the most important sense until you consume it and get it into your bloodstream” (43).  For some readers, myself included, the idea of “owning” food is far easier to grasp than that of owning a book, because the former is physical.  People see things in different ways.  Adler is broadening the scope of his audience by allowing for these differences.  This strategy would be well used by students in a writing class, because analogies can make an obscure idea take form and become clear.

            Another tool Adler makes use of in his essay is that of asking questions and then proceeding to answer them himself.  For example, he asks: “Why is marking a book indispensable to reading?” (43).  This technique shows that the author is anticipating (and even welcoming) skepticism from his readers and that he feels confident and able to defend his arguments.  Another instance in which Adler employs this method is when he addresses the question of whether or not we (as readers) disrespect a said author by writing in his book.  Adler sees the validity of the concern and puts his audience at rest by stating that there is a time and a place for conservation (as in a first edition printing) but that for the average reader, he or she will gain much more from the text if it is actively engaged in.

© 2003, Heather Hynes
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Jennifer Walker
WR 121, Prof. C. Agatucci
Formal Academic Summary and Rhetorical Analysis #1
27 January 2003  

Twain, Mark.  “Two Views of the Mississippi.”  Life on the Mississippi, 1885.  Rpt. The McGraw-

        Hill Reader: Issues Across the Disciplines.  Ed. Gilbert H. Muller. 8th ed.  Boston: McGraw-

         Hill, 2003. 650-652.
 

Academic Summary:

In an excerpt from Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi, “Two Views of the Mississippi,” he shows that things of beauty and interest can be observed, analyzed and evaluated to the degree of stripping them of their wonder for the individual.  He compares the viewing of the river from a pilot’s eye and a passenger’s.  While they both have a love and admiration for the river, the pilot becomes numb to the beauty that radiates from it.  Going through the mind of the pilot, he thinks back to a memory of the river and how it has changed to how he now views it.  When things are new to us, we tend to drink in and appreciate all of its wonders.  Each thing that we are amazed by can have a different meaning to another, a more technical meaning that strips away what beauty it has.  Those that become masters of interpreting such splendor become numb to it due to the over-evaluating and under-appreciating of it.   

Walker 2

Rhetorical Analysis:  

            The use of rhetorical devices can enhance a work in numerous ways.  Mark Twain in the “Two View of the Mississippi” makes use of several strategies including metaphors and the use of questions to make his point more clearly understood and ask the reader to evaluate himself.  Rhetorical strategies add ease and comprehension to the writing and often make it more enjoyable for the reader. 

            Twain compares the river to a book as the central metaphor of the passage.  The metaphor is effective as numerous aspects of a book are pointed out throughout the first paragraph.  “The face of the water, in time, became a wonderful book- a book that was a dead language to the uneducated passenger, but which told its mind to me without reserve, delivering its most cherished secrets as clearly as if it uttered them in a voice” (650).  In the very first sentence, Twain opens with the metaphor and alludes to the conflict that is later more clearly revealed.  The comparison of the river to a book is continued as the extent of the river’s radiating beauty is described.  “Throughout the long twelve hundred miles, there was never a page that was void of interest…” (650). The two views of the Mississippi are shown through the metaphor as a book that a passenger aboard the boat might read and his perception of it compared to that of the pilot.  Each view the same images of the river but the reactions from each are quite different.  “…The passenger who could not read this book saw nothing

Walker 3

but all manner of pretty pictures in it, painted by the sun and shaded by the clouds, whereas to the trained eye these were not pictures at all, but the grimmest and most deadearnest of reading matter” (650).  Without the use of the metaphor, the idea of different perceptions of a single object would not have been as clearly defined or communicated.

            Twain uses questions in the last paragraph of the excerpt to relate the audience to the ideas that he has presented and show that his dilemma is true for more than just the riverboat pilots.  He shows sympathy for doctors, then asks a series of questions to show how the doctor’s perception of beauty has been altered by his profession.  “What does the lovely flush in a beauty’s cheek mean to a doctor but a ‘break’ that rippled above some deadly disease?” (651). The last question posed, “And doesn’t he sometimes wonder whether he has gained most or lost most by learning his trade?” (652) asks the reader to evaluate his own occupation and how it has altered there views on the subject matter.

            Use of rhetorical strategies not only enhances a work but also makes it more effective.  In “Two Views of the Mississippi,” Twain developed his main thought using a metaphor.  By comparing the river to a book, he allows those unfamiliar with piloting to understand his message.  Questions are asked not to invoke a response but thought.  The use of rhetorical devices enabled possibly abstract thoughts to be comprehended and allowed the reader to visualize the broadness of the message put forth. 

© 2003, Jennifer Walker
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Anonymous (1)
WR 121, Prof. C. Agatucci
Formal Academic Summary & Rhetorical Analysis #1
27 January 2003

Elbow, Peter.  “Freewriting.”  Writing Without Teachers.  Oxford UP, 1973.  Rpt.

         The McGraw-Hill Reader: Issues Across the Disciplines.  Ed. Gilbert H. Muller. 8th ed.

         Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2003.  52-56.

Formal Academic Summary

Peter Elbow divulges the importance of practicing writing, in the form of freewriting, in his essay titled "Freewriting".  As an author and editor, Elbow explains that freewriting is an essential aspect to the progression of an individual’s writing skills.  In freewriting the writer sets forth anything and everything on his or her mind.  The most important task is to never stop.   According to Elbow the writer must continue writing until the allotted time has expired, and may write ‘"I can’t think of what to say, I can’t think of what to say’" (53) until an idea comes to mind.  He stresses never stop for spelling, editing, or to think of a further approach.  A freewriting exercise should not be commented on after production, or analyzed for a specific purpose; it is written as a drill in progression.  Peter Elbow casts light upon the editing portion of writing, revealing that editing should take place after the first draft is completed, not during the composition of the work.

Rhetorical Analysis

As a writer and editor of more than fifteen books, Peter Elbow has devoted the majority of his life to the study of writing (52).  In his essay "Freewriting", originally from the book Writing Without Teachers, he looks into the exercise of freewriting, a way for a writer to further improve his or her writing skills.  This essay looks into the distinct aspects of this category of writing.

Elbow’s personal experience with writing gives him insight into the struggles a writer may face when trying to put their feelings onto paper.  Through his accomplishments within literature, he has developed a strategy for improving these skills.  Freewriting helps a writer improve even without an educator providing advice.  Elbow shows through the steps of a freewriting production, that this type of practice may be performed by anyone.

Tone in this essay is one of the most essential parts to making his directions become understood.  The way the first paragraph uses ‘"imperative’" sentence form gives the reader the comprehension of the format being used in a freewriting exercise (55).  The way Elbow decides to leave some of his sentences incomplete informs the reader that freewriting is not a formal piece of writing, rather an informal mode to one's improvement.  The way Elbow uses an example of freewriting (53) in his essay is helpful to the reader’s understanding of freewriting.  It shows that anything may be said, no format needs to be followed, and no editing is to be done.  This, in a way, visually explains the directions Peter Elbow stated, and reassures the reader of the actions to be expressed.

© 2003, Held by Student

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