1. ELEMENTS OF WRITING Introduction to Elements of Rhetoric

2. LOU GEHRIG’S “APPRECIATION DAY” SPEECH- July 4, 1939 It was Yankees versus Senators on July 4, 1939, a doubleheader at Yankee Stadium.

3. Those in attendance numbered 61,808, and most of them had showed up to honor Lou Gehrig in a ceremony between games.

4. Gehrig had already learned that he was suffering from ALS, a neurological disorder without cure.

5. Led out of the dugout by Yankees president Ed Barrow, Gehrig doffed his cap and fought back tears as the crowd roared.

6. Sid Mercer, the Master of ceremonies, announced, "Ladies and gentlemen, Lou Gehrig has asked me to thank you all for him. He is too moved to speak."

7. "We want Lou! We want Lou!" the chant was a plea for Gehrig to speak. Coaxed by manager Joe McCarthy, Gehrig wiped his eyes, blew his nose.

8. On unsteady feet, he moved towards the microphone to speak the speech he had written the night before.

9. "Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break I got. Yet today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and I have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.

10. "Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn't consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day?

11. Sure I'm lucky. Who wouldn't have considered it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert? Also, the builder of baseball's greatest empire, Ed Barrows? To have spent six years with that wonderful little fellow, Miller Huggins?

12. Then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology, the best manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy? Who wouldn’t feel honored to have roomed with such a grand guy as Bill Dickey?

13. Sure, I'm lucky. When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat and vice versa, sends you a gift, that's something. When everybody down to the groundskeeper and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies - that's something!

14. When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles against her own daughter – that’s something!

15. When you have a father and mother work all their lives so that you can have an education and build your body - it's a blessing!

16. When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed - that's the finest I know!

17. So I close in saying that I might have had a bad break, but I have an awful lot to live for!" Thank you.

18. Until season's end "The Pride of the Yankees" was there with and for his team. He spent every day on the bench and traveled with the Yankees on road trips. He sat through all four of the 1939 World Series games.

19. On June 3, 1941 Lou Gehrig died at his home, 5204 Delafield Avenue, in the Fieldston section of the Bronx He would have been 38 years old on June 19.

20. Confined to his home for the last month of his life, he lost weight steadily during his final weeks. It was reported that he was twenty-five pounds under weight shortly before he died.

21. THE RHETORIC OF THE SPEECH A speech is always situational. It has a context: Sad contrast between the celebration of his athletic career and the life-threatening diagnosis. It has a goal: to remain positive and downplay the bleak outlook. It has a clear main theme: He’s the “luckiest man on the face of the earth.”

22. WHY AN EFFECTIVE SPEECH? Gehrig knows his subject – baseball, the Yankees. Not a polished speaker – so presents himself as common man, modest, thankful. Audience is his fans and fellow athletes.

23. THE ARISTOTELIAN TRIANGLE

24. APPEAL TO ETHOS Ethos – Demonstrate credibility, trustworthiness. Emphasis on shared values. Sometimes by reputation, sometimes by speech itself, a tone of reason and goodwill.

25. APPEAL TO LOGOS Reason – clear, rational ideas. Specific details, examples, facts, statistical date, expert testimony. Gehrig starts with thesis and supports it with: (1) 17 years of playing baseball and (2) kindness and encouragement from fans. Assumption: Bad breaks are a part of life.

26. APPEAL TO LOGOS Acknowledge a counterargument – anticipate objections, opposing views. You concede an opposing idea may be true. But you refute the validity of all or part of argument.

27. APPEAL TO PATHOS Appeal to emotion. Chooses words with positive connotation: greatest, wonderful, honored, grand, blessing. Image: tower of strength. Includes vivid, concrete description, figurative language. If argument only appeals to emotions, probably propagandistic.

28. VISUAL RHETORIC

29. POLITICAL CARTOON Subject: Death of Rosa Parks. Speaker: Cartoonist, Tom Toles. Audience: Readers of Wash. Post. Context: Memorial for well- regarded civil rights activist. Purpose: Ordinary citizen with courage and determination.

30. - ARRANGEMENT - ORGANIZATION OF A PIECE The Classical Model: 1. Exordium- Introduction. Draws readers into text; often by ethos. 2. Narratio – Narration. Factual information, background material. Why subject needs addressing. Logos and pathos.

31. THE CLASSICAL MODEL 3. Confirmatio – Usually major part of text. Proof needed to make case. 4. Refutatio – Refutation addresses counterargument. Bridge between proof and conclusion. Appeal to logos.

32. CLASSICAL MODEL, CONT. Peroratio – Conclusion. Usually appeal to pathos; reminds us of ethos earlier. Answers question, so what?

33. PATTERNS OF DEVELOPMENT Narration: Telling a story; recounting series of events. By Chronology. Description: Emphasizes senses; helps establish mood or atmosphere. Process Analysis: How something works, how to do something, how something was done. Self-help books. Clarity.

34. MORE PATTERNS Exemplification – Series of examples - facts, cases - turns general into concrete. Examples are logical type proof- induction. Comparison and Contrast – Putting two things side by side (juxtaposing) to highlight their similarities and differences.

35. PATTERNS Comparison/Contrast essays or paragraphs can be organized in two ways: 1. Subject-by-subject 2. Point-by-point

36. PATTERNS Classification and Division – Sorting materials into categories. What goes together, and why? “Some books are meant to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.”

37. PATTERNS Definition Cause and Effect – Requires clear logic; carefulness to not confuse cause with effect. Often signaled by a why in title or opening paragraph.

38. ANALYZING DICTION (CHOICE OF WORDS) Questions to ask about diction: 1. Which of the important words are general, which abstract? Which are specific and concrete? 2. Are these important words formal, informal, colloquial, or slang? 3. Are some words nonliteral, or figurative, creating figures of speech? We call effective diction tropes.

39. ANALYZING SYNTAX (ARRANGEMENT OF WORDS) Questions to ask about syntax: 1. What is order of the parts of sentence? Usual order (subject, verb, object), or inverted? 2. Which part of speech is more prominent – nouns or verbs? 3. What are sentences like? Periodic (moving toward something important at end) or cumulative (adding details that support important idea in beginning of sentence)?

40. QUESTIONS TO ASK ABOUT SYNTAX 4. How does the sentence connect its words, phrases, and clauses? We call effective syntax scheme. Parallelisms, juxtapositions, antithesis are common schemes.

41. APPROACHES TO CLOSE READING OF A TEXT 1. Annotation – Reading with a pen or pencil in hand. 2. Dialectical Journal – Double- entry journal. 3. Graphic Organizer -

42. EXAMPLE: GRAPHIC ORGANIZER QUOTATIONPARAPHRASE OR SUMMARY RHETORICAL STRATEGY EFFECT