—Start of Cover Letter—
At the start of the unit, the summarizing part was extremely fun for me and helped me summarize in general. I really like needing to read the text and try to make it shorter for some reason. I’m honestly don’t know why I found it to be fun since, I’ll be honest, I don’t like reading and writing in general. The fact that this entire phase made me like English is a rarity and I think this has been the best lesson in all of my English classes (I also really liked phase 1 too).
Although I really liked the summarizing lesson, the assignment was a somewhat hard assignment because I kept on thinking that I needed to explain what I was talking about. Instead of just writing a 1 sentence summary, I needed to make it 3-4 pages, which made it really hard trying to not explain it. I made mine a bit on the informal side and also some parts of it are formal whenever I’m explaining.
My audience is mostly for my classmates, but could also be for an internet post if some things are changed around and moved. I did it by referring to my classmates in the start, and also talked in a more informal tone since it would be somewhat similar to talking to them in person. It would show them the rhetorics used in the video if they didn’t understand it. It could be also for people on the internet because it would be a short summary of what happened in the video and presentation, and also to learn about the rhetorics used.
This assignment has taught me to write essays about things without explaining the details too much, although I did sometimes did explain the PATHOS, ETHOS, and LOGOS. It helped me not get off-topic in general, and as well helped me write informal writing and summaries. It was also hard to write 4 pages about 1-2 topics, and I completely failed that in my draft for the essay. I then noticed that I could take a broader approach to the assignment and still keep everything that I wrote, while also making the essay a bit more explicit and more informative. I also made the joke part of my essay longer than the one in the draft since the “normal” part of my essay took about 2-3 pages.
One learning outcome that I feel like I have achieved is; “Composes texts that integrate your stance with appropriate sources using strategies such as summary, critical analysis, interpretation, synthesis, and argumentation.” It has really helped me summarize the text and analyze the text, whilst not trying to explain it. It also helped me have a different way of writing essays in general. It also helped me “Recognize and practice key rhetorical terms and strategies when engaged in writing situations.” Although it wasn’t writing, it was a video, it really helped me out in that view since the entire point of the essay was to recognize rhetorical terms.
—End of Cover Letter—
Learning a new language is hard, especially when you’re older. Narrator Safwatt Saleem had this issue. He explained what happened in the Ted Talk, “Why I keep speaking up, even when people mock my accent.” Ted Ed uploaded this video on August 15th, 2016. I’m going to guide you, my classmates, where he speaks about how he likes hummus. He also explains how people consider what’s “normal,” to them. Last but not least, he included jokes in his presentation to lure the audience into the presentation. First, he explains how people consider what’s “normal.” there were many examples in the presentation, although not explicitly said.
In the Ted Talk, he started by showing a story on a dream he kept on having. In the dream, people were saying, “have you forgotten your name?” Over time, the voices kept on getting louder and louder. He tried to respond but he couldn’t. He showed a lot of emotion during the presentation (PATHOS/emotion), with his hand gestures and movements. His expressions in the presentation were most likely the same as what was happening in the dream. He felt stressed.
Later on in the video, he refers to the “forgotten your name” question again. But instead of being in a dream, it’s instead in real life, at school. It used to be a recurring joke said to him over and over again. Whenever he stuttered with his name, and everyone would laugh as if it were something normal. This would make him feel that “it would become obvious that there was something wrong with me, that I was not normal.” He then transitions to how he could use audio editing instead to edit his voice and make it sound “normal.”
Earlier in the presentation, he showed us the comments of a video that he made about video games. He organized it in a way to explain the details of it later. He showed the comments of the video on a big screen so that the audience could see. The first few comments were very nice and constructive. There was a confidence meter at the bottom showing his confidence level. At first, it was going up and up, going off the charts. His real-life emotions were reflecting the comments that he was reading. But then, the comments became negative, especially with his accent. His confidence in his voice and his meter went down to reflect it. It kept on going down until it reached near 0. The last comment was about the origin of his accent, saying that it was from “Indian.” This is where Saleem snapped.
He said that it was a Pakistani accent in an angry, serious tone. He forgot all the good comments because more negative comments kept on coming. He tried to ignore it and to just do the second part, but he felt like he wasn’t “normal.” The people also didn’t think it was “normal for a narrator to have an accent.”
But what is “normal” anyway? I feel like there is no such thing, but some people have their own perspective of what it is to be “normal.” Certain populations of the world have more advantages over others. He shows ETHOS (credibility) by showing a statistic with proper citations. He showed that in 2014, only 11% of children’s books has a character of color. This was unfortunately only a 3 % increase from last year.
He shows LOGOS (logic) and ETHOS by showing the audience the negative facts about advantages that some people have. One example is, “reviewers will find more spelling errors in your writing if they think you’re black.” It made the audience think that they should change their actions if they do this. He showed 3 more specific examples of people thinking what is “normal” to them. This made the audience believe it even more. They would see him as a reliable source, and they would most likely believe what he said.
Next up is the jokes, which will be more to the point. He shows many jokes in his presentation, to make people laugh, but to also be more interested in the story. The audience would get a lot more interested in the topic when some comedy is added, based on my experience watching the video the first time. It gives the audience a bit more PATHOS and lures them into the serious topics coming up.
One example is hummus. He was talking about how the minority races are very like the majority. Similar experiences, hopes, dreams, and also fears. He then says “…and our mutual love for hummus. It’s delicious!” The whole audience laughs, and even though it brings the audience’s attention even closer. He also brings them back into attention because they weren’t paying attention in the first place. It’s an incredible way to use jokes about a serious topic to hold the attention of the audience, whilst still maintaining the seriousness.
He used an incredible amount of rhetorical strategies in his presentation. Not only of what people thought was normal and the jokes used in his story. This was an incredible presentation and a very good use of rhetoric strategies. Hopefully, this helps you and my classmates out on what kind of rhetorics he used in the presentation. as well as summarizing the most important information in the said presentation.
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