Documentary Rhetorical Analysis 1

1. Bully. Dir. Lee Hirsch. Perf. Alex, Kelby, Je'Maya. The Winstein Company, 2011. DVD.
Bully is a documentary about bullying in schools. It follows the lives of three students, Alex, Kelby, and Je'Maya, all victims of bullying. It includes interviews from the victims and the victims' families, day to day lives in school, and steps taken to end bullying. This documentary makes clear the lack of initiative the schools have taken to end bullying. Through ignorance and even denial, the superintendents and teachers are strong contributors to the continued bullying that the students face. Truly allowing the audience to feel the pain and difficulty the victims endure, we gain a deep understanding of the horrible reality of high schools and push us to strive for change. 

2. One of the rhetorical devices used by Hirsch is perspective. Specifically using the observational mode, the camera does not intrude on the happenings of the scene. When Alex is on the school bus and getting cursed at and physically harassed, the cameraman does not interfere. Instead, he shoots from a "fly on the wall" perspective and allows the events to happen. In order to create an ordinary environment, one which Alex faces everyday, the cameraman does not budge in. This allows the bullies to harass as they always have been, and allows the audience to view the crude scene of bullying that is commonplace in high schools nationwide. This use of perspective truly gives a wake up call to anyone that denied the existence of bullying in high schools, as the whole scene of hurtful remarks and physical abuse unfolds before their eyes. 
Another rhetorical device used was editing. Including interviews from the victims and their families in casual settings, the interviews were segments of the documentary that generated much emotion. With the victims and their families revealing their true feelings of hurt, pain, and sadness, these emotions were able to transcend the screen and allow the audience to feel them, too. Carefully placed in between the documentary, the interviews had a large impact on allowing the audience to understand how terrible bullying is and how it must stop. Seeing those young children contemplate suicide and self-harm, and actually revealing such horrible feelings, really urges us as the audience to fight for change. 

Bul

TOW Reflection

A noticeable trend in my TOWs is the shorter summaries. In the earlier TOWs, the summary of each article was rather lengthy, totaling about 8-10 sentences. However, the summary of my more recent TOWs has been cut down to about 4-5 sentences. In addition, my more recent TOWs pertain to the hot issues of today. The more recent articles have been on issues that spark many debates, such as abortion, North Korea's nuclear threat, and relationships between students and teachers. Whereas my earlier TOWs focused largely on scientific breakthroughs or interesting health articles, I took a larger focus on global issues and the back-stories behind the hottest news of the day on my latest TOWs. For example, I read an article that was not seen often in the news; the Cleveland police department's failure to rescue the kidnapped girls earlier. Rather than focusing on news exclusively in the United States, I also read some articles on foreign nations, such as Peru and North Korea. This interest in the affairs of foreign nations arose after studying more recent history in APUSH. As much globalization occurred in the late 20th century and I studied this extensively in class, it allowed me to foster an interest for not only what happens in America, but also the events in other countries.

While reading many articles and novels and analyzing picture documents, I mastered spotting rhetorical devices. Even while skimming through a text, I am able to determine and point out specific rhetorical devices that the author used, such as subtle ethos or explicit parallelism. Because of the wide variety of documents I analyzed both in class and through TOWs, my eye for rhetorical devices has been very well sharpened and put to good use.

Every author has a specific intended audience for the article. Although a wide variety of people may read it, the author targets a specific group. However, determining the targeted audience is difficult. It is easy for me to believe that the author wrote the article for the general public, but every author has an audience that he wishes to strongly impact. Now determining exactly who that audience is, is a task that I am attempting to master.

It is impossible to cover every single article of every single genre in class. In order to create a sense of responsibility as well, TOWs are assigned to broaden the scope of our knowledge. The articles we chose to read and the pictures we chose to analyze benefit us with a wider exposure to many different genres and topics. Although the intended meaning was not necessarily this, TOWs are also extremely beneficial to the SATs, as many of the articles we read can be easily used as examples to supplement our argument. In addition, the TOWs also allow us to analyze more in-depth and spot and identify rhetorical devices easily and quickly. Time is precious, especially during the AP exam, and our weekly practice of analyzing gives us needed practice. Also, the requirement of a TOW on a picture document  is very helpful. The synthesis essay in the AP exam almost always has a picture or graph as one of the sources, and our exposure to analyzing pictures in many different ways allows us to identify the author's purpose for using a specific color, specific positioning, etc.

These TOW assignments benefited me in that I was exposed to a wide array of news. I learned information that I would previously not have purposely sought out. I also learned many new rhetorical devices, as well as gained further knowledge on how authors strategically use them to achieve a purpose. However, the fact that I have the freedom to choose articles is also a downside. As I usually choose articles that interest me, I seem to remain in the genre that I am most interested in. For example, I don't really follow basketball or football, so none of my articles were on sports. I would have gained an even wider range of knowledge if different topics were assigned for me to research and write about.

TOW 30: Doctor Found Guilty of First-Degree Murder in Philadelphia Abortion Case

With abortion as one of the most controversial topics right now, this article was a major letdown for the pro-choice party. Dr. Kermit Grosnell was determined guilty of first degree murder in his abortion clinic in a rough area of Philadelphia. He is accused of performing countless abortions after the legal 24-week stage, cutting the spinal cords of newsborns, hiring no professionals, including a teenage student, to perform operations, and reusing supplies to cut down on costs. His clinic had not been inspected in many years, and it was described as a "house of horrors."

This article is from CNN, and written by Sarah Hoye and Sunny Hostin.

This article is significant in context. It has given much credence to anti-abortionists, while slandering the cause of the pro-choice group. This article sheds light on the harsh and illegal practices of abortion, and shows that Grosnell is not the only doctor practicing such murders.

The purpose of this article was to tell a shocking story of a doctor performing illegal abortions, way after the limit on when abortions can be done. The article further reinforced how controversial the topic of abortion is.

The audience of the article is the general public. As most Americans take a general stance on the issue of abortion, this article affects both opposing sides. It lays out the harsh reality behind abortion, and also reminds the audience that Grosnell is not the only one doing such illegal things.

A rhetorical device used in this article is description. In order to get across the horrendous things that Dr. Grosnell was doing in his office, his charges were explicitly outlines. His accusations of reusing supplies, severing the spinal cords of newborn babies, and hiring un-registered, inexperienced workers to perform serious abortion operations were very clearly and descriptively outlined.

The author's purpose was achieved. The article clearly explained the case and went into detail, allowing the audience to gain a complete understanding of the case.

TOW 29: Cleveland Police Criticised as City Asks: Why Were Women Not Found Sooner?

Although the media has been bombarding us only with the good news of rescuing the three young woman after ten years of captivity, there is a small detail that it has missed. The Cleveland police was called multiple times after multiple reports of strange happenings at the location where the young women were, and the police even personally visited the house two times. This has led to widespread criticism for the police department's lack of care, that they were unable to detect that there were three kidnapped women in that very home.

The article is from The Guardian, written by Tom McCarthy in the U.S. and Ed Pilkington in Cleveland. Both are reporters, and The Guardian is a credible source.

This article was significant in context. With the recent news of the three young women being found after ten long years, this article tells of and criticizes the police department's failure to recognize that there were women being held at the house they visited several times.This article tells a slightly different story than the ones that are being told on the news.

The purpose of this article was to reveal that although the news of the rescuing of the women is great, the police are partially at fault for not rescuing them sooner. Even after many different reports and calls to the police department to check out the strange home, not enough was done by the police.

The audience of the article is the general public, as this article aims to tell of a minimally known fact behind this case.

In order to gain credibility that the police had failed to properly act, the article utilized ethos by including testimonies from those that had actually called to report strange behavior at the house. Several people were quoted and they told of what they had witnessed and that they had called. This usage of direct quotes was used to get across the message that the police had not taken the reports seriously, which led to the prolonged stay of the three women at their kidnapper's home.

The author's purpose was achieved. The police department's failure to act quickly and efficiently was displayed as several people testified that they had called. In addition, this article was interesting in that the news and media sites did not tell of such a backstory but instead only revealed the happy reunion of the women with their families.