Concept Word: Depression

Looks like: Staying in your room all day, not being motivated to go out and explore

Sounds like: A lighting storm with heavy rain

Smells like: Why you drive by a dead skunk on the road and you have your car vents on open

Feels like: a punch in the gut

Reminds me of: The simpler times in life

Is: Staying in your room all day, not being motivated to go out and explore the dark and gloomy stormy day

Concept Word: Success

Looks like: A guy walking down New York with a nice look suit on

Sounds like: Waking up to the birds in the morning

Smells like: A big-ole rib-eye steak

Tastes like: Money

Feels like: A heavy duffel bag full of money

Reminds me of: A mansion up in the hills

Is:

Concept Word:

Brett Guillaume

Janel Spencer

WRT 101S

17 October 2019

How My Parents Divorce Helped Me Prosper Into Who I am Today

I grew up with both my parents in their dream house they bought out in Vail, Arizona. I would describe my childhood as great, I am very fortunate to be where I am today, but I wouldn’t be who I am today if it wasn’t for my parents divorce. 

I remember the day like it was yesterday, my parents sat me down during the end of my summer break and explained to me that they were going to split up and eventually divorce. I remember my stomach shrinking in, realising what my parents meant at the time. I was still fairly young at the time; only 14 years old going into my freshman year of high school. I could remember them fighting mostly every day after my mom arrived home from work. However, I couldn’t comprehend why they didn’t want to be together anymore. My father moved out of our house in vail up to our other house in Pinetop. I was left in Vail with me and my mom. However it wasn’t always like that forever, my mom let her new boyfriend move into the house only weeks after my father moved out. My father is very vocal about his opinions and every night I would call him, and I remember never telling him what was happening at the house, because I didn’t want to light the fuse. Deep down in my heart I hoped my parents would get back together, but as the days progressed, my dreams crashed down in front of me, leaving me heart broken.

As a result of my parents divorce; when I started my first semester of high school I got terrible grades. I remember failing my Economics class half way through the semester and receiving D’s and C’s in most of my classes.

Father:

• Curly gray hair
• Dad bod
• Blue eyes
• Cheap clothes

• Ragged/Raggedy voice
• Hand movements
• The conversation was very long and dragged on for some time.

• I remember saying “I don’t want to go to school anymore. I want to drop out” and I also remember him stating that I cant do that and I have to move on from what happened between him and my mother.

• I remember feeling incredibly sad and drowned in darkness when my parents sat me down the for the first time to tell me that they were going to be getting a divorce.
• They told me during the summer of 2015, the year I graduated from middle school.
• I remember my father going up to our family cabin we had in the white mountains; he must have been gone for a couple months. During the time I was left with my mother, and her boyfriend at the time.
• Once my father moved back into the house, because he won it in court, I remember telling my parents that I wanted to live with one of them each week. So I would spend Monday through Sunday living with my mom, then the next week living with my father. I could remember doing this to make them both happy, but deep down, it didn’t make me happy.
• One week when I was living with my mom, I told her that I wanted to live with my dad full time, she was heart broken, but I still loved my mother, I just had to do what made me happy.
• I don’t think this set in with my mother and I remember a week later having to talk to the police that came to my father house; I told them I did not want to go to my mothers house out of my own will. I guess they thought my dad was kidnapping me.
• While living with my mother, I remember not caring about school, or much of anything in fact.
• I remember failing a class my first semester of High School, and getting D’s and C’s in my classes. I also remember telling my father once I started living with him that I hated school and I wanted to drop out. I knew that this hurt my father because all three of his previous kids never finished High school, they all dropped out. My dad had a talk with me and I soon released that I had to come to terms with my parents divorce, and I should be living the way I am, because it ain’t right.
• As soon after I released everything I was doing wrong at the time, I begun to change my mindset on life, and realize everything happens for a reason.
• (Talk about how I succeeded in school)

I. Exposition

Thesis: (To be determined)

a. Characters: The main character in my story are myself and my parents.

b. Setting: The first semester of my Freshman year of High school.

c. Situation: My parents told me that they would be getting a divorce.

d. Background: My parents weren’t getting along the last couple years of their marriage, then finally decided to pull the plug my Freshman year of High school; which was the turning point of my life.

II. Inciting Incident

a. Event that caused initial conflict/ set the story in motion: My parents pulling the plug on the marriage, leaving me to deal with he consequences.

III. Rising Action

a. 1-3 events that show main conflict and build towards the main event

1. I started to not care about school during my parents divorce, causing me to fail one class, and highly consider dropping out of school.

2. I started to rebel and not talk to anyone besides my friends and my therapist at the time, I didn’t feel comfortable talking to my parents.

3. (To be determined)

IV. Climax

a. The main life/ perspective changing event of your story, “point of no return”: When I moved in with my father, because during the whole divorce, I lived with my mother, and my father was 4 hours away in the mountains. While moving in with my father, he made me realize that I can succeed in school, and that I have to learn how to move on.

V. Falling Action

a. 1-3 events that decreased conflict

1. I switched schools after my freshman year

2. Throughout the rest of my high school career I got nothing below a C, I would mainly finish the semesters with all A’s and one or two B’s

3. Enrolling in college, something I never thought I would do my freshamn year of high school.

VI. Resolution

a. Ending or conclusion to story: Never give up on your self

b. I feel like divorce was the best option for my parents looking back. I’d rather see my parents happy rather then seeing them fight every day of the week. Things could have been a lot worse.

VII. Argument

a. Time heals all wounds.

b. Divorce doesn’t harm children- the way parents argue and fight around the child hurts the children in the end.

c. Someone could have things way worse then you.

VIII. Main Conflict

a. Man vs. Self

Write about my parents divorce

Write about school

Write about freshman year

I have come to believe (…that CHILDREN of divorced parents grow up to become strong individuals based on their early life tragedy. )

…

I am standing here as a (…son, affected by divorced parents at a young age, stronger then ever.)

…

Less than (…five years) ago (…my parents started the divorce process.)

1) Had you written a rhetorical analysis before? What aspects of a rhetorical analysis did you learn about that you hadn’t considered before?

I have never written a rhetorical analysis paper before, I thought I had, but it turns out I have never. I would say the most important aspect of a rhetorical analysis paper I learned about was explaining in depth how the author uses his stragies to appeal to the audience.

2) What did you learn about your piece or your author’s perspective that you otherwise wouldn’t have discovered?

I learned that there is always a deeper meaning then what meets the eyes. I didn’t realize how deep the song I analysed was until I wrote the paper on it. Writing the paper on the song made me respect the artist even more.

3) What are the ways you effectively prepared, revised, and bettered your writing for the Essay 1 final draft? What ways do you wish to continue to improve for Essay 2 and 3?

I really wanted to use complex sentences in my paper, and I think I did a great job doing that. I will most likely continue this technique to the both Essay 2 and Essay 3.

4) What questions do you still have about rhetorical analysis? What questions do you have about the writing process? About grammar?

The main question I have about rhetorical analysis is why? I don’t have any questions on either the writing process or about grammar.

Brett Guillaume

Janel Spencer

WRT 101S

3 October 2019

Rhetorical Analysis of Joyner Lucas’ Song “I’m Sorry”

“I know that you can hear me, all I need is like five minutes,” (85) these are the words of Joyner Lucas in his song, “I’m Sorry,” published on August 12, 2016. The topic covered in the music video is mental illness, and how it entails a serious issue. Joyner Lucas effectively uses his ethos, and unbelievable amounts of pathos, and his slight logos to convey his point to the audience on how serious mental illness is. Lucas’s purpose is to inform the viewer of how serious mental illness can affect people in order to persuade and educate the viewer that we, as a society, should be considerate to those that are affected with a mental illness. He adopts a depressing tone for his audience in order to convey his point. Lucas supports his claims by first, showing both sides of the story to appeal to his ethos, then showing a fair amount of graphic images including explicit language to appeal to the audiences emotions, and finally by using his logical reasoning, which appeals to his logos.

Gary Maurice, formerly known on stage as Joyner Lucas, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, poet, and actor from Worcester, Massachusetts. To give a little insight, “I’m Sorry” is a song off of Lucas’ popular album (508) 507-2209. Yes, his album title is his phone number; he did this for an abundance of reasons. The main reason was for people to reach out to him for help when they are dealing with mental illness. If someone were to call the number, they would hear his voicemail, the same voicemail(s) heard in most of his songs throughout the album. He wrote this album to discuss the current highs and lows of his life, and ties his recent voicemails into his songs off the album. Focusing on the song “I’m Sorry,” Lucas expresses in an interview with Billboard, “I’ve always felt misunderstood. Growing up it’s been my word against the teachers or my parents’ word and nobody would ever listen to me.” This establishes Lucas’ ethos because no one ever used to listen to him, but now with his fame and popularity, people will listen to and hear what he has to say, and thus he becomes a voice for the voiceless, or others who may have felt similarly. Lucas proves that he is worthy to listen to because of all the adversity he has been through in his life. With suffering from the same points in the song, Lucas can relate to his audience and again; becoming a voice for the voiceless. Lucas also establishes his ethos by giving both sides to the story, the side of the mentally ill person in the video, and the side of how he feels after the person takes their life.“I’m Sorry” currently has 54.6 million views on YouTube in three years, which most would consider a lot. This much exposure to the song means that people are watching and sharing the video, because they feel like it has a great message, furthermore establishing Lucas’ ethos.

Throughout the song, Lucas appeals to pathos to convince the audience that mental illness is a real problem in this world. Lucas’ writes in his song during the second verse, “But I don’t understand how we couldn’t prevent this shit, / you took the easy way out, goddammit, you did / I mean, look what you did / I’m so f—ing upset how could you be so selfish?” (60-64). Verse one of the song is the perspective through the mentally ill person, and verse two of the song is Lucas’ perspective. Lucas is appealing to the audience by saying, “I don’t understand how we couldn’t prevent this shit;” (60) Lucas wants the audience to wake up and realise that mental illness is a serious issue, for the sake of people taking their own lives because of it. On behalf of the second part of the quote, Lucas is expressing his frustration about his friend taking his own life, Lucas calls him selfish, and expresses how upset he is. With Lucas saying this, he is also saying to the audience that taking your own life isn’t the solution to the problem, instead you will be remembered as selfish. No one in their right mind wants to be remembered as selfish, when they pass. Therefore, Lucas is making the audience think about how other people would feel; how other people would feel if you took your own life. Lucas is making the audience think about how precious and special life really is. Lucas also says, in verse two, “I wonder if you could do it again, would you do it different?” (91) Lucas is again talking about his dead friend in the quote. The audience gets a sense how how hurt Lucas really is; thinking that he is talking to his dead friend. Most of the word choice and images in the video make the audience feel really emotional and sad; making them want to do something about this current academic. This conveys to Lucas that he did a great job with both writing and directing the music video, because of all the lives that he has touched.

Lucas appeal to logos was one of his weakest appeals in the whole music video, but he was still able to appeal to it. Lucas writes in the song, “I hope you got what you wanted/ I hope you finally happy/ It’s too late for you/ Been going out of my mind/ You don’t know how many times that I done prayed for you” (54-58). Lucas is saying that once you are gone, that’s it, you can’t ever come back. This makes the audience realise how serious this is issue is; once you take your own life there is no going back. Lucas logic is to make the audience who is contemplating sucide really to think of their decisions. Lucas speaks on behalf of God in the quote, telling his dead friend that he doesn’t know how many times Lucas’ prayed for him to get better. Lucas also appeals to logos by saying, “Goddamn it, you dead/ I mean, look what you did.” Again, Lucas’ is explaining to the audience that once you are dead there is no coming back. This also makes the audience realise how precious life is, and that they should learn how to cherish life and all that comes with it. Lucas explains throughout the song that life is hard, but you must get through it because the grass is definitely not greener on the other side.

“I know that you can hear me, all I need is like five minutes,” I gave Lucas 5 minutes and it was honestly very influential and informative. From the very start of the song, Lucas main purpose was to convince and persuade the audience that mental illness is a serious and chronic issue in today’s society. Lucas did this by first establishing ethos, using emotionally loaded language as pathos, and had the logic to back it up with logos. Lucas writes from his perspective in the verse, “maybe it’s my fault, I shoulda paid more attention to what you been doing, maybe I should have been more of an influence,” to show the selected audience that they can be the person that changes someones mind on suicide. Lucas wants the audience to be emotionally driven to change. Someone does not just change out of the blue, they must be convinced that they are apart of the problem, and Lucas makes the audience feel this way with his unbelievable amounts of pathos.

Works Cited

Lucas, Joyner. “Joyner Lucas – I’m Sorry (508)-507-2209.” YouTube, YouTube, 12 Aug. 2016, 

Accessed 19 September 2019 www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjKbw1Cqpt0.

Saponara, Michael. “Joyner Lucas On Crafting ‘(508) 507-2209,’ His Competitive Streak & Why 

He Thinks Logic Is ‘Corny’.” Billboard, 29 Aug. 2017, Accessed 19 September 2019

www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/7948977/joyner-lucas-interview-508-507-2209-album-logic-diss-lyricism.

Vegas, Leon. “I’m Sorry Lyrics.” Genius, 10 Aug. 2016, Accessed 19 September

2019 https://genius.com/Joyner-lucas-im-sorry-lyrics

• Sentences/ complete sentences/ independent clause
  • Independent Clause
    • Definition: a complete sentence
    • Subject 
    • Verb 
    • “Complete thought”
    • Can stand alone and make sense
  • Grammar rules
    • 1) Fragments (dependent clause) (cannot stand alone and make sense)
      • After, although, as, as is, as though, because, before, except, if, since, though, unless, until, when, whose
    • 2) Run-ons
      • Fused
      • Comma splice
      • FANBOYS
        • For, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so
      • How to fix example:
        • We went to the store ; I saw a kangaroo
• Punctuation Rules
  • Oxford comma
  • Use commas to set off appositives (a word, phrase, title, or degree used directly after another word or names to explain it.) (Sue, the girl next door, likes to draw.) Do not use commas to set off appositives that are identifying a person or thing by answering the question, Which one(s)? (My brother Tim is riding in the horse show.)
  • Use a comma to set off two or more introductory prepositional phrases 
    • Example: In the late fall of 1991, Mr. Jordan was elected mayor
      • Highlighted: prepositional phrases
  • Commas in sentence structure
    • Use a comma before a coordinating conjunction when writing a compound sentence
  • Semicolons
    • Use semicolons when writing compound sentences using a conjunctive adverb or transitional words or phrases. Some of the conjunctive adverbs are accordingly, also, besides, consequently, finally, furthermore, hence, however, instead, moreover, nethertheless, otherwise
    • Use semicolons instead of commas between items in a series if the items themselves contain commas. (Next week the President will visit Norfolk, Virginia; Cincinnati, Ohio, and San Antonio, Texas.)
  • Periods and commas – “inside”
  • Semicolons and colons – “” outside
  • Apostrophes
    • When two words join together
      • Example: He is = He’s

• Their / There / They’re
  •  Their: possessive form of they
    •  Their bed is at the end of the room
  • There: indicates location (hint: think of “here and there”
    •  Look over there
  • They’re: contraction for “they are”
    • Example: They’re playing ball
• Principal / Principle
  • Principal: adjective, most important; noun, a person who has authority
    •  The principal is coming!
  • Principle: a general or fundamental truth
    • They have great principles
• Complement / Compliment
  • Complement: noun, something that completes; verb, to complete
    • James had 100% complement on the test
  • Compliment: noun, praise; verb, to praise
    • Victoria complimented me