Variation Across Contexts
Students will be able to identify, analyze, and reflect on variation in rhetorical and linguistic patterns, including their own, from a range of contexts
Reading Response 1
For this artifact, I was expected to write a response about the short story "The Eve of the Spirit Festival," by Samantha Chang.
​
When completing the assignment, I was able to identify the ways in which language, culture, and behavior reflect different rhetorical and cultural patterns. Emily's complex character made me realize how people express themselves through what they say and do, even though she was difficult about showing interest in her family's culture. Her language shifted depending on whether she was rejecting or accepting her cultural heritage, such as cutting her hair. Writing this essay showed me that analyzing language is not about words, and rather about understanding people and what they go through.
Reading Response 3
In this artifact, I was able to show how the protagonist in The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls could change her tone in language, based on her relationship with her father.
​
Writing this response required me to pull a few quotes from the book about when Jeannette started to feel indifferent towards her father. Both their actions and conversations revolved around how Jeannette started to feel about her father. I wrote about when she started to realize that she should not rely on her father anymore. I started off of when it was her birthday, asking her father to promise to stop drinking, and then later on, him using her to get money. His words played a key part in how her tone changes from being hopeful to hopeless throughout the story.
​
This assignment helped me identify how language affects a person, and I was able to recognize more of the shifts in the story because of that.
​
