TOW #7: Written Text- Lessons From Hurricane Sandy

With the one year anniversary of Hurricane Sandy being this week, Adam Sobel from CNN was inspired to write his text “What we didn't learn from Superstorm Sandy”.  Adam Sobel is a professor at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, therefore he definitely has ethos and is certified in this area of discussion. The text basically beings with a summary of the destruction of the storm, however he leads into what went wrong with Sandy and the reason it devastated the east coast. While Sobel agrees that our leaders and society were planned for Sandy, we were lucky to survive because in the future the storms with the magnitude of Sandy will hit the east coast more often. Sobel then introduces how Global Warming will create larger storms in the future, that are much stronger than Sandy; therefore we must learn from Sandy and apply it to future storms.

While the audience of the text can be any particular American, I believe it is directed towards our political leaders because Sobel’s purpose is warning Americans of the lessons we did not learn from Sandy, and even though we may have survived Sandy, the future may not be quite as promising since the intensity of storms will only increase due to environmental factors.  

Sobel uses cause and effect to connect to logos in order to appeal to his audience and furthermore stress his purpose. By stating that Global Warming will increase the levels of the sea and also the temperature of water, it is obvious to realize that he not only makes a valid point, but also the effects of Global Warming will indeed create stronger hurricanes. Connecting to Sobel’s purpose, if we barely managed through Sandy last year, we will definitely be in major trouble in the future if we do not learn lessons from Superstorm Sandy of 2012. I believe Sobel achieved his purpose through the logos appeal and realization that we must take in the lessons we learned from Sandy last year. 

Link To Adam Sobel's "What We Didn't Learn From Superstorm Sandy" 

http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/26/opinion/sobel-superstorm-sandy/index.html?hpt=op_t1

TOW #6: Written Text- "A Travesty of Justice"

Shortly after the final decisions of the Trayvon Martin case were released this summer, writer Susan Abulhawa wrote this article in response to the verdict that allowed George Zimmerman to be free man. While beginning the article with the basic information regarding the Trayvon murder case, Abulhawa uses pathos to appeal emotionally to her audience and stress the fact that a teenager who had yet to experience life’s beauty was murdered in cold blood, and his murderer was never punished. After explaining the details of the murder and her opinion on why Zimmerman should have been convicted of murder, Abulhawa then expresses her belief that this case was fueled by racism towards African Americans.

The audience of the text is particularly any citizen, however based off Abulhawa’s purpose, it is obvious that it is directed towards ethnicities (predominantly Caucasians) who are the ones fueling the racism and prejudice towards innocent citizens. The purpose of Abulhawa’s article is to use the Trayvon trial to showcase her belief that “African American men are targeted from the time they are born”.

In addition to using the Trayvon Martin murder trial as support to express her idea, Abulhawa also used other examples of racism towards African Americans. These include crimes such as rape and murder, however the individuals targeted for committing the crimes were never actually involved, but were only suspected because of the color of their skin.

Abulhawa successfully reaches her purpose with the use of pathos to connect to her audience. Since she wrote the essay to convince the majority who are indifferent to the cause, the use of pathos was strategically used in order to connect to the emotions of the audience. By using phrases such as, “Black bodies are worthless and expendable” the audience will now hopefully realize how cruel and indifferent they are to the racism present in the Trayvon Trial, and ultimately will feel embarrassed to create the scenario where a boy was murdered, yet the murderer will never be punished for the crime solely based off the fact that the boy was an African American. 

Link to Susan Abulhawa's Article

 http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/08/201384102857620336.html

TOW #5: Visual Text- Apple and Eve

While eating lunch today and thinking about my visual TOW for the week, I realized that my apple juice would be interesting to analyze. My Mom has bought apple juice for me since my elementary school days; therefore, by analyzing the bottle I could figure out why this product is so popular for parents with kids of all ages.

Apple and Eve Apple Juice Company does more than just to identify their product with the label, they persuade parents to buy their product. They specialize in various juices that vary from apple, to orange to juice box flavors. First of all, the bottle is only 10oz of juice, thus it is obvious that this sized portion of juice is suitable for a child’s lunch because they will need a beverage but not a portion too large. The bottle also has apples pictured all over the label in large print showing that their product is “100% Juice”.

This is emphasizes that parents will be feeding their child the nutrients of an apple and not concentrated chemicals; they want to show parents that their kids are worthy of true juice. Statistics such as 100% daily value of Vitamin C are printed on the front of the bottle, these statistics support the idea that not only will your kids enjoy this drink, but it will be beneficial to their health as well. 

The bottle is strategically created to stand out at the aisle of the supermarket. When parents are shopping for kid’s school lunches, they will easily be persuaded by the manageable size and also statistics on the bottle to purchase this apple juice over other brands. Due to the obesity and health issues of the newer generations of America, parents will look for healthier choices for their children, and they will now be influenced into buying this healthy apple juice. After analyzing the bottle and its strategically made label, it is obvious that the maker of this Apple and Eve product successfully achieve their purpose of creating an attractive yet persuading product through the label on their juice bottle.

I must say the juice was a refresher after writing this TOW

TOW #4: IRB- How Callahan Became Adrift

Steven Callahan’s story Adrift, begins with his creation of the boat “Solo” and leads into how his survival experience began. Callahan discusses how he built the ship “Solo” himself, and how he took pride in the boat as if it were his own child, therefore the reader understands his connection to Solo, and how devastated he is when it sinks in the massive ocean storm. The climax builds as he informs the reader about his journey from Spain back to the Caribbean, where he can take a mini-vacation, however this is when the story of a delighted sailor turns into the survival mission that Callahan had to endure in order to save his life.

The purpose of this survival tale is to not only inform the public of his mission of maintaining to survive for 76 days in the middle of the Atlantic, but to also thank his peers and role models who prepared him for this experience. Callahan constantly states that he is not a hero nor heroic, he believes that he succeeded in a scenario where he was expected not to, and he stresses his gratitude to his ex-wife, boy scout troops, etc, for preparing him for the toughest experience of his life. The memoir is directed to any audience because he wants to make his story well known because it is indeed a record breaker for the longest time a man was stranded at sea.

Callahan uses humor to connect to ethos, and also metaphors as rhetorical devices. The humor is used because it fits well into his story by taking away the seriousness of his survival mission and contrasting it with humor to make the story flow better. The metaphors connect the story of survival to ideas that the audience is familiar about, therefore they will understand the complexity of Callahan’s story, and hopefully understand his experience better. This ultimately allows him to achieve his purpose because humor connects to ethos because it allows the audience to trust Callahan, therefore they will listen to his story, which will achieve his purpose of writing the text.