As we continue our discussion of logos, both as a method of reasoning as well as an awareness of form and structure, it is important to understand how logos works in the production (craft, writing) and reception (critical reading, analysis, and interpretation) of text. Working with written language on the sentence level provides an excellent opportunity to observe language dynamics, nuanced appeals, and the way effective use of language engages the Five Canons of Classical Rhetoric, which we discussed in class on Tuesday, February 9. The work we do in understanding the dynamics of the sentence—i.e. its form or style, its internal logic and arrangement, its language economy and delivery, and its ability to linger or prove memorable to an audience—can be applied, in principle, to larger pieces of text: the paragraph, the section, essay or chapter, or an even longer work.
With that in mind, the blogs for this week and next will involve, by turns, the creation and analysis of carefully crafted sentences. Posters will begin by crafting a sentence (invention), adhering to the conventions of either sentence style we discussed in class: the periodic sentence or the final free modifier.
Now for the challenge: as you craft your sentence, strive for writing at least 75 words while maintaining logical integrity and grammatical correctness. If you feel particularly motivated, you may even try become the record-holder for the longest sentence (the longest example we have, so far, is 217 words). Finally, please feel free to have a little fun with this exercise: the opportunity to carefully craft a single sentence, to dwell on such a compact yet rich text, is truly a little luxury.
Responders: using one of the sentences your peers have crafted as your subject, please offer a brief analysis of the sentence, detailing and describing your unique observations about the sentence and using any of the perspectives we've discussed in class including, but not limited to, deductive or inductive reasoning, arrangement, structure, delivery, memory. Keep in mind that your observations are central to your explication and analysis, and that the rhetorical lenses we've been discussing should serve, not as a checklist, but as tools for making sense of or explaining your observations.
We will repeat this process for Week 5, offering those who crafted sentences during Week 4 to offer an analysis during Week 5, and offering those who wrote an analysis during Week 4 to craft a sentence for Week 5.
Please post Week 4 sentences to your blog by the end of the day on Thursday, February 11; those responding for Week 4 should offer their analyses by Sunday, February 14.
Please post Week 5 sentences to your blog by noon on Monday, February 15; responses (analyses) will be due by midnight on Saturday, February 20 (this will begin our usual blog rotation schedule).
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I tried to post this as a comment to Blog-Cabin under the entry of "There it is" but it would not let me. I can post comments to every other blog but not this one. Unfortunately I wrote my response before I knew this. I figured I would post here instead and try again tomorrow. Here is my response:
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading this sentence. The best part of it was the suspense that was built up only to be used for humor in the end. When I first started reading the sentence I thought it was about something dark and magical. The sentence takes the reader on a journey from serious to humorous in just 50 words. I also thought the change of diction was very efficient in taking the reader on this journey. The sentence starts of with a higher level of vocabulary, which gives the sentence the sense of seriousness that it is using to fool the reader. At the end of the sentence the word “stuffed” breaks the pattern and revels the joke that was being developed the whole time. In conclusion I really enjoyed reading this sentence and liked the way the author went about leading the reader down a path, only to have a surprise ending.