Prompt
Make an argument about how small-scale rhetorical technique mirrors or contrasts with large-scale argumentative structure in one or two of the following texts: Mather, Wonders of the Invisible World; Sewall, The Selling of Joseph; Rowlandson, A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson; Behn, Oroonoko; Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olauduah Equiano.
"Rhetorical technique" refers, for this assignment, to small-scale devices or effects (a certain turn of phrase, for instance), though these effects may be repeated at different points in the text. "Argumentative structure" refers to the way the text as a whole is put together--how it links its points together, how it tries to defend its overall thesis, how it is assembled as an argument. We will discuss approaches to this paper in class, but the first step is to choose your text(s), work out what they are arguing for, and start searching for the various rhetorical tricks the authors tend to use.
Possible responses to this larger prompt:
1. Focusing on the Bible quotes. As you know by now, a lot of the writers we're reading this semester quote the Bible a lot as evidence for their arguments. That means that to identify the use of Bible quotes as your author's rhetorical technique isn't quite enough. You'd have to push further into detail to say how your author, in particular, uses these quotes.
2. Using ethos, pathos, and logos as categories. Again, the problem here is that these are categories that every good user of rhetoric uses. So again, if you focus on one of these categories, you'll have to be very specific about how your author, in particular, uses it.