#3

Some speeches have been so moving and powerful that they have withstood the test of time. Speeches such as Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speech “I Have a Dream” and Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman”. These speeches touché the heart of American at the time they were given and continue to this day to strike a chord. These two speeches both have some factors in common and many that are not similar. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” has addressing the repressive and hatefully discriminatory view towards African Americans at the time. While Sojourner Truth was speaking out for women’s rights, both African American women and for white women, in her speech “Ain’t I a Woman”. Both speeches though had similar uses of repetition.

In Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech several words and phrases are repeated over and over. In the beginning of the speech the first phrase repeated is “one hundred years later”. This is repeated over and over, emphasizing that African American’s are still not free. That one hundred years after the Emancipation Proclamation, African Americans are still denied the freedom promised to them. Then using this literary tool of anaphora, King repeats the words “We must”, “we can never/cannot be satisfied”, and “go back to” Then the famous words “I have a dream” are repeated over and over again in the ending of his speech, sharing his hope that American will allow for all its citizens the freedom promised in the Declaration of Independence. Then the last words repeated are “with this faith” and “let freedom ring”.

In Sojourner Truth’s speech she addresses the subject of women’s rights and refutes the awful claims of the male speakers from throughout the day. Throughout her speech, Truth repeats the phrase “and ain’t I a woman”. She brings up every claim argued by the male speakers about the treatment of women and disproves it. One speaker believes that women need to be helped into carriages and over ditches, yet Sojourner Truth had never been helped into any carriage or mud puddle, and she asks is she not a woman?  She refutes all the claims brought up by the male speakers and shows the true power and potential of being a woman.

Both of the two speeches use the power of repetition to emphasize and increase the rhetorical effect. With the repeating of certain words and phrases throughout both speeches the listeners latch on to these words and they become more and more powerful. This use of anaphora increases the rhetorical effect had upon the listeners and draws them into the speech.

I think that both would respond well towards each other’s oratory style. I think that Martin Luther King Jr. would have been a supporter of women’s rights and would have been clapping in the front row for Truth at that women right’s convention. And I am sure that Sojorner Truth would have been standing on the steps of Lincoln’s Memorial during Martin Luther King Jr.’s powerful speech.  

#2

  Language is the way we communicate out thoughts, feelings, desires, and dreams to others. This ability of language is what sets humans apart from the rest of the animal kingdom. In the essay written by Helen Keller, she writes that her acquisition of language is what “set her free”. This freedom given by language is also seen in Malcolm X’s Homemade Education. Both of these authors were unable to express themselves and this inability frustrated them immensely, worse for Helen Keller who had no means at all for self-expression. Malcolm X read and copied the dictionary teaching himself to read and comprehend the written language he so desperately needed to express himself with, and Helen Keller learned how to acquire language with the help of her teacher. Acquiring language allowed both of them to feel truly free, and gave them the ability of self-expression.

            

This power given to us by language is the greatest gift possible, in my opinion. Language provides us with freedom. It allows us to tell others and have them understand our feelings, wants, dreams, and desires. With the spoken or even written word, I can do almost anything. I can read books and understand the words and the deeper meanings in the story. I can write stories and letters that everyone in the world can read and understand what I am trying to say. With language I can talk to other people who I met throughout my life, I can introduce myself and explain how I am and what I want out of life. With language I can talk to my friends and tell them jokes, have conversations, and communicate our wants and desires. I can talk to my family and teach my baby nephews new words and help them to express their needs to the world and the people around them. With my little sister I can talk to her and help her with her homework, showing her what this word means or what a story is really about. And with my boyfriend I can express my feelings toward him and how neat I think he is, and he can tell me through the power of language his feelings toward me as well. I have always been an avid reader throughout my life and with through the books I have been able to visit places I have never been, and met people I will never have met normally. Through these books I have felt free and able to be anywhere and achieve anything. (That was a bit corny, sorry) But any person who read to escape their tedious and mundane life can understand those stories allowed them to go somewhere else for a while and escape from their reality. This written language is what allowed me to feel free.

Language is what allows us to communicate what we are feeling inside. This power to expresses our feelings are given to us only through language and is the gift given to mankind. I think the ability to express ourselves is the most important thing, and we must protect it, cherish it, and nurture it throughout our lives. 

            

#1

When someone says critical thinking my first thoughts are of high school. In all our high school careers we were taught how to think critically and to analyze thoughtfully everything put in front of us. All the novels assigned to us had to be read between the lines, and meanings had to be found throughout the book. When throughout my early reading life I had simple read books and never looked for hidden meanings layered in the text. I thought books were just interesting stories and that’s it. Then when I took my first honors English class I realized oh how I was wrong. Almost everything in the books we read had hidden meanings and was supposed to represent something greater than it was. Needless to say this whole “read between the lines” and look for meaning took me awhile to grasp. Critically thinking to me now is simply reading and looking at things, and not taking them at face value; always looking for hidden meanings that may lay somewhere deep beneath the surface of things. To not believe everything we are told and to question and think about the things told to us. Simply put, to me, critical thinking is to be smart about things and use your head. To not be a sheep listening and believing everything we are fed by the world around us. These high school English classes are the ones who helped me realize that this whole “using your brain thing” had a name; and that is was critical thinking.

In my life today I try to watch as much news as possible and to really think about what is being presented to me. To think questions such as: whether this station is biased and which way is it biased, what would that cause if they were in favor of one political side, is this story believable, is this station a credible source of information? Though having my life though causes little to no time to watch the news and this is a regrettable fact. My main outlet to use critically thinking is in my classes. In my classes I can read papers from other students, novels and textbooks. I have to analyze the text I have been given and truly understand what I am reading to learn it. This is the major outlet I have to use critical thinking, though I should use it in every facet of my life.

Hopefully with this class my analytic skills will improve and I will learn how to use them more in everyday situations and not simply in my classes. Analyzing the things around us is a very important skill that most of us do not use all the time, though we should. And hopefully at the end of this semester this class will have helped me to learn to use critical thinking in every second of my life. With this better view on the world I might start to see things that I have missed before and become more in tune with the things going on around me.