Rhetorical Analysis Graham Essay
S. Connell 1
Stephen Connell
Mr. D. Perkins
AP Lang, 1st Period B
17 November 2014
Rhetorical Analysis Assessment of Essay by Lawrence Otis Graham
Lawrence Otis Graham is an African American who was born into a upper-middle class family and graduated from Princeton and Harvard Law School. He works as an attorney, teaches at Fordham University, and is the author of a dozen books. He grew up in the 70s and, therefore, experienced segregation and bullying because of his ethnicity. In his essay, "The "Black Table" Is Still There", he recounts the different occasions on which he was excluded from things and bullied, and also criticizes society for the superficial inroads of integration into society. The speaker in "The "Black Table" Is Still There" is Graham himself as he remembers his junior high school days. There were multiple audiences for this essay and the purposes were all somewhat similar. The first audience could be those that sat at the black table. His purpose would be to influence them to try to mix and mingle with new people to break out of the mold of being segregated. The second audience could be black people who didn't sit at the black table. His purpose would be to give them ideas on how they could allow everyone to be mixed and make them think about why they didn't join the black table. The third audience could be the other people who sat at their own self-segregated tables. His purpose in this is similar to the first audience in that he is trying to influence them to break their habit of sitting separate and to get them to try and meet new, different people. Graham's logical appeal is written in this essay and states," The black lunch table, like those other segregated tables, is a comment on the superficial inroads that integration has made into society." This basically means that the integration that is being applied to schools is in name only. The ethnically different students will not automatically mix because they are
Stephen Connell
Mr. D. Perkins
AP Lang, 1st Period B
17 November 2014
Rhetorical Analysis Assessment of Essay by Lawrence Otis Graham
Lawrence Otis Graham is an African American who was born into a upper-middle class family and graduated from Princeton and Harvard Law School. He works as an attorney, teaches at Fordham University, and is the author of a dozen books. He grew up in the 70s and, therefore, experienced segregation and bullying because of his ethnicity. In his essay, "The "Black Table" Is Still There", he recounts the different occasions on which he was excluded from things and bullied, and also criticizes society for the superficial inroads of integration into society. The speaker in "The "Black Table" Is Still There" is Graham himself as he remembers his junior high school days. There were multiple audiences for this essay and the purposes were all somewhat similar. The first audience could be those that sat at the black table. His purpose would be to influence them to try to mix and mingle with new people to break out of the mold of being segregated. The second audience could be black people who didn't sit at the black table. His purpose would be to give them ideas on how they could allow everyone to be mixed and make them think about why they didn't join the black table. The third audience could be the other people who sat at their own self-segregated tables. His purpose in this is similar to the first audience in that he is trying to influence them to break their habit of sitting separate and to get them to try and meet new, different people. Graham's logical appeal is written in this essay and states," The black lunch table, like those other segregated tables, is a comment on the superficial inroads that integration has made into society." This basically means that the integration that is being applied to schools is in name only. The ethnically different students will not automatically mix because they are