Cover Letter

My audience in this essay would be my peers and just students in general. I was able to tell her my language to my audience by being more formal and explaining the author’s ideas by simplifying them to where anyone can understand what the author was saying without necessarily watching the presentation that I analyzed. I was able to use rhetorical strategies to appeal to the audience by using direct facts from the text that I analyzed an also by giving vivid descriptions of everything that was presented. I myself was able to gain some meaningful insights from the text that I analyzed. One thing that I learned was a new way to look at the word “normal”. This is something that I feel that no one really thinks about when they use it even though it is used almost every day, but everyone has an idea of what it is. One concept has impacted my writing practices and learning is rhetoric and purpose. I can say rhetoric because it is used to convey your ideas and it helps the reader or audience understand what you’re trying to say and makes it stick with them so going forward I will look into using rhetoric in my writing because it helps. Another thing that impacted my writing practices purpose I learned that you must have a purpose when you’re writing, without a purpose you’re writing meaninglessly, and it can be hard for your audience to understand. This is something I picked by looking at another author’s text and it has taught me to do the same in my writing. This phase helped me explore and analyze, in writing and reading, a variety of genres and rhetorical situations. This phase showed me how to analyze a text and clearly pick out rhetorical strategies being used, and I can now apply this to other different genre of texts. Another outcome of this phase is that I developed strategies for reading, drafting, collaborating, revising, and editing. I was able to learn this from this phase because I slowly built on my essay throughout the weeks of this assignment. One thing that played a big role was collaborating because it was not something I liked to do in the past and did not see any benefit from it until we did this phase. I even feel like I helped my partners because the assignments made me read their work and not skim through it. My partners thoroughly read my draft and gave me feedback that I could use in my essay. These are the two learning outcomes I feel that I really achieved due to this essay.

What is “Normal”?

         “Why I keep speaking up, even when people mock my accent” is presented by Safwat Saleem. This text/video was published by TedTalks in February 2016. Saleem is a Pakistani-American artist, graphic designer, independent animator, and filmmaker. It is a presentation I strongly recommend all my peers to watch because there are small points in it that can relate to almost everyone. The presentation is Saleem talking about how he overcame his challenges in his life regarding the way that he spoke. He was being mocked because of his accent and how he spoke with a stutter for most of his life, to most people this is not considered normal. But this is what led to the question: “What is normal?”.

In the beginning of his presentation, he starts off with a recurring dream he used to have where he was in a room full of people where he was too shy to speak or make eye contact with anyone. Then someone comes up to him asking for his name, but he doesn’t respond and everyone in the room then chants, “Have you forgotten your name” and he still does not respond. Then he continues by stating who he is (a visual artist) and shows some of his work where shows some of his funny voiceovers that he was able to do.

The part of his life he tells the audience about in detail during the presentation was when he made a short film. He was receiving many good comments and reviews at first, so it made feel good about himself and the work he was doing. Then he begins to receive negative comments about it because people made fun of his accent and the way he spoke. He then begins to discuss how it discouraged him and made him think about his childhood. In his childhood he would have stutter and never raised his hand in the classroom to ask a question or to even say the right answer or, when the phone would ring at home would run to the bathroom so he would not have to answer it. He felt that if people heard him stutter people would think he was not normal.

 He began think about what it means to be “normal”. He claims that normal has a lot to do with expectations. He comes across ancient literature and how they get many colors wrong or barely mention colors and the most popular theory for this is because they can only see or notice colors when they are able to make them. The colors they can make are what is normal to them even though many other colors are all around them. He then compares this to his story; They though it was not normal for an editor to have an accent. He then claims that normal is a construction of what we’ve been exposed to, and how visible it is around us. This simply means that normal is what someone has become accustomed to.

The intended audience of this text is for people who have an accent or something unique with their speech and for people who mock others because of the way that they speak. This is for people who have an accent because it can be used to motivate them to not let others discourage them by seeing how Saleem went through and how he overcame his challenge of being mocked. The audience can also be people who mock others because it can show them how their mocking can make people feel uncomfortable and discourage them or cause them discomfort so they should refrain from it because there is no need; This can show that it may not be normal to them but there is no spectrum of normal they can use to compare a person’s speech.

 The text is responding to Saleem’s issue that he has had in his life and that many have had in their lives and how he overcame it. In the presentation Saleem claims, “And this is where things get a bit difficult. I can accept the preexisting notion of normal — that normal is good, and anything outside of that very narrow definition of normal is bad. Or I can challenge that preexisting notion of normal with my work and with my voice and with my accent…”. The issue that is brought up in this text is the word “normal” and how everyone’s normal is different so we shouldn’t make fun of others. The argument being made in this text is that there is no spectrum for the word normal because it is based on people’s beliefs and because of that everyone’s idea of normal is different so we shouldn’t use that against people.

Throughout the text Saleem was able to use Rhetoric to convey his ideas to the audience and get them across effectively. He was able to appeal to Logos, Pathos, and Ethos. He was able to appeal to Logos by bringing in actual factual data to support what he was saying. In the Presentation he shows that 11% of books in 2014 had colored characters in them which is something that should be more because about 50% of children in America come from a different background than the characters they are reading about. He also brought up the theory of why there are not many colors mentioned in ancient literature which was that they had not invented many colors that were around them, so it was invisible to them. These are facts that support things that he explained during his presentation

 He then demonstrates Pathos by providing vivid descriptions of his life, by using functional tones such as humor and excitement, and by providing emotional examples. He provided vivid descriptions and emotional examples together by talking about things that happened to him that made him feel discouraged or sad, he also used humor to present his ideas by talking about when he received good reviews, he was excited because someone said something good about him besides his mother. For example, he told the audience how he was feeling at the end by saying he was challenging the notion of normal by standing on stage speaking even though he Is scared “shitless” which made the audience laugh.

 Lastly, he was able to use Ethos by providing the type of work he does and providing his profession and his background. Within the first minute of his presentation, he identifies himself as a visual artist and shows some of his work by showing some of his voiceovers. These are all rhetoric strategies that are spread out throughout the whole presentation and even helps the audience and listeners understand what he is saying.

“Normal” is a construction of what we have been exposed to and what we are accustomed to. There Is no spectrum of normal because everyone’s normal is different from each other’s because not everyone has the same belief. The question I have for my peers after reading this is: “What is your normal?”.