Rhetorical Analysis Of Atticus Finch's To Kill A Mockingbird

On the first day of class, I felt pretty confident about my level of skills as a writer, but little did I know there were a lot of aspects in my writing that could be improved. As time progressed and we learned more about colloquial language and little things I could change in my essays to further advance and improve my writing. Now, I feel even more confident about my writing and know that all of these little changes I can make in my writing create a better flow of ideas and a higher level of formality. I feel that throughout this semester I have been greatly challenged as a writer and have advanced the most that I ever have in writing within such a short period of time. I have put in a lot time and effort into this class in order to create …show more content…
To begin, I feel my vocabulary has expanded throughout my writing as I have attempted to use strong verbs rather than weak verbs along with trying to use vocabulary that we have learned in class. Additionally, I feel my ability to identify and explain rhetorical strategies has immensely improved while comparing my To Kill a Mockingbird Speech Analysis and Documentary Rhetorical Analysis essays. For example, in my analysis on Atticus Finch’s speech I only used appeals to ethos, logos, and pathos. These three appeals are unoriginal and I stated these strategies directly. While in my Documentary Analysis essay, “The Power of One,” I was sure to avoid being direct and to explain and specify the details about how the directors used strategies. “The Power of One” also demonstrated my improved method of writing my introduction and conclusion paragraphs. I was sure to begin my essay in an interesting way by opening with a rhetorical question. On top of that I introduced the idea of “the power of one” and continued this idea by concluding my essay with it as well. In addition, in “Shift to Reality” I feel my paragraph development was strong and thorough as I examined the depth at which William Golding brings his novel to a satisfying conclusion. On the other hand, I still feel I struggle with sentence structure and awkward wording as shown in my ALS Ice Bucket Challenge essay. Under timed conditions I was not able to reread and revise my essay, so this may be a valid explanation for some of my sentences. However, this will be the case for the AP exam, so this habit will need to disappear. For example, in my introduction paragraph I stated “However, to bring about this challenge once again would not be the most effective way to raise money for impoverished communities.” This sentence is not horribly confusing, but it could use improvement by making it less