Wild Apples Rhetorical Analysis

Before this class started, I thought we were going to just read several biographies and write about them. However, we went beyond just writing about biographies. I analyzed works written by Thoreau and then wrote about myself and my mother. For the first essay, “The Question and Answers” essay, I immensely struggled writing about Thoreau’s question in his essay “Wild Apples”, “Why wild apples are significant ?’. I was unsure at first on how to structure my essay,so I asked one of my friends. In order to pick the essay I was going to write about, I skimmed over several of Thoreau’s essays that we covered in class. Then, I picked the essay I thought I understood the best its argument and reread the whole essay to plan my essay while creating …show more content…
Through analyzing “Wild Apples”, I learned what evidence is effective and not effective and the importance of using detailed counterarguments. In order to support that apples were significant in ancient times, Thoreau “alluding[alluded] to the Roman historian Tacitus. Tacitus asserted that ‘the ancient Germans’ met their hunger needs ‘with wild apples (agrestia poma) among other things’ [paragraph 3 part 1].” Through this piece of evidence Thoreau used, I learned that effective evidence for a claim should come from a reliable source. In addition, Thoreau supports the forms apples are the most productive of all crops by “mentioning an apple tree he noticed that naturally flourished on a portion of a cliff surrounded by a forest and rocks [paragraph 3 - 4 part 2].” [“The True Value of Wild Apples”] Through analyzing this evidence, I realized that personal observations are not effective evidence, since they just generalize Thoreau’s encounters with wild apples. After determining and analyzing how all the evidence Thoreau utilized to support his claim fits his essay, I realized Thoreau overused personal observations to prove his claim. Through looking at Thoreau’s reasoning behind his argument and how the evidence Thoreau used supports his argument, I noticed that Thoreau “does not sufficiently compare wild apples with other crops” [“The True Value of Wild Apples”] . Through writing “The True Value of Wild Apples”, I learned that critical reading involves reading the piece several times in order to determine the argument and the ways the argument can be improved. As I read Thoreau’s essays and Gandhi’s autobiography, I wrote notes summarizing each paragraph or page. This assisted me with focus more on the