Developing An Identity: How It Feels To Be Colored Me

Developing an Identity – Description and Grading Rubric

This essay requires you to select one of the authors whose work we have read during this unit, and carry out an in-depth rhetorical analysis of the entire work. Select one of the following prompts:

1) Write an essay that analyzes how Zora Neale Hurston uses color as a motif in “How it Feels to be Colored Me.”

2) Write an essay that analyzes how James Baldwin uses health and illness as a motif in “Notes of a Native Son.”

3) Write an essay that analyzes how James Baldwin uses either darkness and light, or music as a motif in “Sonny’s Blues.”

4) Write an essay that analyzes how Adrienne Rich uses the different aspects of her identity as a motif in “Split at the Root.”

5) Write

When discussing homosexuality in San Francisco, Rodriguez does not fail to mention the massive impact of the AIDS epidemic; an epidemic in which many members of gay society in San Francisco succumbed to the auto-immune disease. This reference is the first usage of late, while the Victorians in question would be homosexuals in the bay area. They are aptly labeled this way because in the San Francisco area, it is common for members of the gay community to live in partitioned Victorian style homes. Many of these homes came into style after the Victorian era, therefore they would be ‘Late Victorian’ architecture. Rodriguez employs this use of architecture to provide a neutral set of vocabulary to describe

Each one of these motifs accomplish what architecture does, but play second fiddle in terms of their importance to Rodriguez's core argument. A motif’s main function is to enhance the reader's understanding of a topic through cliche. They are designed to create familiarity through repetition of a core theme. Familiarity and comfort are leading factors in convincing someone in an argument they are ignorant of. Therefore, it was only natural for Rodriguez to use a motif to help create a sense of familiarity with a heterosexual audience, when discussing very personal and uncomfortable