Assignment Overview: For your first writing project, you will write a reflective essay in response to our first reading, “How Washing Dishes Restored My Intellectual Life” by Zena Hitz. You will demonstrate a full understanding of the assigned text as well as application of three assigned rhetorical strategies that Hitz uses in her text. You will also include and discuss at least one quotation from Hitz’s essay (cannot be the epigraph): Required length: 1300 words.
You will model the text type and topic for your project after Hitz’s work- a nonfiction, personal, reflective, and analytical essay that addresses your relationship to either your intellectual life and experiences.
Consider how her ideas about reading and “intellectual life” could be alienating. What phrase would you use to replace “intellectual life,” and why do you value it?
We will examine how Hitz builds value into her idea of the intellectual life in her reflective essay-this “how” is what we are calling “rhetorical strategies.” You will adapt some of her rhetorical strategies into your essay.
Application of Strategies: For this assignment, you are required to incorporate three rhetorical strategies that we discuss in class- epigraph, metaphor or extended simile, and word choice. Use Hitz as a guide and model, but do not limit yourself to her techniques. Be creative, take a risk, and use these strategies in the way that is most appropriate for your theme and the ways in which you aim to engage the reader.
– Write one epigraph and post it at the top of your essay
– Use at least two (2) metaphors or extended similes
– Use three (3) words from Hitz’s essay that you had never or rarely incorporated into your previous writing
In addition, you will include at least one other of Hitz’s rhetorical strategies of your choosing: some options are “epiphany,” “in medias res,” and asking questions.