fall 2014 // MWF 11:15-12:05 // laura michael brown

journal #1

In class on Monday, we will discuss the idea of a fitting response. When we ask whether or not a text was a fitting response, we first have to consider the exigence for the text. In other words, what was the rhetor’s reason for communicating? To what opportunity or issue were they responding? Then, we consider whether or not the rhetor’s response (their text) was fitting for that exigence. Did they respond appropriately? We can consider whether or not a response was fitting in terms of timing, medium of delivery, tone, and content, etc.

To help illustrate this concept, we are going to take a look at Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” and the letter from the Alabama clergymen that prompted his response in the first place. For your one page journal, I would like you to write about how “Letter from Birmingham Jail” was a fitting response to the clergymen’s letter. Pick a particularly effective passage from MLK’s letter and discuss how and why this passage is a fitting response. Be sure to support your analysis with evidence from the text.

Journal #1 is due in class on 9/8, typed and printed

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