Week 1: Week 1 — Diagnostic: Reading Like a Writer

1. Rhetoric is the art of using language to achieve a purpose with a specific audience. Every choice a writer makes — what to include, what to omit, which words to select, how to arrange sentences — is a rhetorical choice.
2. The three classical appeals: ethos (credibility — the writer establishes trust), pathos (emotion — the writer connects with the audience's feelings), logos (reason — the writer presents evidence and logic). Effective writing rarely relies on one appeal alone.
3. Diction is word choice. Every word a writer selects has a denotation (literal meaning) and carries connotations (emotional associations). Analyzing diction means asking why this word and not another.
4. Syntax is sentence structure — how words and phrases are arranged. Short sentences create emphasis. Long sentences build complexity or momentum. Fragments create abruptness. Parallelism creates balance.
5. Tone is the writer's attitude toward the subject and the audience, inferred from diction, syntax, and the details selected. A writer's tone can be reverent, ironic, indignant, measured, urgent, or any of dozens of variations.
6. An assertion is a confident, debatable claim — a sentence that takes a position and can be supported or challenged. The assertion journal asks you to find real claims and build real arguments around them.
7. Reading like a writer means analyzing not just what a text says, but how it says it: what appeals are at work, what diction shapes the tone, what syntax creates emphasis, and what the writer chose not to say.

Ask at home: When you read something that changes your mind, what did the writer do that worked?

En español: Cuando lees algo que cambia tu opinión, ¿qué hizo el escritor que funcionó?