I was too stressed about mocks to look for a good TOW article (because a rhetorical analysis of an AP chemistry textbook does not quite sound like my idea of a good time. Also, I’ve already done a TOW on an AP chemistry prep book, and I wouldn’t want to be too repetitive!). I decided to Google “TOW AP English Blog,” figuring I would find someone else’s blog, choose one of their TOWs, find the article about which they were writing, and write my own TOW about it. Yes, as I’m writing this, I am realizing that if I were more of a dishonest person, I could quite easily have just copied someone else’s TOW instead of writing my own, but I wouldn’t do that, and did not even think about that as an option until just now. Anyway, I found something to write about! It seems that at the end of last year, students were assigned to write a letter on their blogs to future APELC students. I read one of the letters (why didn’t we get to read these at the beginning of the year?) and decided I would rhetorically analyze it.
The writer of this particular letter is Kayleigh Y. Kayleigh (woah, I can use her first name because I know her personally!) seems to be writing not so much to inform future students about what the year will entail as to quell the fears she had at the beginning of the year. She establishes a laid-back tone from the beginning, addressing a “Future APELC-er.” Her use of the fabricated word, “APELC-er,” as opposed to “AP English Language and Composition student,” makes her writing feel much less formal, and much more like a conversation between peers. Making her audience comfortable with her as a friendly speaker is essential to her achievement of her purpose, as a relaxed former student shows future students that APELC is for anyone with motivation, not just pretentious, but articulate writers, who are proud to be called “AP English Elitist Snobs” (that’s the Euro kids). Another strategy Kayleigh employs is the use of personal anecdotes. For example, she introduces herself as a student who had never, before junior year, taken any AP courses. Many juniors are in the same position she was in, so having a personal testimony from a student they know is much like them could help the “future APELC-er[s]” relax about the year ahead. Kayleigh closes her letter with the words “Most importantly though, don't be scared. You will be fine. :)” At the beginning of her letter, a future APELC student might not have believed that he or she would be “fine,” but by the end of Kayleigh’s description of the course, I think he or she would be much more inclined to believe her words. Overall, I not only think she achieved her purpose, but also, being an APELC student close to the end of junior year myself, agree with her.
The writer of this particular letter is Kayleigh Y. Kayleigh (woah, I can use her first name because I know her personally!) seems to be writing not so much to inform future students about what the year will entail as to quell the fears she had at the beginning of the year. She establishes a laid-back tone from the beginning, addressing a “Future APELC-er.” Her use of the fabricated word, “APELC-er,” as opposed to “AP English Language and Composition student,” makes her writing feel much less formal, and much more like a conversation between peers. Making her audience comfortable with her as a friendly speaker is essential to her achievement of her purpose, as a relaxed former student shows future students that APELC is for anyone with motivation, not just pretentious, but articulate writers, who are proud to be called “AP English Elitist Snobs” (that’s the Euro kids). Another strategy Kayleigh employs is the use of personal anecdotes. For example, she introduces herself as a student who had never, before junior year, taken any AP courses. Many juniors are in the same position she was in, so having a personal testimony from a student they know is much like them could help the “future APELC-er[s]” relax about the year ahead. Kayleigh closes her letter with the words “Most importantly though, don't be scared. You will be fine. :)” At the beginning of her letter, a future APELC student might not have believed that he or she would be “fine,” but by the end of Kayleigh’s description of the course, I think he or she would be much more inclined to believe her words. Overall, I not only think she achieved her purpose, but also, being an APELC student close to the end of junior year myself, agree with her.
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