36 Weekly Review

hello again I'm Dr kripp and it's time

for our weekly review before we get into

it please remember as always there's my

email address aaronin gmail.com please

email me if you have any questions or

comments about the course so this

weekend or this week sorry we focused

very heavily on Kenneth Burke's pentab

because it's a method that we can use

any time to try to analyze something

whether it be a text or a movie or an

event in our lives we don't just have to

rely on the chin scratching method as I

call it and just hoping that we come up

with an idea we can be methodical using

his five terms remember he calls it the

pentad because of that those five terms

act agent agency scene and purpose and

they basically correspond to the five w

words the question words who what when

where why and how also so act is what

happens like verbs for example and if

you just think about a movie or

something then in the movie what are the

verbs that the people do it might be

mostly about falling in love or it might

be about stealing some money or getting

the magic thing or whatever so it's

basically actions that people are doing

agent is about uh who the people are and

when we think about that we want to try

to give multiple answers don't just

simply say well it's Elon Musk or what

you could say well he's also a man he's

a husband he's a father he's a

billionaire and so forth and with each

one of those answers that you give

there's a different story and a

different way to analyze it or a

different way to look at it agency is

about how you do the things that you do

um and a good example is a superhero

movies in which uh they do everything

that the superhero has a superhuman

strength they're stronger than normal so

they do everything by using their extra

strength that's their agency or they

have X-ray vision they can see through

the walls and see what's happening

behind the wall using that x-ray vision

is their agency or there many movies

about magic a character has magic and

they do everything by the Magic by using

magic or they're some kind of Genius a

computer genius or just a regular genius

uh those are all agency scene is when

and where and it also includes a

situation and we'll talk about that when

we look at Jonathan Swift's a modest

proposal and then purpose is why people

are doing

things so in order to help us practice

uh with Kenneth burk's pentad we looked

at a few Volkswagen

advertisements and you remember this one

let's take a look at the agents first of

all in this ad and remember we want to

give more than one answer so in what

they are saying in their speech they

talk about German engineering and so one

way to analyze this or look at it is

that there are two Germans and one

American in the advertisement another

would be to say there are two men and

one woman and then simply by looking at

this then we can notice some things for

example uh the two men are standing in

front and the woman is standing behind

which is very traditional and common the

two men are wearing more clothes the

woman is wearing less clothes that's

also very common uh if we go on looking

at the agents we also notice there are

two white people and one black person

and their clothes go along with that the

white people are wearing white clothes

and the non-white person is wearing

non-white clothes then we notice also

the cars are the same the white people

have a white car the non-white person

has a non-white car so the idea of

whiteness and color is very strong in

this advertisement we also notice there

are two tall people and one short person

there and even we can just say they're

basically in general two against one and

it almost seems like a bullying

situation as we go on and look at the

acts that the two do to the one so

that's the next thing that we can

consider is the acts and the verbs that

they are doing in this advertisement the

first noticeable one is just that

they're simply talking and if we compare

that to the agents we just talked about

we'll notice that the Germans talk the

most and the men talk the most also

specifically the German man talks the

most then the German woman talks the

second most and the the American man

talks the least and if we keep going

down looking at the agents the two tall

people talk more the two people talk

more than the one person so it's very

much an unbalanced situation it's almost

like bullying a little bit uh another

act that we notice is that the man

pushes a button and then that causes the

car to be destroyed this goes along with

the theme of the German engineering

pushing a button Electronics Machinery

that fits this theme of German

engineering we also see that they

destroy the man's car and then they

present a new car I don't know if

they're giving him the car or not and

that is an important question too really

finally at the end the German man makes

these hand signs and those are similar

to American uh Urban gang signs so that

lets us know something that the

advertisement is trying to do is kind of

translate uh American Urban Black

Culture into a white German better

culture supposedly in the

advertisement if we keep up with our use

of Kenneth Burke's pentet and look at

agency we notice the very remarkable

part about the advertisement is the way

they destroy the car with this machinery

and again this fits that theme of German

engineering using electronics and

Machinery in order to destroy the

car if we look at the scene then look at

the lower picture here we get a better

view of the scene we'll notice it's very

industrial which again fits with the

theme of German engineering and it's all

white too you can see even those traffic

cones around the car that are normally

orange are white here so it's a very

white environment and that reinforces

this theme of whiteness white Place

white car white people white clothes

against a nonwhite person nonwhite

clothes nonwhite car uh the color is

very very significant in these

advertisements then if we ask what the

purpose is it's a little bit unclear are

they trying to help this person are they

simply saying that his car is worse than

their car it's not clear that they're

giving this car to him it is clear that

they could give him the car in a in a

nicer way in a more obvious way if they

wanted to so there's some question here

are they being nice are they helping him

or not it seems like uh the purpose of

this advertisement is more to kind of uh

laugh at the um laugh at the American

and his car or uh assert that the German

engineering and the Germans are better

or

Superior now if we take uh Kenneth

Burke's pentad and apply it to a modest

proposal it helps us with this famously

confusing and shocking text uh Swift

claims that his purpose is to make

useful members of society and the way

that he wants to do that is selling

babies for food which is shocking And he

as the author knows that this proposal

will not be accepted so that part is not

really serious he's not hoping that

these two elements of his proposal will

be accepted it's the other parts that he

states which he hopes will be accepted

as true or Sound True to his audience so

when he gets into the agency of how he

wants to go about selling these babies

for food we start to see a picture of

the Society of Dublin he mentions

fattening the babies before sale then

selling them to taverns where the fine

gentlemen eat and for the Lord mayor's

Feast he talks about making new recipes

and gloves for the lady and boots for

fine gentlemen and we're starting to see

this other level of society the Lord

mayor the fine gentlemen the ladies and

these elements emerge even more as we go

further into the The Proposal uh the

agents

include one level of society which we

meet just in the very first paragraph

the Beggars of the female sex children

all in rags mothers helpless infants

thieves this is just in paragraph number

one in the very first sentences of the

proposal so at first we think that this

is who uh he is focused on is are the

poor people of Dublin but as we read

further we start to see this higher

class of people uh emerge in The

Proposal landlords he mentions five

times and so this is something you can

do just simply use the contrl F on your

computer keyboard to do a search for the

word landlord in the text you find it's

there five times that's a way to measure

how interested is Jonathan Swift in

these landlords well he mentions them

five times and he says the landlords

have already devoured the parents so why

not eat the children as well Swift also

mentions gentlemen six times for example

talking about making some boots for fine

gentlemen he mentions fine families as

well and this is one of the main points

of the proposal he's he writes 1,000

families in this city would be constant

customers for in infants flesh so he's

telling us who the people in the town

are this is also part of the scene that

we'll talk about in a minute in Dublin

or in Ireland well in Dublin in the city

there are 1000 th families who are

basically eating all the poor people

Jonathan Swift expresses here now all of

those people who we just saw are

residents of Dublin they are part of the

scene like we just saw the Beggars and

the children in rags the thieves and

helpless infants those are introduced in

the first

paragraph Swift also mentions the

present deplorable state of the kingdom

and notice uh that is a Time

the present and uh it is a place the

kingdom although it's a very big place

it's not very specific but the

deplorable state is more of a situation

and that shows us part of the scene

that's not a when or where part but the

the deplorable state is a situation

Swift also mentions voluntary abortions

which bother him the vast number of poor

people who are aged diseased or maimed

the young laborers who cannot get at

work Protestants who have chosen to

leave their country plump young girls

who cannot stir abroad without a chair

all of these are people who he sees in

Dublin they are part of the scene and in

which he makes his proposal and these

are the things that he hopes will be

recognized as true in his

text this week we also looked at thesis

statements and I talked about the

outline form let's just remember uh

that's kind of very basic and simple but

it is a clear way and a good starting

point if you when you're writing your

essay uh we looked at an MLA format

example that declared in the first

paragraph basically uh the claim and two

supports it said regulation is needed

because a drivers using phones are

seriously impaired and B present laws do

not work so at the end of your

introduction in your essay you can have

this sentence the last sentence of the

introduction that states the claim such

as regulation is needed and the reasons

why because this and because this when

the reader sees that then they know they

expect the the two parts of the essay

after this will be part A and Part B and

that helps reader comprehension and

that's good for you because that's what

you want is your reader to understand

you finally we talked about uh using

quotations well and this is a more and

more important part of writing in the

21st century we want to use induction

the way of science popularized by Sir

Isaac Newton beginning in

1687 we do research first and writing

second we all know that's how scienti do

it that's how we should be doing it too

if we're not doing it that way we're not

doing a useful process okay we don't go

to university simply to State all of our

opinions that we had before we came to

the university we go to the university

to get new information and new ideas and

learn new methods and that's what we do

when we do research first and find some

new information and then by the process

of induction uh use those pieces of

research to come to some conclusion and

make a claim and construct an argument

from

there so that is our review of the week

um remember Kenneth Burke's pentad is

valuable because it's methodical you can

use it every time and the although it's

tempting to turn to AI to do our uh

research for us before writing an essay

actually the fastest and truest way of

writing a good essay is by first doing

research on our

own and then deriving a main idea from

that all right I'm going to stop here

for today until the next video take care

everybody