Hyperbole and A Girl Named Zippy

Rhetorical Strategy focus today: Hyperbole is one of the most familiar rhetorical strategies that you didn't even realize you were familiar with. Using extrememe exaggeration as its focus, hyperbole is only effective if the audience understands the author doesn't intend to be taken literally.

Haven Kimmel's A Girl Named Zippy

As you read, use either post-it notes or the margins and take thorough annotations on the following motifs of the memoir. Please note; essays and 5 minute writes will be based upon items #2 - #4, with the expectation that you use examples of rhetorical strategies to make your points.

1. reoccurring rhetorical strategies
2. Zippy’s relationship with family and friends
3. Zippy’s views of small town life
4. Zippy’s view of religion


The following assignment is due the day after reading that chapter. You will select TWO rhetorical strategies per chapter, including the chapters read and discussed in class. So, if we read two chapters in class and you read two for homework, you would turn in eight rhetorical strategies. All work should be typed, double-spaced, 10-12 point font.For each chapter, note rhetorical strategies Kimmel uses to develop her theme/purpose. For each strategy include the following:
a. Name and definition                                 
b. The example of the strategy from the book, including the page number.
c. A sentence or two evaluating the effectiveness of the strategy.


Example:


a. IMAGERY: Use of language to convey sensory experience, most often through the creation of pictorial images through figurative language.
b. page 24 -25. “I have never in my life seen kinder or more sparkly eyes than hers, and every time she gave me the silencing look I realized how much she knew that I would never know. The arc of that piglet through the air into the dog pen contained more comedy than I will ever see again in my life, but my heart still ached.”
c. Kimmel’s use of diction in this paragraph: “sparkly,” “silencing,” and “the arc of the piglet” are effective in that the reader is able to identify the emotion Zippy felt when the pig died. Specifically, the use of “silencing look” to describe Julie’s reaction lets the reader know that, in Julie’s opinion, there was no choice but to feed the piglet to the dogs and that Zippy should have no averse opinion in the matter.


Please note: You may only use a specific rhetorical strategy ONCE per homework assignment (not ONCE per chapter).

Tonight:
Read through "Qualities of Light, or Disasters Involving Animals." Include rhetorical strategies for "Baby Book," "Hair," "The Lion," and "Qualities..."