Envision Reading Chapter 1

Becca Wolfley

Journal 2

September 10, 2011

Evans

I didn’t know cartoons took much thought. I mean, the writer finds a way to tell a joke through cute characters, and that was it. I always enjoyed reading the comics in the newspaper. There was The Peanuts, and Dennis the Menace, and that Cathy lady too. I didn’t like her much.

Not until last year did I discover a different kind of cartoon. My government and economics teacher introduced me to political cartoons. I had seen them before, but couldn’t make much sense of the joke by the dialogue being said, so I never wasted time with them. They seemed more appealing to adults anyhow.

After reading chapter one of Envision: Writing and Researching Arguments, I can now look at political cartoons and figure out “what the eff” is going on. The chapter introduces rhetoric in writing by using political cartoons as an example. For those like myself who are just now grasping the concept of rhetoric, the chapter provides quite a bit of cartoons and analysis on them. One in particular that caught my attention involved two friends on a trip to the Apple store. Page twelve depicts a comic strip of two kids deemed not “hip” enough to be in the Apple store. The kids were kicked out into the rain, wearing disappointed faces. They were also accompanied by the Windows logo on a pole in the background. The book continues to analyze the cartoon, and I could grasp everything that was said. Because the cartoon referred to something I could actually relate to, it was fairly easy to understand what was being said.

Once I finished the chapter, I had the urge to pick up a newspaper and find those political cartoons that used to confuse and bore me. I didn’t think this whole rhetoric learning process would be interesting. It seemed more like a hassle, but now it’s more like finding treasure. I want to figure out why the creator of that poster on the wall designed it the way he did, or why that person insisted on spray-painting an offensive message on a street sign. Lately, I have been naturally pondering everything. It’s kind of funJ