These notes help train my eyes to take note of interesting diction and metaphors that an author may use in their rhetoric to elicit a specific emotion or establish their ethos in the eyes of their audience. In general it was helpful to see a more proficient rhetor arguing their point by using travel writing, as the RA essay is an analysis of this or a similar article that involves travel writing.

Walking While Black Notes

• The author explains his personal motivations for travel through walking and gives tales that articulate how his walks became a part of his identity
• The author’s walks become his favorite activity and by using playful language like describing his steps as sauntering or joining in arms with other merry walkers the rhetoric feels pleasant and enjoyable to read
• By incorporating personal experiences about how he grew as a person through his walks transitioning from being a awkward introvert to an awkward extrovert, the concept of travel becomes deeply tied to his history.
• By describing his journey through Jamaica from rich to poor neighborhoods the writer conveys how segregated those communities are and by describing them in a particular way, like mentioning how the middle class houses are surrounded by barbed wire he adds context to the situation while also providing commentary on how he views the middle and upper classes relative to the swaying samba dancing houses of the poorer areas.
• The writer describes his prevention of potential conflict in the manner of one who is avoiding dangerous animals in the wild and describes a t-shirt and jeans as a uniform implying a warlike state of combat between black skinned people and the police.
• By using analogies and metaphors to talk about the simple act of getting dressed the author makes a menial task entertaining for the reader, sparking their imagination, and helping them connect with the writing
• By describing walking as interrupted falling the writer calls the reader to reconsider the very nature of moving your own two feet
• By vividly describing his arrest in New York at the hand of many police officers, the author brings to the light the injustice that he has suffered and also allows the reader to empathize with his fear and anxiety at being put down despite being completely innocent.
• By putting many descriptive adjectives tos tories you make the text more real to the reader