Week 3 English
Check out Maureen Dowd’s article “Our Own Warrior Princess” in pg. 233 of your text book ‘Writing for College, Writing for Life’ (2011, 2nd edition). For your convenience, I’ve provided a link for the same.
PAGE 233 Writing for College, Writing for Life’ (2011, 2nd edition)
Our Own Warrior Princess Jennifer showed me her scar Friday. It’s the most 1 beautiful scar I’ve ever seen. A huge stapled gash on her stomach, shaped like the Mercedes logo. A red badge of courage. Jennifer is my niece, a 33-year- old lawyer. On Wednesday, she had half her liver taken out at Georgetown University Hospital to save the life of her uncle (my brother Michael), who had gotten hepatitis years ago from a tainted blood transfusion. The complicated and risky operation for the 2 two, side by side, went from 7:30 am. until after 10 pm. Then, when a Medivac helicopter arrived with a matching liver for another patient, the same team of doctors had to start on another emergency six-hour liver transplant. The night nurse told Jennifer she was an oddity. 3 “We don’t see many live donors,” she said. “Not many people are that generous.” Or brave. Jennifer’s morphine drip wasn’t at- 4 tached properly the first night after the operation, and no one knew it. She felt pain, but didn’t want to be a wimp by complaining too loudly. Instead, she was Reaganesque, cracking jokes and wondering where the cute doctors were. She survived the first night after this excruciat- 5 ing operation au naturel, like Xena the Warrior Prin- cess. If all goes well, her liver will grow whole again in several weeks, as will Michael’s half. Unlike her father, who charged people a nickel 6 to see his appendix scar when he was 10, she let me look for free. As we sat in her room, watching Ma- riah Carey singing with a bare midriff on the “Today” show, I worried a little how she would take the disfigurement. She’s a fitness fanatic, who works as a personal trainer in her spare 7 time. She’s single, out in the cruel dating world. And we live in an airbrush culture, where women erase lines with Botox, wrinkles with lasers, and fat with liposuction. I told Jen scars are sexy; consider that great love scene in “Lethal Weapon 3” when Mel Gibson and Rene Russo, as police officers, compare scars. EDITORIAL Maureen Dowd won the Pulit- zer Prize for Commentary in 1999. In 1992, she received the Breakthrough Award from Women, Men and Media at Columbia University. She won the Matrix Award from New York Women in Communications in 1994. In 1996, she was named one of Glamour’s Women of the Year. In 1992, she was also a Pulitzer Prize finalist for national reporting. In the following column, which first appeared in the New York
Identify the claim/thesis statement of the author.
What are her reasons to support the claim?
Does she answer the opposition (the rebuttal argument, which is an essential component of persuasion)?
Discuss the three appeals – logical, emotional and ethical – in Dowd’s argument.
The purpose of this discussion thread is to familiarize you with patterns of argument, so don’t be scared by terminology. Go ahead and read the article, and share your thoughts on it. What is the main idea of the author and how well she is communicating it? What are you learning about persuasive writing, now that you’ve read 2 essays, SantiDeRosa’s and Maureen Dowd’s? Let this be a platform for us to share our ideas and brainstorm.
