Your name:

Omar Mohamed

Completing this worksheet may take more time than you think. It’s worth the time. The information you gather will help you later when writing up assignments. But more importantly, the process of addressing each of the questions below will slowly work to change how you read texts. Keep in mind that some answers will not be obvious or even observable in the text, and so you may have to do some critical thinking and, at times, even some online research. Use full sentences. Take as much space as you need.

Context & Exigence: What topic/conversation is this text responding to? What year is the text published? What is the exigence–that is, what motivating occasion/issue/concern prompted the writing? The motivating occasion could be a current or historical event, a crisis, pending legislation, a recently published alternative view, or another ongoing problem.

The topic this text is responding to is discrimination and negativity towards what is perceived as “broken English”. The text was published in 1990, with the exigence or motivating concern being the discrimination against unconventional “Englishes”.

Author: Who is the author of this text?  What are the author’s credentials and what is their investment in the issue?

The author of this text is Amy Tan, a writer who always loved language, and an author of “The Joy Life Club”, who is invested in this issue since she experienced it second hand with her mother.

Text: What can you find out about the publication?  What is the genre of the text (e.g., poem, personal essay, essay, news/academic article, blog, textbook chapter, etc.)? How do the conventions of that genre help determine the depth, complexity, and even appearance of the argument? What information about the publication or source (magazine, newspaper, advocacy Web site) helps explain the writer’s perspective or the structure and style of the argument?

The genre of the publication is a personal essay. This is because it talked about personal issues and experiences the author and her mother were having. The text used anecdote and oxymoron to add depth to the argument.

Audience: Who is the author’s intended audience? What can you infer about the audience (think about beliefs and political association but also age, class, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, profession, education, geographic location, religion, etc.)? Look for clues from the text (especially the original publication) to support your inference.

I believe the author’s intended audience would be those who think that it is not fine to speak unconventional, or “broken” English. The reason I think this is because she is trying to convey the idea that there are many ways English can be spoken, or “Englishes”.

Purpose: What is the author trying to accomplish? To persuade, entertain, inform, educate, call to action, shock? How do you know?

The author is trying to inform and educate readers that somebody’s version of English dialect should not dictate how they are treated, or be called “broken” English, just because it does not follow the standard that some people expect. I know this because of the examples, personal stories, and tone that the author presented in the text.

Argument: What do you believe is the main claim/idea/argument that the author is trying to communicate? What stance does s/he take?

I believe that the main claim the author is trying to make is that people should not be judged or treated inferiorly, just because they speak a different type of English that others are not used to.

Evidence: How is the argument supported? Types of support include reasons and logical explanations as well as evidence. Types of evidence include anecdotes, examples, hypothetical situations, (expert) testimony, quotes, citing sources, statistics, charts/graphs, research the author or another source conducts, scientific or other facts, general knowledge, historical references, metaphors/analogies, etc.

The author’s argument is supported by explanations of events that she experienced and rhetorical devices, such as anecdotes. An example of this is when she hears herself saying “Not waste money that way”, then realizes that her husband did not find anything weird about it, since that is how they normally speak to eachother.

Rhetorical Strategies: What aspects of this text stand out for you as a rhetorical reader? In other words, what do you observe about what the author strategically does (consciously or not) in hopes of appealing to their audience? List here as many observations as you can make about what the text does.

The author explains that she is not a scholar but loves languages The “languages” the author loves are Englishes The author lists the types of Englishes she is exposed to Author explains what motivated her to write She embraces the different types of Englishes she deals with

Citation: Add the correct MLA or APA bibliographic entry for this text. Use easybib.com if you prefer.

Tan, Amy. “Mother Tongue.” The Threepenny Review No. 43 (1990): 7-8. JSTOR. Web. 31 Aug. 2022.

Notes: What do you want to remember about this text?

The one thing that I want to remember about this text is the event of the author’s mother being told that her CAT scan was lost and she would need to make another appointment with no sympathy shown, until the author called in with perfect English and the office’s attitude changed. This is important to remember because it is important to sympathize with and try to help others who have trouble communicating because they are immigrants.