Week 5: Week 5 — Point of View, Purpose, and Rhetoric
Week of Mon, Nov 30 · week closes Sun, Dec 6
This week's items
Exact due times are in Canvas. Each week opens on its Monday and stays open. Practice is never late — but the MCAP window opens April 5, 2027, so keep pace.
Know these cold
- In an informational text, point of view means the author's position or attitude toward the topic. It is not only about whether the writer uses I or we.
- An author's purpose is what the text is trying to do: inform, explain, persuade, warn, celebrate, or criticize. Many texts have one main purpose and a secondary one, such as informing readers and then urging them to act.
- Word choice is the fastest clue to point of view. Compare 'the council finally acted' with 'the council rushed a vote.' The facts match, but the attitude does not.
- Rhetoric is the set of choices a writer or speaker makes to move an audience. MCAP questions usually ask how a choice advances the author's purpose, so naming the device is only the first step.
- The three classic appeals are logos (facts and reasoning), pathos (feelings and values), and ethos (trust in the speaker's credibility or character). Strong arguments often combine all three.
- Repetition, rhetorical questions, parallel structure, concession, and direct address to 'you' are common rhetorical moves. For each one, ask what it makes the audience notice, feel, or believe.
- In literature, point of view includes who tells the story and what that narrator knows. A first-person narrator can be honest and still limited, so readers may understand more than the narrator does.
- When a question asks about purpose, test each answer against the whole paragraph or passage, not one striking sentence. The correct answer explains why the entire section exists.
Meerk's quiz — open the Week 5 gate
10 questions, no time limit. One counted try: 85% opens the gate. Miss it and Meerk's Study Path opens: it teaches every miss back to you, then a mastery check — and it cannot finish before 25 minutes of real study. Then your second try opens. Work alone; the point is to know it, not to have seen it.
Stuck?
Raise your hand. Mr. James gets a message right away and can help you remotely. Nothing else is stored — just your last name, grade, and where you're stuck.
My Progress
Dinner Table Question
Ask at home: Think of an ad, speech, or post that convinced you to do something. Was it the facts, the feelings, or the person who said it that won you over?
En español: Piensa en un anuncio, un discurso o una publicación que te convenció de hacer algo. ¿Fueron los datos, los sentimientos o la persona que lo dijo lo que te convenció?