Essay Analysis 1
1.
What is the title? How is it suitable to the text?
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2.
What is the author claiming in this text?
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3.
Twain talks about how “all the value any feature of it had for me now was the
amount of usefulness it could furnish toward compassing the safe piloting of a
steamboat.” In this statement, he clearly sees danger in navigating a river.
Is the support primarily opinion or fact based? Support your response with
evidence from the text.

6.
His intention is to make clear that the river, although full of wonder and beauty,
also can be seen as burdensome and foreboding. He aims to teach and make clear
make readers aware of what he is observing.
What evidence does he or she use to support this claim?
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5.
He is noting the negative and positive of a “majestic” river.
What is the author’s intention? (To attack or defend? To exhort or dissuade from
certain action? To praise or blame? To teach, to delight, or to persuade?)

4.
“Two Ways to of Seeing a River (1883)” by Mark Twain. It is suitable because
the author is comparing two viewpoints of a river he has experienced.
The writer mentions the “lovely flush in a beauty’s cheek mean to a doctor but a
break that ripples above some deadly disease.” It is primarily opinion—but it is
also a sign of the times. Twain talks about disease on the river—implying tickborne illnesses, violent wildlife, and possibly even the horrors of malaria.
What effect does the way the essay is put together have on the claim?

The effect is one of brutal honesty. Mark Twain is writing briefly about his own
personal experiences—and how something as beautiful as a river can have
malevolent intentions.
Essay Analysis 2
1.
2.
What is the title? How is it suitable to the text?

“When Black Hair is Against the Rules” by Ayana Byrd and Lori L. Tharps

The writer talks about how black hair is the against the “rules”—and starts off the
essay by pointing out the rules imposed by the United States Army—and how
America has ostracized black hair pertaining to the African community.
What is the author claiming in this text?

3.
What is the author’s intention? (To attack or defend? To exhort or dissuade from
certain action? To praise or blame? To teach, to delight, or to persuade?)

4.
The evidence is presented throughout the text—especially in regard to military
statistics and how history throughout the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries shamed and
belittled black women because of how they looked.
Is the support primarily opinion or fact based? Support your response with
evidence from the text.

6.
This essay is a bit mixed in tone—somewhat blaming but also in a teaching the
reader about how, historically, black women and their appearance has been
condemned solely because of their race.
What evidence does he or she use to support this claim?

5.
The authors are making a case about how prejudice is strong in the United States
against black women’s black hair.
Considering the content, the authors are using support from factual data. For
example, they state that “in the 18th century, British colonists classified African
hair as closer to sheep wool than human hair. Enslaved and free blacks who had
less kinky, more European textured hair and lighter skin—often a result of
plantation rape—received better treatment than those with more typically African
features.”
What effect does the way the essay is put together have on the claim?

I observe a strong outpouring of bitterness and brutal honesty about how black
women are still being discriminated against because of their appearance. They
talk continuously about how the mistreatment of black women in all walks of life
are constantly being belittled and shamed for being African American.