Rhetorical
Analysis Essay
1986 N.S. Momaday and D.
Brown passages
In the following passages, two Native American writers
describe similar landscapes. Read the passages
carefully. Then, in a well-organized essay, explain how
the passages reveal the differences in the author’s
purpose. (Refer to your passage)
 D. Brown
 N.S. Momaday
 Out on the Plains later

A single knoll rises
that summer it seemed
out of the plain in
that everything had
Oklahoma, north and
turned bad. Day after
west of the Wichita
day the sun baked the
Range. For my people,
dry earth drier, the
the Kiowas, it is an old
streams stopped running,
landmark, and they
great whirlwinds of
gave it the name Rainy
grasshoppers were flung
Mountain. The hardest
out the metallic sky to
consume the parched
weather in the world is
grass.
there.
Graphic Organizer-1986 Native
American Landscape Prompt
SUBJECT-Big
Idea
Momaday’s
Tone/Purpose
Brown’s
Tone/Purpose
What does the author sound like (how
he feels) and why? Write TPT
(Introduction)
What ties these
two passages
together?
What ties
these two
writers?
How are these
passages different?
Need two different
adjectives and two
different verbs
TPT: adjective for Momaday’s tone and
adjective for Brown’s tone + verb+ Big
idea (abstract noun).
Mythic and appalled, Native American writers Momaday
and Brown deliver two differing views on the Native
American experience. Momaday’s triumphant view of Rainy
Mountain revels in individual isolation indifferent to mankind.
However, Brown mourns the loss of a way of life stripped of
purpose by a barren landscape.
Ok, you got the TPT addressing the Big idea-now provide
the thesis. (address the little question-How do the
rhetorical devices reveal the authors’ purposes?
Most Prominent Rhetorical
Devices





Momaday:
Diction (tone)
Imagery (modify)
Goes from
descriptive to
abstract
Repetition of one
 Brown:
 Diction
(tone)
 Imagery (modify)
 Contrast
How do these RD fulfill the author’s purpose?
Thesis addresses two author’s and
their prominent rhetorical devices

Momaday’s affirmative
diction and contrasting
imagery revels in the
seclusion of a scenery
which promotes
creation.

Brown’s forlorn diction
and contrast mourns
the loss of a people
who have become
forcibly detached from
their land.
Structure: Author’s feeling (tone) + purpose
Can you combine these two thesis statements into
one?
Instructions: Complete graphic organizer,
after write TPT and Thesis and evaluate:
 Evaluation:
Do you
have a TPT that
addresses both
authors’ tone with
differing adjectives?
 What ties these two
works together? Find
a verb and tie it to a
big idea
Thesis: Do you have a
statement that
addresses how author’s
use rhetorical devices
to reveal the
differences of their
purpose?
 N.S.
Momaday and D. Brown were two
native Americans who have chosen to tell
you the reader about their land. N.S.
Momaday has written to show how beautiful
his and almost sacred land is. Then D. Brown
has written to show a vast death that has
spread through his land and left it empty.
Both authors use literary devices such as
alliteration and imagery. N. S. Momaday
chooses to use personification as to where D.
Brown does not.
Rewrite!
Remember your biggest
challenge in this essay is how
to tie all of the elements
(rhetorical devices together
towards the big idea). Biggest
problem students have in this
question is: How to control the
argument and language.