EN 101: Writing: Logic and Rhetoric

Assignment One: Induction and Deduction

Assignment Two: Description
Text:
With her back to us, a young girl stands looking through a fence. Facing us directly, a woman sits
with a small dog in her lap and a book in her hand. Billowing steam from an unseen train
obscures the center background, but the edge of a bridge juts out at right, identifying the setting
as Gare Saint-Lazare Paris busiest train station and emblem of the citys unsettling nineteenthcentury makeover.
Beyond depicting the modern city, The Railway disturbingly suggests how people experienced it.
Pinned against a long black iron fence, these fashionably dressed females are physically cut off
from the railroad beyond and also seem estranged from each other: facing in opposite directions,
they are absorbed in their individual activities. Manet offers us no clues to their relationship,
even as we viewers seem to interrupt the woman reading. She looks up at us directly with an
expression that is neutral and guarded the characteristic regard of one stranger encountering
another in the modern metropolis.
Most critics fumed at what they called Manets trivial and inscrutable subject matter (as well as
his strident colors, loose brush work, and trademark flatly painted forms). Few recognized that
with its discomfiting mix of immediacy, psychological detachment, and indefinite narrative, The
Railway represented the way Paris urban renewal program, of which railroads were a
centerpiece, had destabilized social relations in the city.
(http://www.nga.gov/content/ngaweb/Collection/highlights/highlight43624.html)
Part One: Select ONE of the following paintings (images of each are available to view on the
class Blackboard page, under the Assignments tab)
The Alba Madonna (Raphael)
Family of Saltimbanques (Picasso)
Woman Holding a Balance (Vermeer)
Both Members of This Club (Bellows)
Describe it, imitating the first paragraph, above. Keep in mind, you are imitating the original
descriptions purpose as well as its style.
Part Two: Now, in a new paragraph, describe the same painting imitating the second paragraph
above.
Part Three: Reflect on the act of describing something. (You can begin with the act of
describing art, but you should expand to description in general.). What affects description?
*Style: Colons are not just for introducing lists but, more sophisticatedly, for clarifying ideas.
Dashes: Similar to a colon, dashes clarify. The usually interrupt a sentence, giving a bit of
interesting information about a word or phrase.
Parallelism: a list of words or phrases balanced in their composition. E.g. with a small dog in
her lap and a book in her hand or an expression that is neutral and guarded.
Use and highlight in bold one technique from this week.

EN 101: Writing: Logic and Rhetoric

Assignment One: Induction and Deduction
*Grammar: Noun/Pronoun agreement (The Bedford Handbook, 9th ed., pages 307-325)
A pronoun must clearly refer to one out of possibly many preceding nouns. In your essay,
highlight in bold each pronoun and each noun that is its antecedent. Keep in mind that your
grammar grade is cumulative: thus, from last week, focus on streamlined and clear word choice.
Eliminate unnecessarily wordy phrases.

DUE: In class Tuesday, September 15