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Though I did struggle while trying to avoid summarizing the text. This was official for me because I feel that need to tell the points in the story that I am about to analysis. This is something that know I can continue to improve on once I get better grasp on analyzing texts. Thank you for your help, Brittany Brittany Woods Carla Smith English composition (ENGLE 1 11-NON) 24 February 201 5 Kate Hoarding’s “How I Bluffed My Way through College” was published on Salon. Com in April of 2011. This online magazine consists of reviews and articles about modern day life.
Including but not limited to books, films, music, technology and relationships. Harding story is more of a “tell all” bout her college experience. The academic struggles she was forced to work through. The social barrier she had built. And the broken self-image that she portrayed on to herself, as she bluffed her way through school. This ‘small time fraud’ as she refers to herself, later continues her education and expresses to her reader how she found her inner success. Harding uses the art of emotional appeal to communicate with her readers.
This approach is beneficial to her article due to the sensitive topics she discusses in the text. Harding choice of the title for her story is almost an immediate attention rabbet for her readers. Aimed at students around the world “bluffing” her way through college quickly intrigues her reader to listen to what she has to say. She starts her story by sharing her high school back ground. Expressing her lack of interest in the work that was required of her. Her passion for reading fell short of those boring literary novels that were required for her assignments.
She uses this experience from her life to pull her readers close and immediately relates to a majority of them, with the notion that most people feel the same way about a boring book. After all, most high school students do not find the highlight of their evening reading old books. Moving on to college, Harding sets the tone of her struggles. Harding uses her real life experience from her college career to grab her reader’s emotions. She shares social projection to ensure her readers that she was not a typical college student.
Her lack of interest in the in the “party girl” and “rebel” (54-55) lifestyle confirms that she was not preoccupied with extracurricular activities. Rather she had underlying issues of why she did fully assert herself into her education. In stimulating her reader’s sympathy for helpless females in unfortunate situations, she shares another personal experience. In sharing her the event of her sexual assault, (63) she opens her readers up for a different perspective on her academic struggles. The introduction of her fear, anxiety, depression, and safety uncertainty, (62) are the dismissing factors of any disapproving member of her audience.
The audience would find her lack of efforts to be nonsense without relevant reasoning. But by sharing her attack, no one can criticize the author at this point of her state of being withdrawn. She goes on to tell about the social barriers this creates and the broken emotional state this experience has left her in (71). This leaving her readers sympathetic to her story. For anyone that knows a little background of Kate Harding, would note the relevance of this story to her in the current women’s activist standpoint.
Harding has a very strong voice in speaking out for women. Including issues of body image, public acceptance for overweight women (Barry) and rape, she is a very passionate feminist floggers (Soapbox). In strategy to reach out to her readers of this spectrum of her life he made it a point to share her life after sexual assault. Reader that have been through such a horrifying experience are empathetic toward her at this point in her text. They can relate greatly to her state of withdraw during this segment of her life.
Again, this dismissing any the negative assumptions the audience may have about the author and the reasons behind her lack Of efforts. Applying the element of achievement Harding switches gears to her graduation day and life thereafter. Very descriptively she shares with her readers the graduation ceremony ( 42-51 ) expressing how she was felt in that moment. Stating she was “bursting with not so much pride as relief,” (42) tells her readers; although she was not exactly proud of how she had gotten there, she was very relieved that she had made it.
Relieved that she had graduated from college and could now move past this ragged period in her life. If Harding were to conclude her story with this, she would have lost respect from her readers. They would be left with an inaccurate view of Kate Harding. Bluffing her way through college and putting forth half of her capable effort, isn’t exactly a respectful image in the eyes of her audience. So Harding goes on to tell about the passion she found later in life inspiring her to read classic novels (79) and continue her education into a MFC program (88).
In continuing on, she describes how she thrived in this program (89). This is Hardin* way to prove to her readers that she isn’t the “small time fraud” (78) she was once viewed as. That she is very capable of putting all efforts forth to her education. Harding chooses ‘slang’ phrases to aim her text toward the middle aged students. By using phrases like “boo-yah” (90) and “so that was awesome” (65) he quickly assures her readers the sense of humor she finds in her past experiences.