Armando Valadez

Mr. Lasley

Critical Thinking and Writing 1

9 October 2017

Robillard Rhetorical Analysis

A major problem since the maturation of writing revolved around our understanding of

outside sources and their significance towards a writers argument. According to Joseph Bizups

BEAM: A Rhetorical Vocabulary for Teaching Research-Based Writing, in order to

comprehend why writers select particular sources as either a primary, secondary, or even tertiary

sources we must categorize them through the B.E.A.M system. B.E.A.M stands for background,

exhibit, argument, and method source and is used to give inference as to the role a source plays

within a piece of writing. Using Bizups B.E.A.M method, I will analyze the sources Amy

Robillard utilizes in her article Its Time for Class: Toward a More Complex Pedagogy of

Narrative to facilitate her argument that personal narrative is essential to our writing because it

permits us to form our own holistic interpretations of the present using our past.

Robillard uses three quotes which advocate for the acceptance of our past to interpret our

own unique present. She opens with these quotes in order to give us some background into what

we should expect in the rest of her piece. For example, she uses a quote by Linda Brodkey which

says, In my family the past provided the only possible understanding of the present (74). This
affirms that the past is necessary to understand the present. By acknowledging this notion in the

beginning of her essay before she even begins to narrate forces us to accept that quote as truth for

the whole piece. Background sources are important in Robillard's writing because they give her

writing a sense of truth and honesty. By using these background sources as a center of truth, we

as the readers are forced to accept what she says to be right as well.

Additionally, Robillard seamlessly uses exhibit sources such as a personal narrative of

her own childhood in order to give us insight into her life. By giving us this information, she

initiates a genuine connection between the readers and herself. Since she came from a working

class family she builds emotional connections which allows her not only to advance her

argument but also make it more likely for her argument to be accepted by her audience. This is a

perfect example of how Robillard uses pathos, an appeal to emotion, to evoke a sense of mutual

sadness that allows for her personal narrative to be pitied by the reader. Also important to notice

is that her personal narrative almost always supplements her argument. For example, she argues

that students whose socio-economic class is relatively low have a difficult time in composition

classes because of the feasibility of their own personal narratives being misunderstood. She then

continues by supplementing that point with a story of how her own life could be seen two ways.

For example, in the first interpretation she say her mom was home when I came home from

everyday, that I went to school with a full belly every day (Robillard 83). On the other hand she

could say the details that come to me only intermittently now, the details that come more

painfully and in some ways more easily (Robillard 83), which included that she would come

home to her mom asleep in front of the television because she worked late, or that the food that
filled her stomach was bought on credit, or that her sister that she chooses to leave unnamed

was physically abusive to her.

Another exhibit source she uses is her experience at Syracuse University where she

noticed that the personal narrative in composition classes was gradually being superseded by

reason and argument based writing approaches. She uses her experience at Syracuse to

substantiate her argument about the personal narrative being of great importance especially when

your past experiences influence your thinking. Furthermore, Robillard uses her experience at

Syracuse but in general her personal narrative to create credibility. Since she herself experienced

firsthand the demise of relevance towards the personal narrative she creates a stigma of what she

says is right because she experienced it. Her appeal to ethos here permits her to further her

argument. Another exhibit Robillard uses from her personal narrative is that of her mothers

infatuation with being on time, which comes after she argues that working class students have an

urgency to prove themselves even if they are succeeding. She says that these students have an

innate sense of instability because their past was so full of it that it travels with them. Even

Robillard herself says that she felt more comfortable as a salaried worker but when she left and

later returned back to the company as an hourly worker, she took the time she attended work

seriously. For instance, she says I usually left at five, but when i didnt, it didn't really bother

me the way it did a year and a half later when I returned to the company as an hourly employee

(Robillard 85). As a result, she learned that she herself also valued time and had the same sense

of instability her mother had. She uses these points about time to present how we should be

sympathetic of everyones process towards learning and allow our past to interpret our present

and influence our future.

 Robillard also uses argumentative sources to contribute to her own opinions. The sources

she uses dont always agree with her point but she uses them as a way to contradict the source,

making her own argument seem even stronger. For example, when Robillard includes Harris

view on past experiences, who to an extent, dismisses the past when he says that rather than

focusing on narratives of our working-class pasts, we should concern ourselves with how

workers define their present interests and commitments (Harris 78). In addition, because Harris

dismisses past experiences he also dismisses class consciousness which Robillard sees as wrong

because by recognizing our past we can learn in order to change our future and appreciate our

present for both the good and bad. Her strategy of contradicting Harris opinion allows herself to

further add to her credibility, which is a key example of ethos. Furthermore, Robillard heavily

utilizes other authors opinions in order to argue her own. By doing this she further asserts her

credibility to the reader.

Method sources are materials from which a writer derives a governing concept or a

manner of working (Bizup 76), which Robillard uses through her use of other authors opinions

to formulate her own argument. Not all of the sources Robillard utilizes as method agree with

her viewpoint. She will at times purposefully pick differing opinions in order to further advance

her own. This goes along with the Harris example mentioned earlier. He disagreed with her

viewpoint and she quoted his opinion in order to negate it and facilitate her own opinion. The

beginning quotes she uses as a prelude to her piece are offered as truths that she uses in order to

to look at the deeper implications. For example, a quote she opens with by Carolyn Leste Law

reads Autobiography is a sensitive instrument of critique, certainly the only critical apparatus

sensitive enough to register the subtle rumblings of class in higher education(Law 7). This
quote directly goes with Robillards argument that the personal narrative helps us correct the way

we act in order to improve moving forward, however, the personal narrative because it is so

personal and true can commence talks about social class relating to the struggles you faced to get

where youre at.

Robillard emphasizes the importance of our past by heavily incorporating her own

experiences which furthers her argument that students of low socio-economic standing face an

impediment when it comes to their college composition classes because their personal narrative

can be easily misinterpreted. However, Robillard does not want to eliminate logic and reason

from the classroom, rather she wants to implement both reason and the personal narrative to have

a more definitive understanding of how our past affects how we got to the present. By analyzing

Robillards piece using the B.E.A.M method it is easy to conclude that Robillards message is

that in order to understand students of low socio-economic standing we must be understanding of

their personal narrative in order to form holistic opinions.