PHOTOGRAPH OF TREY ELLIS’S FATHER
Write a paragraph or two analyzing the photograph Ellis includes in his remem- bered event essay and explaining what it contributes to the essay.
To analyze the visual, you can use the Criteria for Analyzing Visuals chart on pp. 675–77. The chart offers a series of questions you can ask yourself under two categories: Key Components and Rhetorical Context. You will see that there are a lot of questions, but don’t feel you have to answer all of them. Focus on the questions that seem most productive in helping you write a short analysis. Try beginning with these questions that specifically refer to Ellis’s photograph:
People
Why do you think Ellis chose a photograph of his father alone rather than one with both of them in it?
Scene
Why do you think Ellis chose a photograph of his father in his office rather than at home or elsewhere?
What impression do you get of Ellis’s dad from the way his office looks — for example, from the piles of files and books as well as the other objects on the desk?
Rhetorical Context
How does the photograph’s portrayal of Ellis’s dad add to Ellis’s description of him in paragraphs 5 and 21? Note that in the original New York Times article, the photo was black-and-white. What, if anything, is the effect of reproducing it in color, as we do here?
How does seeing Ellis’s father as a doctor help you understand the tone his dad adopts when he tells Ellis about his illness in paragraphs 6, 8, 10, and 12?