Is it enough to earn the thesis point if all I did was:
In the case of personal development and individualized learning (author)'s point is valid. But, in the case of feats of communication or cooperation (author)'s point is less valid.
Prompt: On April 9. 1964, Claudia “Lady Bird" johnson, who was at the time the First Lady of the United States gave the following speech at the first anniversary luncheon of the Eleanor Roosevelt Memorial Foundation. The foundation is a nonprofit division of the Franklin D, Roosevelt Presidential Library dedicated to the works of former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, who passed away in 1962. Read the passage carefully. Write an essay that analyzes the rhetorical choices Johnson makes lo achieve her purpose of paying tribute to Eleanor Roosevelt.
Text:
“For me, it is a great privilege to come here today and participate in this anniversary occasion.
I met Eleanor Roosevelt first in print and admired her. I met her later in person and loved her. As she did to many very young and very timid Congressional wives, she extended her hand and hospitality to me . . . and Washington was warmer.
I saw her last when she came to my home on February 12, 1962, the day the Commission on the Status of Women was organized under her chairmanship and her inspiration. She was 78. I have often thought how much she made those years count for her country.
Nobody, said Marcus Aurelius, ‘is either the better or the worse for being praised.’ We are engaged in an idle ceremony, which would have brought no comfort to Eleanor Roosevelt, if we come here merely to praise her great qualities and achievements. She does not need our praise.
All of us are familiar with people who are the partisans of departed virtue, but are afraid to defend an unpopular truth today. Mrs. Roosevelt never stood with this timid company. Her conscience was her counselor, and she followed its commands with unfaltering courage. Nor did she really understand what people meant when they praised her for taking so many risks. She would have taken the greatest risk of all if she had remained silent in the presence of wrong. She would have risked the integrity of the soul.
A rabbi of the Jewish community in Berlin under the Hitler regime once said: ‘The most important thing I learned is that bigotry and hatred are not the most urgent problems. The most urgent, the most disgraceful, the most shameful, and the most tragic problem—is silence.’
Eleanor Roosevelt taught us that sometimes silence is the greatest sin.
Do you remember what Dr. Samuel Johnson said about courage? ‘Unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other.’ Mrs. Roosevelt knew what those words meant. She lived their meaning every day of her life. Courage sustained by compassion—that was the watchword of her entire career.
Always she thought not of abstract rights, but of living wrongs.
I watched her at close range one day when she spent two hours helping the 75th Congressional Club give a benefit luncheon to buy a wheelchair for a crippled boy.
Only one person was involved. Where else do you start, but with one person?
She thought of the suffering individual, not of a theoretical principle. She saw an unemployed father, and so she helped him. She saw a neglected Negro child, and so she educated him. She saw dictators hurling the world into war, and so she worked unflinchingly for peace. She saw the United Nations divided by the conflict of ideology and power, and so she became the prophet of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Are we ready to fight similar battles against new foes in our own day? If not, our grief is an empty thing, and the spirit of Eleanor Roosevelt is not among us.
President Wilson used to say that some people in Washington grow in office, while others merely swell. Mrs. Roosevelt steadily grew under the compulsions and inspirations of her great office. But it is perhaps the ultimate tribute to Mrs. Roosevelt that she reached true greatness after the shock of her bereavement when she went bravely forward in a new career as a spokesman for America and a servant of world peace. In the White House she was the First Lady of the land, but after the White House she became, as Ambassador Stevenson has reminded us, the First Lady in the world. Great was her goodness, and it was her goodness that made her so great.
Let us today earnestly resolve to build the true foundation for Eleanor Roosevelt's memory-to pluck out prejudice from our lives, to remove fear and hate where it exists, and to create a world unafraid to work out its destiny in peace. Eleanor Roosevelt has already made her own splendid and incomparable contribution to that foundation. Let us go and do likewise, within the measure of our faith and the limits of our ability. Let Eleanor Roosevelt teach us all how to tum the arts of compassion on into the victories of democracy.
Essay:
When Ms.Roosevelt served as first lady of the United States, she actively engaged in charity and donations to help marginalized groups and individuals. The Eleanor Roosevelt Memorial Foundation was established after her passing to remember the contributions she had made to the nation and continue her spirit of generosity and goodwill. In her speech during the first anniversary luncheon of the E. Roosevelt Memorial Foundation, first lady of the US Claudia Johnson pays tribute to Ms.Roosevelt by extending personal connections to justify her unwillingness to stay silent and spotlights impersonal social changes she initiated to consolidate her impact on society, ultimately highlighting her courage and will to act as a protector of the people of both the United States and the international world.
Claudia Johnson develops her personal connections and close relationship to Ms.Roosevelt in order to demonstrate her unwillingness to stay silent. After her brief introduction of the occasion, Johnson speaks in the parallel structure of “I met Eleanor Roosevelt first in print and admired her. I met her later in person and loved her”(Johnson 1). This creates a temporal sequence, showing that Ms.Johnson’s initial impression of Eleanor is respectful yet detached. It shows that her virtues can inspire admiration. The second half of the quote extends her relationship to personal connections of “met... in person”. She uses stronger diction of “loved” as compared to “admired” in order to demonstrate Eleanor was more moving and impactful as a person rather than a virtual figure, paying tribute to her as a individual. This shows that she is unique as a individual and starts the text by characterizing her as a lively person rather than a impactful political figure. This emphasizes the human aspect of her accomplishments and sets the stage for her courage in face of dangers. She then moves on to highlight instances of her interaction with Eleanor, both Eleanor’s initial hospitality and her interactions during the Commission on the Status of Women. These details work to establish her close relationships with Eleanor by personal anecdotes. Ms.Johnson directly addresses the audience by saying “All of us are familiar with people whoa re partisans of departed virtue, but are afraid to defend an unpopular truth today”(Johnson 1). This alludes to the audience of the luncheon which would have most likely been composed of high-ranking bureaucrats and important individuals by leading them to think about other important figures who had backed down from their values due to mounting pressures and fear. She highlights the commonness of this outcome by the inclusive diction of “all” and “familiar”, showing that these individuals are common and closely-connected in society. She juxtaposes this choice with the claim that Eleanor “never stood with this timid company” and that “Her conscience was her counselor, and she followed its commands with unfaltering courage”(Johnson 1). Ms.Johnson draws a stark line with the absolute diction of “never” and juxtaposes the “timid company” of individuals backing down to the “unfaltering courage” of Eleanor. This shows that Eleanor was able to accomplish a extraordinary feet as a person, a feet that few are able to accomplish. Ms.Johnson appeals to her audience’s belief that she developed close relationships with Eleanor, a belief established previously, in order to persuade them of the consistently unfaltering nature of Eleanor’s moral standings, paying tribute to her moral standing. Her previous humanization of Eleanor works to further emphasize the impressiveness of the feet as the same temptations and fears would have applied to Eleanor as well as anyone in the “timid company”, yet she was never moved by them. This claim works to highlight that Eleanor was a constantly morally-righteous individual who dedicated her entire life to standing up for the “unpopular truth”, thus paying tribute to her as a individual and her moral-righteousness. Ms.Johnson moves on to elaborate on Eleanor’s exact accomplishments to demonstrate actual impact.
Ms.Johnson highlights both the small and large projects led by Eleanor in order to characterize her courage established previously as uplifting and socially-impactful, ultimately paying tribute to her accomplishments. Ms.Johnson highlights a specific anecdote in which Eleanor “spent two hours helping the 75th Congressional Club give a benefit luncheon to buy a wheelchair for a crippled boy”(Johnson 1). By juxtaposing the high status of the Congressional Club as well as the implied status of Eleanor as First Lady with the seemingly minor “crippled boy”, Ms.Johnson highlights the lengths to which Eleanor went to secure help for what she felt right, no matter the costs or seemingly minor implications of such help. Moving on, Ms.Johnson highlights a series of Eleanor’s achievements in which “She saw an unemployed father, and so she helped him. She saw a neglected...Declaration of Human Rights”(Johnson 2). She applies parallel structure of “She saw..., and so she ...”. This structure highlights the simple cause and effect nature of Eleanor’s contributions. Without drawing attention to broader goals or political aspirations, Ms.Johnson defines Eleanor’s actions in helping others as solely based on the existence of a problem. These problems span all walks of society, from unemployment of a single individual to world peace, Eleanor is shown by Ms.Johnson to work towards solving these problems simply because “She saw”. This touches on her dedication and moral constraint shown in the previous paragraph in which she continuously and tirelessly dedicates herself to the well-being of the world. She summarizes this by saying “In the white house she was the first lady of the land, but after the white house she became the first lady of the world ”(Johnson 2). By utilizing symbolism of “first lady” and “white house” as the highest levels of status, she establishes her importance in the nation as paralleling her global achievement of becoming “first lady” of the world, showing she took solidarity not only with the people of America but people around the world. This pays tribute to Eleanor’s contributions globally and summarizes how she has used her unyielding determination for moral-rightfulness to make a impact both in the US and globally and pays tribute to her simple dedication for good will. This connects with the audience as Eleanor’s dedication is what let to the founding of the foundation, so by paying tribute to Eleanor’s achievements, she also pays tribute to the morals involved in founding the foundation which are the same morals that the majority of her audience would support.
Ms.Johnson first establishes the personal morale and nature of Eleanor through hints at personal connection and juxtaposition with others of similar status. She then uses this personality to demonstrate how Eleanor made a impact on the world and how this impact was driven solely by her will for good. This inspires the audience to continue her legacy and support both the foundations and Elanor’s moral stance that led to its founding.
Did USAJMO narrowly missed red mop with 29, next year as a junior I can only take USAMO so do I count as part of the blue mop qualifying group (hopefully) and if so how much harder is USAMO getting to blue cutoffs than USAJMO red cutoffs? Thanks