Miguel Buenaventura
AP English language and composition  
1 December 2012

Rhetorical Strategies Model

Claim:    Facebook is a waste of time.

Illustrating Ideas by Use of Example

A vulnerable young man has a few minutes of free time.  He picks up his phone and pokes at the big f app.  Here’s what he encounters:

• His cousin has hung up her stockings.  She posted a photo.  Ugly stockings.  Ugly fireplace.
• The ex-wife of his friend and mentor was just at Costco, shopping.  She doesn’t understand why the sample lady had so much to say about potato chips.
• The guy from his favorite taqueria is very disappointed by the Chargers again.  He uses offensive language to describe his frustration.
• His grandpa thinks Obama is going to take away his guns and make him live in a socialist commune with pot smoking, married, gay immigrants who just want government handouts.
• A former classmate is happy that her boyfriend gave her a stuffed animal.
• The son of a friend is “tired of all the haters.”
• Some friend of a friend is “pinterested’ in something unbelievably stupid and would be “the happiest person in the whole world” if she could go see the new shiny vampire werewolf movie.
• A middle-aged woman feels sad about a dog that had its face cut off by terrorists.  But she feels inspired by somebody who lost weight.
• Lots of people like lots of stuff.   Other people don’t like doing some things.  Things like waking up.  Doing homework.  Waiting in line. Washing dishes.
• Etc.

He turns off his phone.  What an efficient use of his time.  He’s learned so much about the world.

Classification

Not all facebook users are alike; there are now over 1 billion of them.  But one can classify them in terms of their use habits or their enthusiasm for posting updates.  Some users are called . . .