B1AL 32454 Spring 2024 "Why Leaves Turn Color in the Fall" by Sharon Rowland

Lenee Lango

2024-01-26 08:33:49 UTC

Diane Ackermans style stands characterized into two rhetorical categories: Pathos (emotions) and Logos (Logic). For Pathos, Ackerman engages the readers emotions with the use of descriptive imagery and figurative language to add depth into her narrative. For example, when describing the leaves, Ackerman describes them as “so pastel, so confetti-like.” (Ackerman 1). This description gives the reader an idea on what to imagine the leaves as by comparing them to confetti, using a simile, as well as describing the specific type of color. By the use of these colorful, poppy sounding words, the reader understands to feel happy or excited about the leaves. Adding more emphasis with the use of figurative language, there are also some other examples that Diane uses in her essay. For example, in paragraph six, Ackerman claims the leaves “dupe,” (Ackerman 6) or trick us, meaning that the leafs are tricking humans into admiring their colors because they are so appealing to us. Leaves cannot actually trick us, therefore creating personification. This adds more depth to the emotional scale. By bringing the reader down into seeing her narrative through a personified lens, we are able to emotionally relate, appealing to Pathos. Diane Ackerman also uses another rhetoric on appealing to logos. She provides scientific explanations along with her emotional ones to unify and enhance her narrative. For example, when explaining the process of leaves falling, she says, “by the end of autumn only a few fragile threads of fluid-carrying xylem hold leaves to their stems.” (Ackerman 2). What she says here is that when the later seasons come, trees stop producing a certain material, xylem that keep the leaves in tact. With the use of this knowledge, the reader is being informed of the process of why the leaves fall, therefore appealing to logos.

Vanessa Martin

2024-01-27 00:12:10 UTC

Diana Ackerman's figurative description of "leaves" is a deeper narrative. When she describes the leaves, (paragraph 6) Ackerman describes "though the leaves use their green life, They bloom with urgent colors" This gives the reader the idea that she is comparing the life of leaves with the life of humans. For example We all start young and green in life and as we mature " Change Colors " we move to our next stage in life. Ackerman is appealing to our emotions. In (Paragraph 8) Ackerman appeals to our visual sense. For example "Children play in piles of leaves , hurling them into the air like confetti" she is describing celebration by comparing leaves to confetti an children excited to "hurl it around".

lailadiaz1904 — 2024-01-27 03:08:40 UTC

I think that Ackerman's style is poetic, descriptive, and deeply observant. She is trying to get us to see the bigger picture of human life because our lives and leaves are somewhat the same. As in that leaves and a person are living things. Ackerman provides emotional and scientific explanations which help us better understand what she is talking about. When she says "through the leaves use their green life, they bloom with urgent colors" (Paragraph 6) she is using poetic language to describe the vibrant and vidid colors that flow display. It is a poetic way of highlighting the process of photosynthesis and the resulting burst of colors in nature.

Monica Corro

2024-01-28 06:11:01 UTC

Two rhetorical strategies I identified in Ackermans writing were description and cause and effect. I chose these two because Ackermans writing style had character and provided an underlying meaning. Ackerman filled her essay with lively verbs, adjectives, and many interesting details on the subject, keeping the audience active in their reading. Just in the second paragraph, Ackerman says "a string of stars.. a lighted stage... spectacular, heart-stopping... roll up in clenched fists," all to describe autumn and the leaf cycle that ends with it. More examples follow, but in short, this feature of her writing is compelling in the sense that readers can actually create imagery with all the great amount of detail Ackerman provides. The creativity of her writing goes further than imagery. Ackerman uses cause and effect in a way where we can gain knowledge on her side points behind the larger argument; the reason of the change in color of tree leaves during Autumn by giving the reader a breakdown on the science behind this phenomenon. "Only a few fragile threads of fluid-carrying xylem hold leaves to their stems" "the chlorophyll gradually breaks down" (paragraph 3), "their camouflage gone, we see these colors for the first time" (paragraph 4) "This is also why leaves appear dizzyingly bright and clear on a sunny fall day: The anthocyanin flashes like a marquee," (paragraph 5). These quotes are an example of the story-telling cause and effect Ackerman uses to keep the reader engaged and questioning towards the main idea.

Crystal Cardenas

2024-01-28 21:30:47 UTC

Diane Ackerman's style is like poetry and has a deep meaning. She wants us to focus on the meaning of the leaves. Ackerman describes in(paragraph 9) "As a leaf ages, the growth hormone, auxin, fades, and cells at the base of peticle divide." Ackerman is talking about how leaves and humans are living things. They both age and die. She expresses emotional feelings. Ackerman is giving us a reason to think about life. For expample in (paragraph 10) As children drag their small feet through the leaves heaped along the curb. She is saying how they can find fossil stones. Ackerman describes the colors and flow of the leaves.

Emily Rodriguez

2024-01-28 23:09:59 UTC

I believe that Ackerman's style is very alluring, she uses so many techniques to bring the readers in and still can convey her bigger picture. One rhetorical strategy she uses very well would be metaphors and similes. In paragraph 8 she wrote, “ Children love to play in piles of leaves, hurling them into the air like confetti..” This statement gives a celebratory tone while also bringing in her bigger picture. Her use of Logos is also very effective. She started her writing by explaining how leaves age and fall during the change of season. This rhetorical strategy is very compelling because it helps build up her main point and support her claims.

Payton Greenfield

2024-01-28 23:19:31 UTC

Diane Ackerman’s writing style is poetic, she engages the world around her. Diane’s main focus is that changing seasons in nature are very similar to a human beings lifecycle.

Similar to what a human life would experience. Diane Ackerman describes in paragraph 6 “ We find the sizzling colors, thrilling, and in a sense

they dupe us. Color like living things, they signal death and disintegration. In time, they will become fragile, and, like the body, return to dust. They are as we hope, our own fate will be when we die: not to, vanish, just to sublime from one beautiful state into another, the leaves lose their green life, they bloom with the urgent colors, as the woods grow mummified day by day, and nature becomes more carnal, mute, and radiant.” The leaves go through seasons just as humans go through life they change over time through color, just as we do through aging and once their time has come to an end they start a new life cycle, as we do through reincarnation or at least I hope we do. Diane Ackerman also states in paragraph 5 “ not all leaves, turn the same colors, elms, weeping willows, and ancient ginkgo all grow radiant, yellow, along with hickory‘s, aspens, bottlebrush buckeye’s ,cottonwoods and tall, kneeing poplars.” All leaves come in different shapes, different sizes ,and different colors .Just as the human life does, never the same but life flowing through our veins.

Jayden Anglin

2024-01-28 23:28:22 UTC

Ackerman's style is very poetic and informative, she uses a large amount of figurative language throughout the essay which made it very enjoyable and captivating to read. A rhetorical strategy Ackerman uses is metaphorical language and imagery, for example, "Dry seedpods will rattle like tiny gourds," (Ackerman 1). Here she uses vivid imagery to paint a picture for the reader. This use of imagery helps elevate the essay and make it more captivating to read. Another rhetorical strategy Ackerman uses is making constant connections to human experiences. This makes the essay so much more relatable and enjoyable for the reader because there are so many parallels brought up between the leaves and individuals. By connecting the scientific content to the themes and messages in a relatable way it makes for much less jargon.

Jason Tamayo

2024-01-28 23:44:48 UTC

Ackerman's writing style can be seen as poetic with very deep meaning, and very informative and descriptive. For example, “Keen- eyed as leopards, we stand still and squint hard, looking for signs of movement,”(paragraph 1) the author uses figurative language to give the reader an idea on how the author wanted to display the scene. The author was able to make the concept easy to understand. She also uses a figurative language to describe other scenes or appeal to an emotion.

Ackerman was also very informative and showed that she understood the material she was talking about and describing how leaves truly changed colors. For example, "Undernourished, the leaves stop

producing the pigment chlorophyll, and photosynthesis ceases." This shows that Ackerman truly knows how leaves change color and was able to incorporate that into her writing.

Inocente De Leon

2024-01-29 00:02:08 UTC

Diane Ackerman writing style can be seen as poetic, informative and interesting. As an example, "so we notice the other colors that were always there" (Ackerman 3) can be interpreted as human seeing someone's true colors. Another example, can be " Not all leaves turn the same colors." (Ackerman 5) can be interpreted as we are all different.

Maria Chavez

2024-01-29 00:31:08 UTC

Diane Ackerman has a very captivating and poetic style of writing. In the essay, two rhetorical strategies she uses were describing and using simile and personification. In paragraph 6 “In time they will become fragile and like the body, return to dust. They are as we hope our own fate will be when we die.” She is describing how leaves and humans have a similar ending. All through the essay she uses similes and personification to give the reader hints of the larger conversation.

Isis Zachery

2024-01-29 00:49:28 UTC

I think that the way Ackerman writes is really interesting, she finds a way to take a regular leaf and turn it into a way for people to look and reflect on the stages of life. Her writing style, I feel, is unique and enticing. She uses a lot of descriptive words and the way that she writes really makes you think. One of her most compelling ways of getting her ideas across are using things like similes or metaphors, they allow the reader to connect what they already know, something familiar, to Ackermans bigger idea. Another compelling feature of her arguments is her ability to be so descriptive in her work.

Monica Aguirre

2024-01-29 01:05:24 UTC

In Diane Ackerman’s “Why Leaves Turn Color in the Fall”, she uses nature as a means of symbolization of human life. Ackerman expands on the lifecycle of a leaf through both a scientific and emotional spectacle. She utilizes figurative language to take effect on the audience. She uses logos to not stray away from the scientific aspect. Along with pathos in order to kindle the reader’s emotions. With the use of figurative language and imagery Ackerman brings her vision to life.

In lines 64-65, Ackerman uses pathos to describe how similar humans and leaves are when it comes to our mortality, “In time, they will become fragile and, like the body, return to dust. They are as we hope our own fate will be when we die: Not to vanish, just to sublime from one beautiful state into another.” This quote appeals to readers own solemn thoughts about mortality and paints it into something much more uplifting. We are not just dying, we are changing from one state into another.

In the end, the reader is left to acknowledge just how much likeness exists around us in our everyday lives, How many times do we pass by a tree shedding its leaves in the autumn without as much as a look. These seemingly natural and mundane things have so many similarities to us and we just look the other way, not even an afterthought. Ms Ackerman really makes us reconcile this idea by the end of the essay, and now I can’t wait for the fall to come.

Rafael Roman-Amador

2024-01-31 22:53:03 UTC

Diane Ackerman utilizes a poetic approach to describe "Why leaves turn colors in the fall" and creates a vivid mental picture that helps us understand how similar our lives are to those of the leaves as they go through their life cycle. She outlines the way the "shocking green leaves hide them from view The statement, "With their camouflage gone, we see these colors for the first time and marvel but they were always there hidden like a vibrant secret beneath the hot glowing green of summer," illustrates how much motivation we have when we are young yet we still have at our hearts but it also highlights the rhetorical device of using similes and references to highlight how we all possess this green glowing within.

Jasmine Jones

2024-02-07 23:10:54 UTC

in Diane Ackerman why leaves turn color in the fall" she use nature to paint a picture on life and how it changes and how we sometimes sit back and long for our youthful days she use a lot of imagery to help you get an idea on what she is trying to say which is to always believe in yourself and to never forget your purpose