Choose A Lens
As my students work on their rhetorical analysis essays, I ask them to consider the lens they will choose to use to examine their chosen text. This is something we should all do from time to time…consider the lenses we use to approach decisions and new experiences as well as live our lives. For a more formal rhetorical analysis I suggest students consider historical, philosophical, psychological, and moral lenses and these are all useful lenses for us to examine our lives, but sometimes all we need to do is examine our lives, words, and actions from another perspective. With that in mind I invite you to consider the poem Lens by Patricia Hooper.
Her opening lines speak volumes:
How different things must have looked
to my mother than they did to me.
We get so many different perspectives in this 12-line poem and I love how it challenges us to engage in each viewpoint.
When was the last time you considered or wrote from a different viewpoint or employed a new lens to examine your life?
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
