WP1: Second Rough Draft

Ninety percent of the Rwandan population lives on less than two U.S. dollars per day. Worse than that, fifty percent of the population lives on less than just one U.S. dollar per day. In other words, Rwanda is a poor country. According to “worldpress.org” statistics, seventy percent of the population lived below the poverty line in Rwanda in 2000. To put this in perspective, according to the same site, in that year the population living below the poverty line in the United States was slightly under thirteen percent.

As a result of the economy the health is an issue as well. The biggest killers in Rwanda are Malaria and respiratory diseases, which in developed countries are rarely causes of death. The life expectancy in Rwanda in the year 2000 was thirty nine years. Compared to in the United States where the life expectancy that same year was seventy seven years, this is a tragically low statistic. The economy also affects the education available. Unfortunately, many of the teachers are not qualified and are mainly using poor teaching materials, resulting in a high dropout rate and a low literacy rate.

On top of the grim economy, the country struggles with a painful history and an outstanding rivalry. There is strong division and resulting conflict between the Hutus and the Tutsis, two ethnic groups in Rwanda. It led to a tragic event in 1994. Eight hundred thousand Rwandans were killed in just one hundred days. The conflict is not ended and the wounds are fresh. This also strained the already bleak economy and left the land, needed for agriculture, damaged.

The photograph "Sitting on Rail" was taken in 2001, at a time when Rwanda did not even have a sewage system and just five years after the genocide. The economy had improved from right after the genocide, but was still at an extreme low. "Sitting on Rail" displays the despair the children of Rwanda have lived with and the resulting loss of hope. The photograph appeals to pathos and logos, by means of coloration, lighting, vectors of attention, framing and cropping, and contrast with the norm to demonstrate this argument. It is not a plea for pity, but for sympathy and help.

Children are often associated with bright and vibrant hues. However, the hues in “Sitting on Rail” consist of a lot of gray. There is gray in the sky, the railing, the cement, and in some of the boys’ clothing. Even the water, which is often shown as blue or green, is gray in this scene. This creates an appeal to pathos for sympathy, because the hue of gray is often connected with sadness or despair. As an effect, the gray sky provokes a sad, somber feeling that sets the mood for the photograph. There are other hues, in the children’s clothing, like red and green, which are not linked with sadness, even linked with happy, positive feelings, but these hues are not very bright, they are dark. This results in them having no affect on the viewer’s attention, or changing the effects of the overwhelming gray hues.

The photograph uses natural lighting, which makes the photo look realistic, like it is natural and not posed. Because it does not look as if it has been staged, it reminds the viewer this is a reality for these children. It is another example of an appeal to pathos to move the viewers to feel sympathy. If it appeared to be staged at all it would not suggest a strong sense of sympathy in the viewer. The natural lighting makes the boys and the pathway in the foreground look much darker than the sky and the water in the background, which develops the attention on the gray hues even more. In this sense, the natural lighting enhances the gray hues, and establishes a focus on the background.

The boys are all facing away from the camera, making the vectors of attention toward the gray sky. This makes the focus on the background even more compelling. The background is not exciting, all one hue and quite bland, but the many things pointing toward the background, like the natural lighting and the vectors of attention, is able to make it a focus. It is also making an appeal to pathos, causing the viewer feel as if they are just an onlooker looking at the scene in the photo, not as if they are involved with it. It does not show the boys' faces or expressions, so the audience does not get to feel as if they understand the children or what they are thinking. This provokes sympathy instead of empathy. The sympathy is a result of the boys' posture. They are slumped on to the railing, or on their arms. This attitude mirrors the sad, somber mood of their surroundings.

Their surroundings are not only gray but vast. Due to the framing of the picture, the sky and the railing look as if they go on for miles. This is because it is taken at an angle. The immense amount of gray in the unending sky mirrors the boys’ lives, grim circumstances in their past that also haunt their future. It is cropped to include multiple children who have all had the same experience. The child just walking in to the picture creates an idea that the children the mood or situation affects could continuously be added to. The framing of the picture shows the lack of hope of the people experiencing the economic trouble in Rwanda.

Especially in modernized civilizations, people are accustomed to seeing photographs of children at play, interacting with friends, or with a smile on their face. This photograph appeals to logos, using a strong contradiction to the expected. The boys in the pictures are not even interacting with each other. The children in this photograph are just staring; gazing off into the horizon, thinking or reflecting. This is a very strong appeal to pathos, evoking compassion for these kids and sorrow for the thoughts that burden their minds. Sad children are especially heart wrenching, because children are known for their innocents and the joy they can find in the smallest things. It is often a quality that others are envious of. When that quality is missing, one cannot help but to feel for its loss.

The overwhelming gray hues, the use of natural lighting and vectors of attention focusing on the gray sky, the boys’ activity compared to expectations, the framing and cropping, displaying a relationship with the photograph and the reality, all in “Sitting on Rail”, plus the contradiction to the expectations of photographs with children, make appeals to pathos and logos. These appeals show the somber attitude and dreary future in Rwanda and ask the viewer to sympathize for the children, but not to attempt to understand or feel empathetic towards them. These children have seen a lot, possibly witnessing the genocide but certainly seeing the struggle to provide for the basic needs in life.

By feeling sympathy toward the children, or even generalizing to anyone in need of help, the viewers are moved to provide aid for these communities. It inspires charity towards any area containing poverty. In this situation, even a small impact can lead to a much larger one. A second, more positive, accomplishment of sympathy towards the children in this photograph is to make the viewer feel appreciative. Viewing the troubles someone else faces in their life often inspires one to feel grateful for the things they have. These two feelings are not separate from each other, often the work in tandem. The act of charity, leads to grateful, which inspires more charity, etc. This photograph has a sad, somber mood, yet it can move its viewers to sponsor a generous, positive world.

Work Cited

Bugingo, Immaculate. "Poverty Alleviation Programs in Rwanda." Rwanda Development Gateway. Web. 2 Mar. 2010. .

"Rural Poverty in Rwanda." Rural Poverty Portal. Internation Fund for Agricultural Development. Web. 02 Mar. 2010. .

"Rwanda - Poverty and Wealth." Encylopedia of the Nations. Avameg, Inc. Web. 2 Mar. 2010. .

"Rwanda Profile." Worldpress.org. Web. 2 Mar. 2010. .

"Rwanda Weather and Climate." Travel Guides - World Travel Guide. Columbia Travel Media Ltd. Web. 02 Mar. 2010. .

WP1

The struggle in Rwanda, between the Hutus and the Tutsis, began eraly during the colonization of the Belgains. The Belgains randomly decided that the Tutsis were superior of the Hutus, although the Hutus were the majority ethnicity. The rivalry and hatred of the two intensified every passing year and continues to this day. In April of 1994, the president of Rwanda, who was a Hutu, was killed when his plane was shot down. The Hutus were quick to blame the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), which was led by a Tutsi. The RPF was a group of Tutsis and modern Hutus which was stationed in Uganda, where many Tutsis had fled. This group was united because they were tired of the economic trouble the Hutu president had only increased, and therefore were planning to overthrow him in hope of being able to return to their Rwandan land.

There was no proof that the plane had been shot down by the RPF, but the accusation was enough to motivate the Hutus to take arms. This was the beginning of the 100 day genocide which stains the country of Rwanda. The Hutus targeted every Tutsi and even killed moderate Hutus which refused to support their massacre. Eight hundred thousand Rwandans were murdered. In July of 1994, RPF was able to capture the Hutus' base in Kigali, and declared a cease fire. Although the genocide was ended, the fight was not.

Today in Rwanda, Paul Kagame, leader of the RPF, is the president of Rwanda. They are still struggling with the Hutu forces that fled to the Dominican Republic of Cong. Along with the ethnic struggle, they also struggle with their economy continuously. For example, in June of 2006 they were just beginning to put in a sewage system, something many countries take for granted and have been for centuries. The photograph "Sitting on Rail" was taken in 2001, at a time when Rwanda did not even have a sewage system. That was just five years after the genocide, and four years after Musa, the photographer, arrived at the orphanage. "Sitting on Rail" displays the despair the children of Rwanda have lived with and the resulting loss of hope. The photograph appeals to pathos and logos, by means of vectors of attention, coloration, lighting and framing to demonstrate this argument. It is not a plea for pity, but for sympathy and help.
The boys are all facing away from the camera, making the vectors of attention toward the gray sky. This appeal to logos makes the viewer feel as if they are an onlooker of the photograph, not as if the children in the photograph are interacting with them. The boys in the pictures are not even interacting with each other; every single one is focused on the gray sky, which makes that the photograph’s focus. The gray sky provokes a sad, somber feeling that sets the mood for the photograph.

Through the appeal to logos, via the boys turned away from the camera, the photograph makes a similar appeal to pathos. It does not show the boys' faces or expressions, so the audience does not get to feel as if they understand the children or what they are thinking. This provokes sympathy instead of empathy. The sympathy is a result of the boys' posture. They are slumped on to the railing, or on their arms, displaying the sad, somber mood as stated before. Especially in modernized civilizations, people are accustomed to seeing phtographs of children at play, interacting with friends, or with a smile on their face. This photograph shows the exact opposite.

Children are often associated with bright and vibrant hues as well. However, the hues in “Sitting on Rail” consist of a lot of gray. There is gray in the sky, the railing, the cement, and in some of the boys’ clothing. Even the water, which is often shown as blue or green, is gray in this scene. This contributes to the appeal to pathos for sympathy, because gray is often connected with sadness or despair. There are other hues, in the children’s clothing, like red and green, which are not linked with sadness, but these hues are not very bright, they are dark. This results in them having no affect on the viewer’s attention, or changing the effects of the overwhelming gray hues. All of the hues in the photograph are saturated, making the picture look a little dream-like. Again, this has the result of making the viewer feel as if they are just onlookers to the sight, and not able to see it how the boys would be seeing it.

The photograph uses natural lighting, which makes the photo look realistic. Although it is dream-like due to the saturation, it looks like it is natural and not posed. Because it does not look as if it has been staged, it reminds the viewer this is a reality for these children. It is another example of an appeal to pathos to move the viewers to feel sympathy. The natural lighting makes the boys and the pathway look much darker than the sky and the water. This develops the attention on the gray hues even more.

The gray sky is where all the attention has been placed, and it appears to go on forever. This is due to the framing of the picture. It is taken at an angle, which is what makes the sky and railing look as if they go on for miles. This mirrors the boys’ lives, gray skies in their past and haunting their futures. It is cropped to include multiple children who have all had the same experience. The child just walking in to the picture creates an idea that the children it affects could just keep coming. The framing of the picture shows the lack of hope of the people experiencing the trouble in Rwanda.

The vectors of attention focusing on the gray sky, the boys’ activity compared to expectations, the gray hues, the saturation of the hues, the use of natural lighting, and the framing and cropping in “Sitting on Rail” all appeal to pathos, sometimes through an appeal to logos. These appeals show the somber attitude and foggy future in Rwanda and ask the viewer to sympathize for the children, but not to attempt to understand or feel empathetic towards them. These children have seen a lot, possibly witnessing the genocide but certainly observing the result of the genocide and the rivalry between the people within and surrounding Rwanda. They have also suffered from the economic state and lack of innovation in their homes and communities.

This picture was taken from a project “Through the Eyes of Children” in which they gave some orphans, like Musa, disposable cameras to take pictures of whatever they wanted to. The pictures were initially displayed in their orphanages but were soon after invited to be shared in an exhibition to raise money for their own education. Since then the project and the children’s photographs have won many awards and gotten a lot of recognition. Like “Sitting on Rail” the project inspires a lot of sympathy toward the children and their community in hope of inspiring them to help. Rwanda has not received as much aide as some people see fit, and these photographs have done something to change that.

WP1: Statement of Purpose

The main purpose of my project is to find insight in the argument of “Sitting on Rail” and to share the insight that I have found. Not only should the project share what was found, it should also explain how I found that and why I see the certain arguments in the photo. While describing the rhetorical techniques and appeals in the photo, I will need to use rhetorical techniques and appeals in my project, for my argument. This will keep my audience interested and my argument moving.

The project will be posted online, on this blog. That means the people who see it will be looking at it online. This is good because it is easier to use multimedia elements which can add to my argument as another way of displaying the ideas or concepts. It also means that I need to be sure to have good paragraph breaking so all the words do not run together on the screen.

By having this project online it opens up my audience. My main audience will be my teacher and classmates. But also, my audience should include future classmates and anyone who stumbles on the blog via Google or casual browsing. Fellow classmates and future classmates would be working on similar projects while reading through mine. I need to have unique ideas, to keep them interested in it, and need to explain my ideas clearly. This will give them ideas for their own project and to understand mine as well. My teacher will be reading this in the midst of reading multiple similar projects. To keep him interested I need to again be unique like stated before, but show thorough insight into the photographs argument. I have to be confident in what I see as the argument in “Sitting on Rail” and in describing why that is the argument of the photo.

The broad audience of anyone with access to the internet will be more difficult to keep in mind. Most likely if they find the project by a search engine, they are looking for a topic that I am covering in my paper. This means they most likely will be interested, but they will not know what we discuss in class or read in the book. Keeping this in mind, I need to describe these things clearly, or provide links that offer a description. My responsibilities to all of my audience is to teach them the argumentation of “Sitting on Rail”, explain the techniques and conclusions of the argument, and to brainstorm many ideas that different people could have about the argument and address them, to make the whole audience feel included.

The worries I need to keep in mind when constructing this project include being too general, speaking like monotone, making assumptions, and getting off topic. To avoid being too general I need to focus on explaining every idea I have, and showing where and how it came about. In order to avoid speaking like monotone, I need to remember to keep the voice professional, but to add my own voice as well. I do not want to make assumptions about what the audience does or does not know when speaking about photography and argumentation techniques. Although I will not want to describe all the techniques thoroughly, by using contexts that give clear ideas of what they could be or providing links to information would be ideal. While writing the project, I should keep in mind the main purpose I stated above and continuously check to see if what I am writing is supporting my main purpose.

The best possible outcome of this project would be to inspire the audience. That could be to inspire them to take photographs to capture arguments they want to make. Or it could be to inspire them to look at photographs and find arguments in them. It could even be to inspire them to find an additional argument in the photograph I have chosen. If this is accomplished I would be proud of the project and the knowledge I have shared with my audience. It will also make me proud if I can expand this photographs recognition, because it is a special photograph with an important argument to make.

Prewriting Assignment 3

The Belgians gave the Rwandan colonials cards according to their ethnicity. Although the Hutus and the Tutsis were very similar, the Belgians considered the Tutsis superior to the Hutus even though they were the minority. This is when the tension between the two began. Juvenal Habyarimana was the Hutu president of Rwanda leading up to 1994. The economy of Rwanda was very desperate. The Tutsi refugees in Uganda, supported by some moderate Hutus, were putting together the RPF, Rwanda Patriotic Front, to overthrow Juvenal Habyarimana take back the Rwandan land they believed they deserved. In April of 1994, Juvenal Habyarimana died when his plane was shot down. The Hutus immediately blamed the RPF leader, Paul Kagame. This began the Rwandan genocide of 1994.

In only one hundred days, eight hundred thousand Rwandans were killed. The radical Hutus were killing every Tutsi, or moderate Hutu they believed to be in support of the RPF, they could find. They even forced some Hutus to kill their neighboring Tutsis, threatening their own death if they did not comply. The Hutu forces collaborated in Kigali, so in July of 1994 when the RPF captured Kigali, the Hutu forces fell apart and a cease fire was declared. This ended the massacre, but not the struggle.

When the RPF seemed to have the victory, many Hutus fled to what is now the Dominican Republic of Congo. The government in Rwanda was initially led by a Hutu with Paul Kagame as his deputy, but the Hutu did not last long. He was put into jail for "inciting ethnic violence". To this day, Rwanda is led by Paul Kagame of the RPF and continue to struggle with the Kutus forces in the Dominican Republic of Congo. BBC News states that "The world's largest peacekeeping force has been unable to end the fighting".

The photograph "Sitting on Rail" was taken in Rwanda in 2001. The boy who took the photograph, Musa, would have been three years old at the time of the genocide. This struggle has been surrounding him, and the boys in the pictures, all of their lives. Despite the Tutsi and Hutu struggle, Rwanda has always struggled economically. For example, in June of 2006 David Kubaye wrote that they were just beginning to insert a sewage system.

From the information given at the site of the photograph, I know that Musa arrived at the orphanage in 1997. Knowing how the Rwandan past and Musa's personal past must be affecting him makes the gray sky in the photograph seem even more dooming. I originally thought this picture was taking to inspire sympathy, not understanding, and I think the background supports that even more. Musa must know that we cannot understand what he has been through, so he captures the picture not to inspire pity, as he does not show the faces, but to inspire sympathy. This sympathy should inspire people to help in Rwanda. If he was trying to have the viewers pity them, or feel guilty for the lack of help given to Rwanda, he would have shown the faces of the kids, and not had the vectors of attention directed away from the viewers and into the gray sky. In the photograph, he is showing the struggle that they face every day.

Work Cited

Kabuye, David. "Rwanda: today." Web log post. Rwandanstories. John Steward and David Fullerton, 2006. Web. 17 Feb. 2010. .

"Rwanda: How the Genocide Happened." BBC News. BBC MMX, 18 Dec. 2008. Web. 17 Feb. 2010. .

WP1: Pre-writing Assignment 2

"Sitting on Rail" is arranged so the viewers are positioned behind the boys and the rail. The vectors of attention are away from us, pointed out into the gray skies and the water. This makes the viewer feel not as if they are involved in the picture but that they are observing the picture. The kids faces are not interacting with the audience, you cannot see them at all. I think this appeal to logos, having the vectors of attention pointed away, makes an argument that we viewers cannot be involved in the picture because we cannot imagine what those kids are going through in Rwanda. Viewing the boys slumped over on the railing, looking to the gray sky, is a strong appeal to pathos. It makes the viewers feel sympathetic toward those boys. We are looking on because we cannot possibly understand, but that leaves us to feel sympathetic.

He took the picture at an angle that makes the railing and sky look as if they must go on forever. The focus is on the sky, due to the vectors of attention as stated above. These both could be appeals to ethos. If the gray sky is a symbol of the hard times they are going through in this child's life, he could view it with no end in sight. So, he took the picture to match his feelings, that the gray sky could go on forever. He cropped it to include a variety of boys, similarly having to go through the difficulties he is.

The lighting is about half way between light and dark. It is light enough that the viewers can see everything, but the sky is the only thing light enough to see really clearly. Where the boys are standing is a bit darker, not as easy to clearly see them, their clothing, or the objects they have with them. Taking this picture in this lighting, could be an appeal to logos, putting the focus more on the sky. It is the most lit thing in the picture.

The coloration adds to the overall appeal to pathos in this photograph. Their clothing are hues of tan, green, and red. Although they are highly saturated, the are not bright. The green and red hues are dark colors. It draws on that sympathetic emotion because it keeps with the dreary mood. Because their faces are pointed away, their clothes is what makes them unique from one to another. Yet, they are all dark colors that bring about sad or bored moods. On top of the coloration in their clothing the surrounding area is also made up of gray hues. Again, it is highly saturated, but do to the hue itself it is not vibrant. Gray is often characterized with sadness, or pain. The water could have been blue, or green, but it is also gray. Looking at this photo we get the feeling of sadness but because we are not involved in the photo, it is like the sadness belongs to the boys. That leaves the audience to feel sympathy.