Alannah Hanson Peer Review for Chelsea Aumen

Peer review for Chelsea Aumen “Not ready to make nice”

1. The writer’s thesis is indeed very clear. “In this song, The Dixie Chicks convince the world that freedom means nothing unless we have the freedom to speak our minds.” It is built up with some background information about the song. The thesis is built of rhetoric because it states the argument that is presented in the song. Throughout the paper the writer lists what the argument of both the video and the song, which is restating the thesis clearly. The writer talks about the imagery of the video and how it relates to the argument, which is that the Dixie chicks lead singer isn’t going to apologize for what she said, and that she has to right to free speech.
2. The writer uses many examples from the song text, and uses them well. She jumps right into examples after her thesis with: The repetition of the lines “I’m not ready to make nice, I’m not ready to back down” states that she is not going to essentially “make nice” and apologize for what she said because that would go against everything she believes in. And: paid a price and I’ll keep praying” states that she knows she is going to be hated for a long time by some people, maybe even the rest of her life, for standing up for what she believes in but she made her bed and she will “sleep like a baby with no regrets”. She is saying here that she knows that what she said hurt a lot of Americans but she doesn’t regret what she did.
Maines also uses repetition at the being and end of the song when she states “Forgive, sounds good. Forget, I’m not sure I could.” She is saying that she will forgive the people that wrote her hate letters but she will never forget the lessons she learned. These examples all provide great support to her thesis. I noticed that the writer didn’t identify any use of logos pathos and ethos, so putting some examples of those in would be a good idea, because they all tie to rhetoric. So the writer’s descriptions are pretty good, it just lacks the logos, pathos, and ethos.
3. The writers examples in the video are great supportive to the paper’s thesis ..she states all sorts of examples for all of the scenes in the video: At the beginning of the video, they are dressed in white, as a metaphor to their innocence. Then, they smear black paint over all of their dresses as to signify that they were shunned and deemed black sheep because of what they said. There is also a scene in the video where the two women are trying to hold Natalie Maines down. This signifies that she is trying to break out and she is sick of trying to be “perfect”. In the middle of the video all three girls walk up and hold each other’s hands and “brush off” the pain and commentary they received for speaking their minds.Since she uses examples of all the scenes from the video, instead of just one part, it strengthens the presentation of her argument. Again there is no mention of logos, pathos, or ethos. And the writer says represents a lot, where symbolism could be played. But the argument and thesis are backed up and presented clearly.The one thing that sticks with me from this essay is the fact that her examples are really clearly presenting her argument. They present such a good argument for the reader to better understand what the song really meant. I had never heard this song before and now I understand it, because I wouldn’t have made the tie to the president, if I hadn’t read this paper. The part that really sticks through from the video is the part where she talks about the paint and the black sheep. That is a really good interpretation and makes a lot of sense.