TOW #6: Grinds

Shark tank: Grinds Coffee Pouches

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ee_ZOl8VYnY

Pat and Matt are two young entrepreneurs who invented Grinds which is a company that produces an energy booster with coffee packets that provides a healthy alternative to tobacco, has healthy nutrients, and better for you than coffee. They went on Shark Tank with hopes of getting money to help them distribute their product more quickly and efficiently.

Because their audience was the Sharks, they had to come prepared and have a confident tone. Though a confident tone can make one seem cocky, they withheld from such an impression and even proved what they were saying was true by giving the Sharks a test of their product. Giving them a first hand example gave them credibility because the Sharks could see their product worse ultimately boosting the audience trust in the entrepreneurs. They also appealed to the Shark’s logic utilizing the idea of logos and brought facts and numbers to the table. In a scenario like this, they have to use more logos than any other appeal because the Sharks are basing their deals off of the numbers and both Pat and Matt used statistics to attempt to persuade the Sharks to make a deal with them. In the end, the impression they made worked because they got two deals to choose from from the Sharks.

I believe appealing to ethos and logos as well as having a confident tone, the entrepreneurs were able to prove their product to be successful and get a deal with the Sharks with potential ease. They proved examples of when their product would be used hoping to relate to their audience and even though one Shark was out because she couldn’t relate the other Sharks could. I think they proved their point and achieved their goal well.

TOW #5: Everyday Use by Alice Walker

Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use” is a short story about a family during the civil rights movement at a time of racism. The mom grew up in a different cultural environment and the black culture has changed through the generations. We see how the mom grew up in an environment where “colored asked fewer questions” (3). The context helps with the message of don’t take anything for granted, everything is important. The civil-rights issues during the time period focused on ethnic pride and heritage. In this story, Dee doesn’t have that much ethnic pride. Her lack of pride is illustrated when the narrator describes how ‘she used to read us without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks’ habits, whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her voice’ (2). Dee tells stories about other people and their lives because she doesn’t want to live her own. She’s ashamed to live the way her family does which is why she tried so hard to get out of it.

The story teaches her audience not to take anything for granted and to hold onto your heritage. We see the purpose come to light with the eldest daughter’s actions. Dee shows up to her mother’s house and seems proper and too herself and she makes her family feel as if they’re not good enough. The readers have already learned how she had a specific image for her family at the bottom of page 2. She waltzes in with a “dress down to the ground…” showing how she has moved up in the world and her family has not (4). Her mother shows that is not important by denying Dee the quilt at the end of the story and gives Maggie the quilt instead. Dee wanted to hang it on a wall but her mother said she missed the point and Maggie would use it and embrace it rather than hang it at a wall like a museum. Maggie is seen as more hated than Dee but finally becomes more superior making the point more powerful.

TOW #4: Street Kid by Judy Westwater

So far, her potential purpose could be to show everyone how you can move on from the negative events and obstacles in your life. After getting beaten consistently for years, getting taken from her mother, and almost dying, Judy Westwater was able to move onto her adulthood and write her book. She enabled herself to demonstrate how she moved on and can share her story with the world.

Westwater is able to achieve her purpose appealing to pathos. She uses phrases like "where I was eating ashes" and "I could have died" to make her audience feel desperately sympathetic towards the author and her situation (2, 29). Her hard hitting diction attacks your heart until tears swell in your eyes- her story is inspiring. She describes her childhood and how she never lived the "normal" life a child should live. She was beaten senselessly by her father’s girlfriend and almost died due to her unnecessary force and wounding whips. After the police did some investigating, she could leave but had to go to an orphanage where she was able to demonstrate how alienated she felt amongst other children. Westwater was scolded for not understanding how to eat properly and not wanting to play with the kids.

Judy Westwater proves she was able to develop independence and worry for herself. She shows us the power of looking after yourself when she describes how she never knew what it meant to play and she only knew how to sulk and hide. She had to worry for herself more than be a true kid and have fun.