The impact of a sentence, whether long or short, should be such that anyone who reads it, feels something. Whether the reader becomes angry, enlightened, or is left with any other emotion, the writer’s purpose is always to give the reader something to think about.
For example, in his 1864 speech, “The Mission of the War,” Frederick Douglass spoke on the jolt the Civil War rendered to the United States saying, “It has planted agony at a million hearthstones, thronged our streets with the weeds of mourning, filled our land with mere stumps of men, ridged our soil with two hundred thousand rudely formed graves and mantled it all over with the shadow of death.” This bold statement carries weight generations later.
From your readings this week in Four Hundred Souls, identify a single sentence that expresses your feelings on the state of social justice today. This sentence may be long or short but must express a complete thought. What strategies do you notice the writer using that we’ve explored over the past few weeks that help create such a strong statement?
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