Head back to the hub for The Invisible Man for essential questions, background, and a copy of the novel:
SOAPSTONE Overview
Handout #1: SOAPSTONE Overview
SOAPSTONE is an acronym that breaks down persuasive or expository writing into discrete components. By separating elements this way, you can analyze the overall rhetoric of a piece more efficiently and effectively. The acronym stands for Subject, Occasion, Audience, Purpose, Speaker, and Tone.
The overview and explanations in the handout come from Ogden Morse and the College Board:
SOAPSTone: A Strategy for Reading and Writing – AP Central
Introduction For many students, the creation of a piece of writing is a mysterious process. It is a laborious, academic exercise, required by teachers and limited to the classroom. They do not see it as a way of ordering the mind, explaining their thoughts and feelings, or achieving a personal voice.
Chapter 27: The Siege of Kemp’s House
Handout #2: Chapter 27 Analysis
The following letter comes from Chapter 27 of The Invisible Man. You are to analyze the rhetoric of this letter — the Invisible Man’s declaration of war — by using the SOAPSTONE tool.
Rhetoric is defined simply as “the art of effective or persuasive speaking or writing, especially the use of figures of speech and other compositional techniques.” To understand the rhetoric of Griffin’s missive, you should first annotate it, and then you can apply SOAPSTONE.
You have been amazingly energetic and clever, though what you stand to gain by it I cannot imagine. You are against me. For a whole day you have chased me; you have tried to rob me of a night’s rest. But I have had food in spite of you, I have slept in spite of you, and the game is only beginning. The game is only beginning. There is nothing for it, but to start the Terror. This announces the first day of the Terror. Port Burdock is no longer under the Queen, tell your Colonel of Police, and the rest of them; it is under me—the Terror! This is day one of year one of the new epoch—the Epoch of the Invisible Man. I am Invisible Man the First. To begin with the rule will be easy. The first day there will be one execution for the sake of example—a man named Kemp. Death starts for him to-day. He may lock himself away, hide himself away, get guards about him, put on armour if he likes—Death, the unseen Death, is coming. Let him take precautions; it will impress my people. Death starts from the pillar box by midday. The letter will fall in as the postman comes along, then off! The game begins. Death starts. Help him not, my people, lest Death fall upon you also. To-day Kemp is to die.
The handout has a printable SOAPSTONE chart. You can also work in a notebook or with a separate sheet of paper. Look to Google Classroom for the formal/typed assignment.
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