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Cassidy Tran
Professor Haas
Writing 37
29 November 2015
Rhetoric in Practice Essay
Genres grow out of their time period in which they were made. They neither adapt to the
time period, nor do they change to fit the context. John M. Swales, a Professor of Linguistics
who specializes in Genre Analysis, says that evolution of the genres themselves [are] a
necessary response to the changing world (35). It is important for genres to evolve out of their
origin and develop into the 21st century to be relevant for the current audience. Hayden McNeil,
the author of The Anteaters Guide to Reading and Writing, describes rhetorical knowledge as the
ability to analyze contexts and audiences and then to act on that analysis in comprehending and
creating texts (9). In the Writing 37 class I am taking, taught by Professor Haas, the Rhetoric in
Practice project I worked on helped me gain rhetorical knowledge. My project is aimed towards
a 21st century audience of male and female UCI college students in Southern California. Keeping
the audience in mind, I chose to create an edutainment video instead of a mundane PowerPoint,
which would bore college students. The video is made to illustrate how Brazils historical context
and cultural context shaped Brazilian folktales to grow out of the particular rhetorical situation in
which they were created.
Brazilian music was played in the background of the video because it perfectly
represented its culture and my groupmates and I wanted the audience to feel like they are part of
the culture while watching the video. A video presentation would be too boring and quiet if only
audio was played, so Brazilian music spices up the presentation. We knew we were going to be

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presenting in a large room full of many people, so my groupmates and I adjusted the audio to
play louder than it originally was supposed to. To make it suitable for the video and audience, we
modified the audio to be the loudest at the beginning to capture the audiences attention and have
the music fade out during the video so they could clearly hear the audio and focus on the slides.
The Brazilian music emphatically rises again at the end of the video to conclude the video and
presentation with a bang.
The most famous Brazilian folktale is the story of Saci Perere and we chose to include
this folktale in our video to show how Sacis physical appearance changed as Brazils culture and
history developed. During Brazils colonial period, Saci was depicted as a forest dweller Indian
boy with tanned skin and a tail. Celso Fernandes, author of the article The Legend of Saci
Perere," states that as South America was colonized and inhabited by other cultures from the
16th century onwards, the folklore and myths became infused with influences from the African
slaves, Portuguese settlers, and other European folklore. After the Portuguese conquered Brazil,
Sacis features transitioned into having dark skin and smoking a pipe. His new features are
heavily influenced by African culture when African slaves were brought over from Africa to
Brazil by the Portuguese. We exhibit this change in our video through numerous images on our
slides. To effectively showcase the revision of Sacis physical character, my groupmates and I
placed pictures of Saci during Brazils colonial period in the beginning slides and added pictures
of Saci after the Portuguese colonization in the ending slides, thus letting the audience clearly see
the conversion.
Facts about the Portuguese colonization over Brail were included in the video
presentation to showcase how this event influenced Brazils folktales, and how a 21st century
would understand this information while a 17th century audience would not because these events

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would not have happened in their time period yet. In the video, there is a line I wrote that says:
The Blackbird is a tale about racial prejudice, disrespect and oppression, which underlie
Brazilian culture. These emotions and storyline tie in with the Portuguese colonization. A 21st
century audience would be able to comprehend this material, whereas a 17th century audience
would not be able to comprehend this material due to the fact that during the 17th century, Brazil
was not an independent country yet, so racial prejudice and oppression would not make any
sense to a 17th century audience. Herbert S. Klein, Gouveneur Morris Professor Emeritus of
History who specializes in the social, demographic, and economic history of Latin America,
writes: As slaves once again became a major factor in agricultural production within the
European context, Portuguese interest in its African trade slowly shifted from a concern with
gold and ivory to one primarily stressing slaves (7). Racial prejudice and oppression are terms
that express how slaves were viewed during the Portuguese colonization. Slave were a valuable
asset to the Portuguese, for they came to be their laborers. Furthermore, information about slaves
during the Portuguese colonization over Brazil was included in this video because it would
appeal to the intelligent college students in the audience. They would be curious to why this
information was being presented and listen in more engagingly to understand how Portuguese
colonization relates to Brazilian folktales.
In this group project, I was basically the director who assigned everyone their parts and
made sure everything was done on time. I sent my groupmates texts and reminders to make sure
everyone was on track and met the deadlines. I also wrote about Brazil's history and culture and
connected a couple of short folktales to the history and explained why they were written.
Through the extensive research, I ended up figuring out that the misery the Brazilians felt when
the Portuguese colonized them was displayed in their folktales. After Brazil's independence,

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however, their folktales became more light-hearted and this shows that Brazil's culture and
history shaped their folktales. In the video storyboard, I wrote "Another tale from Silvio
Romero's collection is called 'The Lazy Man,' and there is a motif of sacrifice, which appears in
many Brazilian folktales. The audience of these stories are probably towards the common people
of Brazil who have suffered from the Portuguese colonization. The author wanted to portray
what life was like during this time period. Over time, the Brazilian culture built upon and
expanded the folk tales of the old world, giving them a brand new life, symbolizing
independence and freedom. In 1917 after Brazil's independence, Elsie Spicer Eells published a
collection of Brazilian folk tales which focused on a much lighter topic than racism and
oppression: animals." I feel really proud of this analysis because I really did dig deep into
Brazil's history and culturally and historically connect it to Brazil's folk tales. In addition, I
edited the slides of my groups video after we received advice from our classmates. We had
about 15 slides before our revision because we put multiple pictures on one slide and played each
slide for about one minute long. Our classmates suggested that we separate our pictures and
place them on different slides and have them rotate throughout our video so it would not be
boring just looking at one slide for one minute long. Having the slides rotate more often also
befits the attention span of college students when watching a long video. After my revision, we
have about 40 slides now, rotating throughout our entire video. I rearranged, added, and deleted
some pictures to make sure the pictures corresponded to what was being said in the audio.
Another suggestion from the class was to add text to the slides so they wouldnt be staring at just
pictures. I also added text to every slide to highlight the important facts we want our audience to
remember and so they could listen to our audio and visually see the facts in case they were not

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able to catch every word of our audio. Revising took me hours to do because I made sure the
pictures and text on the slides perfectly matched the audio for every slide.

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Works Cited
Fernandes, Celso. "The Legend of Saci Perere." N.p., 22 June 2014. Web. 27 Nov. 2015.
<http://www.yerbamateblog.com/legend-saci-perere/>.
Klein, Herbert S. Slavery in Brazil. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2010. Print.
McNeil, Hayden. The Anteater's Guide to Reading and Writing. 5th ed. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Print.
Swales, John M. Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge:
Cambridge UP, 1990. Print.