This chapter contains additional reading and writing activities related to the articles in Themed Texts: Paths to Mental Health.

Making Connections

Both Ari Honarvar (Amid Travel Ban, Refugee Women Cope With Trauma and Stress Through Drum Circles) and Morgan Florsheim (Don’t Tell Me to Despair about the Climate: Hope Is a Right We Must Protect) write about the need to find healing amid trauma. Honarvar discusses refugees’ use of drumming to process and heal from trauma. Florsheim discusses the collective trauma her generation has experienced because they were born into a world in crisis environmentally.

Reread the two articles. Respond to the following questions.

1. Imagine a conversation between these two writers. What do you think they would say to each other? Explain your thinking.
2. What could the refugee women in Honarvar’s article learn from Florsheim’s experience?
3. What could Florsheim and her generation learn from the experiences of refugee women whom Honarvar describes?

Rhetorical Methods

Analyzing Cause and Effect

When writers want to analyze why something happened or the outcome of some occurrence, they are using cause and effect. When examining causes, they focus on the reasons behind some outcome or result, answering the question, “Why did this happen?” When writers address effects, they present the consequences or results of some cause. A writer may choose to examine only causes, only effects, or both causes and effects in a text.

In The Lifesaving Power of Gratitude (or, Why You Should Write That Thank You Note), Richard Gunderman discusses the positive effects of showing gratitude.

In How Small Acts of Kindness Can Make You Happier and Healthier, Meena Andiappan writes about how people experience positive effects when they show kindness to others.

Finally, in Why Does Experiencing ‘Flow’ Feel So Good? A Communication Scientist Explains, Richard Huskey examines both the causes and effects of flow.

Choose one of the articles. Make a list of the causes and effects that the writer identifies. Then, analyze and evaluate the writing using the following questions as a guide:

1. Is each cause-effect relationship clearly explained?
2. Is there sufficient evidence to explain the link to each cause and effect? If not, what additional evidence would you like to have seen?
3. Does the writer cover all the major causes and effects? Are there any that the writer overlooked and should have included?

You may also choose to evaluate two of the articles (or all three of them, if you are feeling ambitious) and decide which writer did the best job of presenting causes and effects.

Analyzing Evidence

Both Less Work, More Living and Don’t Tell Me to Despair about the Climate: Hope Is a Right We Must Protect are argumentative texts. In the first, Elaine Myer presents an argument in favor of shorter workweeks and fairer scheduling practices. In the second, Morgan Florsheim argues that hope and optimism are essential to addressing the climate crisis. Although both are arguments, the writers use different types of evidence to support their claims. In an argument, evidence may take the form of expert opinions, data or statistics, research studies, scholarly articles/books/reports, examples, and personal experience.

Revisit Less Work, More Living and Don’t Tell Me to Despair about the Climate: Hope Is a Right We Must Protect. Then, complete the following:

1. Mark the evidence and identify the types of evidence that each writer uses (expert opinions, data or statistics, research studies, scholarly articles/books/reports, examples, and personal experience). 
2. Which pieces and types of evidence do you find most persuasive and compelling? Why?
3. What is the value of using different kinds of evidence within an argument?

Analyzing Descriptive Details

Descriptive details create an impression of a subject or convey a message about the subject. For example, suppose you are describing the weather as you sit outside. If you write about a cooling breeze and the warmth of the sun on your skin as you lay in the grass, staring up at the cloudless blue sky, you are creating the impression of a relaxing and soothing day with the perfect weather – not too cold and not too hot. In contrast, if you write about the howling winds and dark clouds as you sit shivering, huddled in your winter coat, the impression is quite different. Descriptive details may be sensory, focusing on sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. They may also focus on emotions and feelings.

In the essay Amid Travel Ban, Refugee Women Cope With Trauma and Stress Through Drum Circles, Ari Honarvar uses description to write about the refugee women who are part of the drum circle she helps facilitate. Likewise, Morgan Florsheim describes her generation’s experiences with mental health and the climate crisis in Don’t Tell Me to Despair about the Climate: Hope Is a Right We Must Protect.

Revisit the two essays. As you reread, mark the descriptive details the writers use in their writing. Then, analyze and evaluate the use of details in the articles. Use the following questions as a guide:

1. What kinds of sensory details do Honarvar and Florsheim use? Give examples of each. How do they impact you as the reader?
2. Which details are most effective at helping you understand the refugee drum circle? The experiences of Florsheim’s generation? Why?
3. What details might Honarvar and Florsheim have chosen to omit? What additional details would you like to have seen included in the article?
4. What impressions do Honarvar and Florsheim create of their subjects?

Evaluating Sources

Choose one of the following articles:

• The Lifesaving Power of Gratitude (or, Why You Should Write That Thank You Note) by Richard Gunderman,
• How Small Acts of Kindness Can Make You Happier and Healthier by Meena Andiappan, or
• Why Does Experiencing ‘Flow’ Feel So Good? A Communication Scientist Explains by Richard Huskey.

Each writer provides evidence for the claims they make about gratitude (Gunderman), kindness (Andiappan), and flow (Huskey). The links in the articles are citations or references to the sources where the writers obtained their information. In the article you chose, click on the links to evaluate the sources. Use the questions below to guide your evaluation.

1. Does the source seem reputable? Has the information from the source been reviewed by editors or experts?
2. Does the author include enough details and information from the source, or should the author have included more information to provide a clearer context?
3. Is there anything the author should have told the audience but omitted?
4. Does the author misrepresent or misuse any of the research?
5. Does the source seem current enough, or should the author(s) should have searched for a more recent source? (The need for currency varies according to the topic.)