Outline

Title: A Wrestling Mom Response

Thesis: 'Blakely uses her relationship with her son versus her son's relationship with wrestling to develop a metaphor about understanding life and its values. She does this by heavily utilizing a pathos-and-ethos tactic to appeal to her specific audience and to relate with her readers, as well as plenty of anecdotal evidence to portray exactly her relationship with her son Ryan and how wrestling has shaped both of them. These rhetorical methods making her ending points more effective and her essay easy to follow.

I. Blakely starts out by providing details about herself and her family. ('feminist mother', 'adolescent son',), making it evident that she has a background of motherhood, making her appear automatically more credible (ethos). She goes on throughout the essay to tell personal anecdotes about her experience with wrestling, and how it has influenced the bond between her and her son.

     A. The fact that she is concerned about her son being a wrestler makes the reader more likely to relate to         her story and to understand where she comes from.
             1. She doesn't like his role model being Hulk Hogan (what mother would?- 'macho personas')
             2.  'The painful moments came when she hears her son issue a wolf whistle or talk about joining the
                  army."
     B. All of the concern she expresses from past experiences throughout the piece clearly demonstrates her attachment to her son, and his to his sport- this evokes a highly emotional art of any mother, and for that matter, anyone who may have played a sport and had loved it as much as he did.    
              1. She talks about his injuries (his ear and his arm) with a sort of pride, that she's overcome his wrestling, as if it were harder for her to endure than for him.
              2. "He suggested there were some truths men must learn that mothers cannot teach them. Ryan learned things in the company of his coaches and teammates that I could never have taught him. This recognition brought an element of pain, as separation invariably does.'"

II. Blakely goes from using a very vague claim about being a feminist mother with a typical adolescent son, to expressing exactly how much wrestling means to both her and her son, describing these 'semi-barbaric rituals to break our hearts and thrill our souls.'
             1. At the end, she discusses wrestling on a multi-racial team, and how 'you could never know a man better, be closer, understand more thoroughly...' and the hugs they give that were 'no formality, but full emotion.'
              2. At the beginning, she seems to have no attachment to wrestling. 'His passion for this sport would eventually engage me in a male culture for which I would never have imagined developing an affinity.'

III. The many stories Blakely tells provide many different examples of specific times where she has had to deal with problems from wrestling that relate to her life.  This expresses how far she's come in terms of wrestling and being comfortable with who her son has decided to be.
     A. She tells the story about when Ryan was rushed to the hospital with a broken arm.
     B. Sh tells about sitting in the stands with the other moms and screaming at their sons, ie how they have a special bond over their pride.