Curated OER
Conducting a Rhetorical Analysis
What is the author trying to achieve? What strategies does he/she use to meet this goal? How affective are these strategies? These three questions, the heart of rhetorical analysis, are examined in a presentation that also details the...
Literacy Design Collaborative
Rhetorical Analysis for Pre-AP English
Scholars closely analyze the use of rhetorical strategies in several model texts. They work in groups to annotate the text identifying rhetorical elements, and to complete a Rhetorical Analysis chart and guided reading worksheet....
Curated OER
Back to School: Style Analysis
Jump back into expository writing and analysis at the start of a new school year! Start with a review of an authors' stylistic choices in diction, syntax, treatment of subject matter, and figurative language. Writers choose a text to...
Literacy Design Collaborative
Rhetorical Analysis: A Modest Proposal
Scholars read Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal before writing essays to analyze the use of rhetorical devices in the text. Essay writing begins by underlining key words in the writing prompt and discussing the prompt with partners....
Literacy Design Collaborative
Rhetorical Analysis of Frederick Douglass
Is the Fourth of July a celebration for all Americans? Scholars carry out a close read of What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? Readers talk with partners about the speaker's point of view, the author's debate, reasoning, and...
John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum
Analyzing the Rhetoric of JFK’s Inaugural Address
“And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your. country.” Did you know that John Kenneth Galbraith, Adlai Stevenson, and Theodore Sorensen helped John F. Kennedy craft his 1961...
Curated OER
Liberty Rhetoric
What is liberty rhetoric? Examine how people have used it in four different time periods and situations. High schoolers investigate original source documents and compare them with the Declaration of Independence to decide how liberty...
College Board
AP® English Language and Composition: Using Documentary Film as an Introduction to Rhetoric
Rhetoric is the key to character. Scholars work through four activities using documentary films to complete rhetoric analysis. Learners participate in writing a note to a friend and then analyze their own writing. They also view clips...
Literacy Design Collaborative
Elie Wiesel's Acceptance Speech Analysis
Elie Wiesel's Nobel Prize Acceptance speech provides young historians with an opportunity to demonstrate their ability to use evidence from the speech. They work together to analyze how Wiesel uses rhetorical devices and syntax to...
K12 Reader
Alliteration in Literature and Rhetoric
Middle schoolers are asked to identify the alliteration used in John F. Kennedy's Inaugural Address, Emily Dickinson's "May-Flower," and a passage from Robert Lewis Stevenson's Kidnapped.
Historical Thinking Matters
Social Security: 3 Day Lesson
What does social security reveal about the political and social culture of the 1930s? After beginning with a brief introductory video on the impact of the Great Depression and how various Americans, such as Huey Long and Francis...
Literacy Design Collaborative
"The Gettysburg Address" Close Reading Module
It's time to think deep and narrow. Scholars focus close reading on one short text but task take their thinking to a deep level. Readers use a Rhetorical Analysis Chart to analyze The Gettysburg Address and determine how Lincoln used...
Curated OER
Chaucer's Wife of Bath
A thorough and well-designed resource for older students, this lesson focuses on Chaucer's character the Wife of Bath from his classic novel, The Canterbury Tales. As a way of understanding Chaucer's complex characterization and...
Curated OER
MLK Letter From Birmingham Jail Analysis
Designed as a PowerPoint presentation for AP English class, this resource provides a detailed analysis of the content, format, and purpose of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail.” Because much of the...
Curated OER
Charles Darwin Meets John Paul II
If you teach AP English language and composition and are looking for a way to address the differences between written and spoken arguments, consider this lesson plan. Over the course of three days, class members research Charles Darwin...
Curated OER
Cartoons for the Classroom: Politics of Change
Empty rhetoric in Washington timelessly inspires political cartoons. Examine this concept through an analysis handout, which features a cartoon by Pat Oliphant (archived work is linked for possible extension activities). Although this...
Curated OER
Urban Legends
Irony, hyperbole, and other rhetorical devices are at play in this presentation about urban legends. Several examples of urban legends help to clarify the analysis, making it valuable for those who have a hard time wrapping their mind...
College Board
2012 AP® English Language and Composition Free-Response Questions
Neither rain nor snow nor heat nor gloom may keep postal workers from delivering the mail, but is their livelihood sustainable? A question about the USPS makes up one of the three items in a series of free-response questions from the...
College Board
2010 AP® English Language and Composition Free-Response Questions
Humorists do more than tell jokes; they also impart key messages about society. A series of free-response topics from the AP® English Language and Composition exam cover three topics, including one discussing the role of humorists....
Southern Nevada Regional Professional Development Program
The Columnist Project
Imagine a list that includes Alan Abelson of Baron's, Bob Woodward of the Washington Post, and Mother Jones. High schoolers select a national columnist, read and annotate five columns by this author, noting the rhetorical strategies,...
Curated OER
Persuasion in Print
Advertisers target teenagers. Groups select three magazine advertisements for similar products, analyze the appeals used in each, create a poster that features the persuasive techniques used, and present their findings to the class. The...
National Constitution Center
Born in the U.S.A: Music as Political Protest
Though often used in shows of patriotism, Bruce Springsteen's 1985 song "Born in the U.S.A." is critical of America's role in the Vietnam war and its treatment of American veterans. High schoolers analyze the song's lyrics in an activity...
University of North Carolina
Poetry Explications
Explication may sound like a fancy word, but it's just a fancy way to say analysis. Using a handout on poetry explications, part of a larger series on specific writing assignments, writers learn how to break down and analyze a poem. The...
City University of New York
Women's Suffrage and World War I
Democracy cannot exist where not everyone has equal rights. Discuss the state of democracy and women's suffrage during World War I with class discussions, debates, and primary source analysis, in order for class members to connect with...