Women’s Rights Are Human Rights---Hillary Rodham Clinton
Teachers: Additional notes and instructions follow at the end of the exercise.
Directions: Listen to or read the Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Women’s Rights are Human Rights speech.
Then complete the SOAPS activity with pair or group.
SOAPS Reading Strategy Guidelines
S
(Who is the
Speaker?)
 Who is the speaker? Identify the person (or group of people)
that wrote this text.
 What is the speaker’s age, gender, class, or education?
 What can you tell or what do you know about this person’s
role in the text?
 Identify the voice behind the text. What do you know
about him/her from reading the text?
O
(What is the
Occasion?)
 Identify the time and place of the text. What is the current
situation? Is it a personal event, a celebration, an
observation, a critique, etc.?
 What was the situation that provoked the writer to write?
(Provide proof from the text for this answer)
A
(Who is the
Audience?)
 Who are the readers to whom this text is directed? (The
audience may be one person, a small group, or a large
group.)
 Does the speaker specify an audience?
 What assumptions exist in the text about the intended
audience of this text?
(Provide proof from the text for these answers)
P
(What is the
Purpose?)
 What is the purpose for the passage/text (the reason
behind the text)?
 What is the message? How does the speaker convey the
message?
 Why did the author write it? What is the author’s goal?
(Provide proof from the text for these answers)
S
What is the
Subject?




What is the topic, content, and ideas included in the text?
Can you identify and state the subject in a few words?
Is there one or more than one subject?
How does the author present the subject? Does s/he
introduce it immediately or not? Is the subject explicit
(directly stated) or implicit (indirectly stated).
Women’s Rights Are Human Rights---Hillary Rodham Clinton
Name: ___________________
Date: __________________
SOAPS
S
(Who is the
Speaker?)
O
(What is the
Occasion?)
A
(Who is the
Audience?)
P
(What is the
Purpose?)
S
What is the
Subject?
Women’s Rights Are Human Rights---Hillary Rodham Clinton
Teachers: the Venn diagram below is only for modeling purposes. Students will need a larger diagram to
complete the exercises. A stand-alone Venn diagram is included in the unit.
Directions: Compare and Contrast the grievances and themes in the A Doll’s House, the Declaration of
Sentiments, and Clinton’s Women’s Rights Are Human Rights using the triple Venn diagram below.
1. Place any grievances common to all three texts in the center area.
2. Place any grievances shared only by two texts in the section where those circles overlap.
3. Place any grievances not shared in that circle only.
Name: ________________________________________________ Date: _____________ Period: ______
VENN DIAGRAM (3 Circles)
Women’s Rights Are Human Rights---Hillary Rodham Clinton
Teacher Note: This activity will occur after the reading of the A Doll House and the completion of the
Declaration of Sentiments activity, or teachers may adapt and do a direct comparison with the A Doll’s
House and Clinton’s speech only.
Students can listen to the speech:
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/hillaryclintonbeijingspeech.htm
OR read it: http://gos.sbc.edu/c/clinton.html .
Ideally, it would be better to play the speech first and have student try to answers the questions while
listening. Then after students have listened to the speech, give them a hard copy to finalize their
answers to the questions in the SOAPS activity.
These exercises address the following Common Core Standards:

R 6: Analyze a particular point of view or cultural experience reflected in a work of literature
from outside the U.S. (Note: the play is world literature, but Clinton’s speech was delivered at a
world conference, so it extends the examination of women’s rights to a global perspective.)

RI 1: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says
explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. (Note: certain answers require textual proof.
Therefore, this standard is addressed.)

RI 2: Determine a central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text,
including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective
summary of the text. (Note: when students analyze purpose on the SOAPS activity, they achieve
this standard.)

RI 9: Analyze seminal U.S. documents of historical and literary significance (e.g. Washington’s
Farewell Address, the Gettysburg Address, Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms speech, King’s “Letter
from Birmingham Jail”), including how they address related themes and concepts.

H-SS R7: Integrate quantitative or technical analysis (e.g., charts, research data) with qualitative
analysis in print or digital text.

H-SS R9 Compare and contrast treatments of the same topic in several primary and secondary
sources.