Rhetorical Devices – Grade 11
Ohio Standards
Connection
Reading Applications:
Informational, Technical
and Persuasive Text
Lesson Summary:
Students consider rhetorical devices in speeches and then
make an informed selection of effective rhetorical devices for
a controversial topic presentation. Students present their
findings using presentation software.
Benchmark B
Identify and analyze
examples of rhetorical
devices and valid and invalid
inferences.
Estimated Duration: About an hour and a half, or three 45minute periods
Indicator 1
Analyze the rhetorical
devices used in public
documents, including
newspaper editorials and
speeches.
Commentary:
The oral and written connections [in this lesson] are
effective, according to one reviewer. The lesson offers a
“variety of ways to differentiate instruction.”
Benchmark D
Synthesize the content from
several sources on a single
issue or written by a single
author, clarifying ideas and
connecting them to other
resources and related topics.
Indicator 3
Analyze the content from
several sources on a single
issue, clarifying ideas and
connecting them to other
sources and related topics.
Pre-Assessment:
• Distribute Recognizing Rhetorical Devices, Attachment A.
• Students individually complete the pre-assessment.
Scoring Guidelines:
Evaluate the pre-assessment as any written test. Determine the
necessity for re-teaching based on student scores.
Post-Assessment:
• Divide students into teams of three or four.
• Each team researches a controversial topic.
• Members of the team subdivide the topic for research.
• After team members complete their research, the team
identifies appropriate rhetorical devices for its topic.
• Team members develop talking points about their research
topic based on their research.
Instructional Tip: Most libraries own reference materials
such as Opposing Viewpoints that students may choose to use
as a research source. Choosing from these “canned” topics
streamline the research process and allow students to focus on
the rhetorical devices themselves.
Scoring Guidelines:
• Students demonstrate knowledge and application of
rhetorical devices and use research skills to complete the
post-assessment. Use Rubric for Talking Points,
Attachment B to assess student/team understanding.
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Rhetorical Devices – Grade 11
•
Require students also to complete a reflection paragraph, addressing their learning in this
lesson and accompany it with Rubric for Reflection Writing, Attachment C.
Instructional Procedures:
1. Review terms used in the pre-assessment.
2. Introduce new terms and definitions.
3. Provide students with the text of two or three famous speeches.
Instructional Tips:
• To avoid pairs sharing ideas or running out of ideas quickly, provide different speeches to
each pair.
• See www.americanrhetoric.com/top100speechesall.html for text of many American
speeches. Also, see www.famousquotes.me.uk/speeches/ for the text of speeches delivered
by world figures.
4. In pairs, students read the text of the speech provided or listen to the audio of speech, if
available.
5. Pairs discuss the types of rhetorical devices present in the speech.
6. After the pairs finish their discussion, they report to the class the rhetorical device and an
example identified from the speech.
7. Repeat the process as necessary until all students seem comfortable with considering
rhetorical devices.
8. Move on to the post-assessment.
Differentiated Instructional Support:
Instruction is differentiated according to learner needs, to help all learners either meet the intent
of the specified indicator(s) or, if the indicator is already met, to advance beyond the specified
indicator(s).
• Use recorded speeches and play the speech for students. Ask students to then identify the
rhetorical devices heard.
• The pre-assessment includes differentiated instruction for students. Students at the basic level
receive direct instruction, while students at the advanced and proficient level create a
persuasive letter for the school newspaper.
• Students work cooperatively in teams for the presentation or consult a tutor for assistance.
• Students with different modalities of learning can choose different types of visual aids to
support their presentations.
Extensions:
• Students write a speech on a given research topic using the rhetorical devices studied.
• Students deliver the speech written in the previous suggestion.
• Students choose a dramatic monologue or famous speech and deliver it before an audience.
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Rhetorical Devices – Grade 11
Home Connections:
• Students discuss with parents or grandparents famous speeches these relatives heard or
watched in their lifetimes.
• Students interview these relatives about the impact the speech had on the relative personally,
the community or a larger social group.
Interdisciplinary Connections:
Content Area: Technology
Standard: Technology and Communication Applications
Benchmark: A. Apply appropriate communication design principles in published and presented
projects.
Indicator: 4. Selection and evaluate message-appropriate designs for print, multimedia, video
and Web pages for curricular and personal needs (e.g., silly graphics may not be appropriate for
academic projects).
Standard: Technology and Information Literacy
Benchmark: B. Apply a research process model to conduct research and meet information
needs.
Indicator: 2. Identify, evaluate information and select relevant and pertinent information found
in each source.
4. Analyze information and synthesize into a communicated product.
Materials and Resources:
For the teacher: copies of speeches, tape/CD player, computer access
For the student: copies of speeches, library/computer access
Vocabulary:
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•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
alliteration
anecdote
assonance
anaphora
antithesis
apostrophe
climax
exemplum
hyperbole
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
irony
metaphor
oxymoron
parable
paradox
personification
rhetorical question
simile
thesis
Technology Connections:
• Students use computers for researching controversial topics.
• Students use Internet resources to find monologues or speeches to perform for class.
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Rhetorical Devices – Grade 11
Research Connections:
Daniels, Harvey and Marilyn Bizar. Methods that Matter: Six Structures for Best Practice
Classrooms. Portland, Maine: Stenhouse Publishers, 2000.
Authentic experiences helps students develop real-world knowledge and skills and apply their
learning in ways that prepare them for careers and lives beyond school.
Pask, Gordon. Conversation, Cognition and Learning. New York: Elsevier, 1975.
The fundamental idea is that learning occurs through conversations about a subject matter which
serve to make the knowledge explicit. Conversations can be conducted at a number of different
levels: natural language (general discussion), object language (for discussing subject matter) and
metalanguage for talking about learning/language.
To facilitate learning, Pask argued that subject matter should be represented in the form of
entailment structures which show what is to be learned. Entailment structures exist in a variety of
different levels depending upon the extent of relationships displayed.
The critical method of learning according to conversation theory is teachback in which one
person teaches another what he/she has learned.
Two different types of learners are serialists, who progress through an entailment structure in a
sequential fashion and holists, who look for higher order relations.
Zemelman, Steven, Harvey Daniels and Arthur Hyde. Best Practice: New Standards of Teaching
and Learning in America's Schools. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1998.
Authentic experiences
Involve students in tangible, authentic, real world materials and experiences. Favor learn-bydoing over learn-by-sitting-quietly. Use primary source materials. Invite in speakers from the
community, including parents. Mix children in multi-age grouping.
[From the work of Bert Horwood (1995), Richard J. Kraft and James Kiesmeier (1994).]
Attachments:
Attachment A, Recognizing Rhetorical Devices
Attachment B, Talking Points Rubric
Attachment C, Rubric for Reflection Writing
Attachment D, Sample Speech
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Rhetorical Devices – Grade 11
Attachment A
Recognizing Rhetorical Devices
Supply the correct term from the list below in the blank next to its example or definition.
alliteration / anecdote / assonance / anaphora / antithesis / apostrophe / climax / exemplum / hyperbole / irony
metaphor / oxymoron / parable / paradox / personification / rhetorical question / simile / thesis
_____________________1. Let me give you an example. In the early 1920's in Germany, the
government let the printing presses turn out endless quantities of
paper money, and soon, instead of 50-pfennige postage stamps,
they issued denominations up to 50 billion marks.
_____________________2. Jumbo shrimp, military intelligence, deafening silence
_____________________3. “. . . For if we lose the ability to perceive our faults, what is the
good of living on?” Marcus Aurelius
_____________________4. Rain on your wedding day, a traffic jam when you’re already late
_____________________5. As slick as a wet Slip-n-Slide™ on a hot summer day
_____________________6. “To think on death it is a misery,/ To think on life it is a vanity;/
To think on the world verily it is,/ To think that here man hath no
perfect bliss.” Peacham
_____________________7. This coffee’s strong enough to get up and walk away.
_____________________8. What a definitely delightful day!
_____________________9. “That’s her millionth question today,” Susie hissed under
her breath.
____________________10. At 6:40 a.m., the ground began to heave. Windows rattled; then
broke. Objects started falling from shelves. Water heaters fell,
tearing out plumbing. Outside, the road began to break up. Water
mains and gas lines wrenched apart, causing flooding and the
danger of explosion. Office buildings began cracking. Soon
twenty, thirty, forty stories of concrete dove at the helpless
pedestrians panicking below.
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Rhetorical Devices – Grade 11
Attachment B
Talking Points Rubric
Aspect
Preplanning
Introduction
Content
Basic
Little evidence of
organization, slides
haphazardly
arranged with little
or no unity;
minimal evidence
of research
Little or no
exposition of topic
or focus of
presentation
Little or no
information
present
Proficient
Expert
Adequately
organized,
sufficiently
adhered to a
theme, adequate
research
Developing
Mostly wellorganized, mostly
aligned to a theme,
effective research
Excellent organization of
final product,
thematically unified
slides including high
quality information
Limited exposition
of topic or focus of
presentation
Adequate
exposition of topic
and focus of
presentation
Adequate
information, mostly
current and primary
Effective exposition of
topic and focus of
presentation
Often easy to read
and appropriately
sized; coordinates
with background
Easy to read,
appropriately sized in
every situation, works
well with background
and colors
Aesthetically pleasing,
effectively
communicating overall
message
Appropriate citation
form; demonstrable
credibility
Limited
information of
questionable
accuracy and/or
currency
Sometimes
difficult to read
and/or
inappropriately
sized
Arrangement
interferes with
communication of
overall message
Minimal;
questionable
credibility
Citations
Often difficult to
read and
inappropriately
sized; clashes with
background
Little or no sense
of purpose to
arrangement; not
pleasing to the eye
None present
Graphics,
sound,
animation
Few if any present
OR often
ineffective; poorly
chosen
Sometimes
ineffective and
distracting
Grammar &
mechanics
Multiple
significant
grammar and/or
mechanical errors;
many interfere
with meaning
Several grammar
and/or mechanical
errors; some
interfere with
meaning
Font
Layout
Tastefully
arranged,
communicates
overall message
Some sources cited
with adequate
attention to form;
demonstrate
adequate credibility
Effective, though
not necessarily
coordinated; may
occasionally
distract viewer
Few grammar or
mechanical errors;
none interfere with
meaning
Accurate, current and
drawn mostly from
primary sources
Coordinate with the
theme, enhance
understanding without
detracting from the
overall message
No grammar or
mechanical errors
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Rhetorical Devices – Grade 11
Attachment C
Rubric for Reflection Writing
Name___________________________
1. Does the writing show evidence of thought and effort? Did the writer go deeper than the
immediate surface reaction to the prompt?
1-----------------------2----------------------------3---------------------------4----------------------5
Little to no
Clearly shows
thought
in-depth
and effort
thought and
effort
2. Did the writer stay focused on the assigned prompt?
1-----------------------2----------------------------3---------------------------4----------------------5
May touch
on topic, but
most of the
writing was
off-topic
Focused on the
assigned
prompt
3. Does the writer support his or her ideas with specific examples and ideas?
1-----------------------2----------------------------3---------------------------4----------------------5
Few or no
specific
examples
Specific
examples that
support the
writer’s ideas
4. Does the writer completely explain his or her ideas?
1-----------------------2----------------------------3---------------------------4----------------------5
Difficult to
understand
what the
writer is
trying to say
Reader can
clearly
understand the
writer’s views
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Rhetorical Devices – Grade 11
Attachment D
Sample Speech
Booker T. Washington, September 18, 1895
Before the Atlanta Cotton States & International Exposition
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Board of Directors and Citizens:
One-third of the population of the South is of the Negro race. No enterprise seeking the material, civil, or
moral welfare of this section can disregard this element of our population and reach the highest success. I
but convey to you, Mr. President and Directors, the sentiment of the masses of my race when I say that in
no way have the value and manhood of the American Negro been more fittingly and generously
recognized than by the managers of this magnificent Exposition at every stage of its progress. It is a
recognition that will do more to cement the friendship of the two races than any occurrence since the
dawn of our freedom.
Not only this, but the opportunity here afforded will awaken among us a new era of industrial progress.
Ignorant and inexperienced, it is not strange that in the first years of our new life we began at the top
instead of at the bottom; that a seat in Congress or the state legislature was more sought than real estate
or industrial skill; that the political convention or stump speaking had more attractions than starting a dairy
farm or truck garden.
A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate
vessel was seen a signal, "Water, water; we die of thirst!" The answer from the friendly vessel at once
came back, "Cast down your bucket where you are." A second time the signal, "Water, water; send us
water!" ran up from the distressed vessel, and was answered, "Cast down your bucket where you are."
And a third and fourth signal for water was answered, "Cast down your bucket where you are." The
captain of the distressed vessel, at last heeding the injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full
of fresh, sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River.
To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land or who underestimate the
importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is their next-door neighbor, I
would say: "Cast down your bucket where you are" -- cast it down in making friends in every manly way of
the people of all races by whom we are surrounded.
Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic service, and in the professions. And in
this connection it is well to bear in mind that whatever other sins the South may be called to bear, when it
comes to business, pure and simple, it is in the South that the Negro is given a man's chance in the
commercial world, and in nothing is this Exposition more eloquent than in emphasizing this chance. Our
greatest danger is that in the great leap from slavery to freedom we may overlook the fact that the
masses of us are to live by the productions of our hands, and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper in
proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labor, and put brains and skill into the common
occupations of life; shall prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the superficial and the
substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life and the useful. No race can prosper till it learns that there is
as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at
the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities.
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Rhetorical Devices – Grade 11
Attachment D (Continued)
Sample Speech
_______________
"Cast down your
bucket where you are!"
_______________
To those of the white race who look to the incoming of those of foreign birth and strange tongue and
habits for the prosperity of the South, were I permitted I would repeat what I say to my own race, "Cast
down your bucket where you are." Cast it down among the eight millions of Negroes whose habits you
know, whose fidelity and love you have tested in days when to have proved treacherous meant the ruin of
your firesides. Cast down your bucket among these people who have, without strikes and labor wars,
tilled your fields, cleared your forests, builded your railroads and cities, and brought forth treasures from
the bowels of the earth, and helped make possible this magnificent representation of the progress of the
South. Casting down your bucket among my people, helping and encouraging them as you are doing on
these grounds, and to education of head, hand, and heart, you will find that they will buy your surplus
land, make blossom the waste places in your fields, and run your factories. While doing this, you can be
sure in the future, as in the past, that you and your families will be surrounded by the most patient,
faithful, law-abiding, and unresentful people that the world has seen. As we have proved our loyalty to
you in the past, in nursing your children, watching by the sick-bed of your mothers and fathers, and often
following them with tear-dimmed eyes to their graves, so in the future, in our humble way, we shall stand
by you with a devotion that no foreigner can approach, ready to lay down our lives, if need be, in defense
of yours, interlacing our industrial, commercial, civil, and religious life with yours in a way that shall make
the interests of both races one. In all things that are purely social, we can be as separate as the fingers,
yet one as the hand in all things essential to mutual progress.
There is no defense or security for any of us except in the highest intelligence and development of all. If
anywhere there are efforts tending to curtail the fullest growth of the Negro, let these efforts be turned into
stimulating, encouraging, and making him the most useful and intelligent citizen. Effort or means so
invested will pay a thousand percent interest. These efforts will be twice blessed -- blessing him that gives
and him that takes.
There is no escape through law of man or God from the inevitable:
_______________
The laws of changeless justice bind
Oppressor with oppressed;
And close as sin and suffering joined
We march to fate abreast.
_______________
Nearly sixteen millions of hands will aid you in pulling the load upward, or they will pull against you the
load downward. We shall constitute one-third and more of the ignorance and crime of the South, or onethird its intelligence and progress; we shall contribute one-third to the business and industrial prosperity of
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Rhetorical Devices – Grade 11
Attachment D (Continued)
Sample Speech
the South, or we shall prove a veritable body of death, stagnating, depressing, retarding every effort to
advance the body politic.
Gentlemen of the Exposition, as we present to you our humble effort at an exhibition of our progress, you
must not expect overmuch. Starting thirty years ago with ownership here and there in a few quilts and
pumpkins and chickens (gathered from miscellaneous sources), remember the path that has led from
these to the inventions and production of agricultural implements, buggies, steam-engines, newspapers,
books, statuary, carving, paintings, the management of drug stores and banks, has not been trodden
without contact with thorns and thistles.
While we take pride in what we exhibit as a result of our independent efforts, we do not for a moment
forget that our part in this exhibition would fall far short of your expectations but for the constant help that
has come to our educational life, not only from the southern states, but especially from northern
philanthropists, who have made their gifts a constant stream of blessing and encouragement.
The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremist
folly, and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of
severe and constant struggle rather than of artificial forcing. No race that has anything to contribute to the
markets of the world is long in any degree ostracized. It is important and right that all privileges of the law
be ours, but it is vastly more important that we be prepared for the exercise of these privileges. The
opportunity to earn a dollar in a factory just now is worth infinitely more than the opportunity to spend a
dollar in an opera-house.
In conclusion, may I repeat that nothing in thirty years has given us more hope and encouragement, and
drawn us so near to you of the white race, as this opportunity offered by the Exposition; and here
bending, as it were, over the altar that represents the results of the struggles of your race and mine, both
starting practically empty-handed three decades ago, I pledge that in your effort to work out the great and
intricate problem which God has laid at the doors of the South, you shall have at all times the patient,
sympathetic help of my race; only let this be constantly in mind, that, while from representations in these
buildings of the product of field, of forest, of mine, of factory, letters, and art, much good will come, yet far
above and beyond material benefits will be that higher good, that, let us pray God, will come, in a blotting
out of sectional differences and racial animosities and suspicions, in a determination to administer
absolute justice, in a willing obedience among all classes to the mandates of law.
This, coupled with our material prosperity, will bring into our beloved South a new heaven and a new
earth.
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