Pre-AP To AP English
Junior Year: AP English Senior Year: AP English
Language Exam: 3 college credits
Literature Exam: 3 college credits
Rhetoric/Argument/
Persuasion
Uses various excerpts from readings throughout high school


Art of finding and analyzing all the choices involving language that a writer, speaker, reader, or listener might make in a situation so that the text becomes meaningful, purposeful, and effective for readers or listeners.

Art of communication = art of persuasion.









Speeches
Cartoons
Advertisements
Letters
Poetry
Prose
Essays
Magazine and newspaper articles on controversial issues

1.

Aristotle (384-322 BCE)
Greek Philosopher = wrote on logic, natural sciences, metaphysics, ethics, politics, and rhetoric (many followers and brought the ideas to the western world)
2.
3.
4.
Defined rhetoric as the ability to see; persuasion
Believed rhetoric created community and good will.
Create the basic principles for
Rhetoric (ethos, pathos, logos).

AUDIENCE
WRITER
(communicator)
Intention
Subject/
CONTEXT

Appeal
Logos
Ethos
Pathos
Definition
Greek for “word”
Refers to consistency of the message-- the clarity of the claim, the logic of its reasons, and the effectiveness of its supporting evidence
Greek for “character”
Refers to the trustworthiness or credibility of the writer or speaker
Conveyed through tone and style
Greek for “suffering” or
“experience”
Refers to both the emotional and imaginative impact of the message on the audience
Effect
Appeals to the audience’s logic, sense of reasoning using facts, statistics, and evidence
Appeals to the audience’s ethics, morals, prudence
Appeals to the audience’s emotions and ability to identify with the writer’s point of view; draws upon the audience’s feelings and
Pages 49 - 50

P
A
T
H
O
S


Which rhetorical appeal the commercial is targeting? Explain why.
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykV bfgUE&feature=g-hist

Device Definition Your Own Example

Question that is not answered by the writer, because the answer is obvious or is just yes or no. It is used for effect, or provocation, or for drawing a conclusionary statement from the facts at hand .

Repetition of the same word or words at the beginning of successive phrases.

Clear, contrasting relationship between
2 ideas by joining them together or juxtaposing them, often in parallel structure.


The act or an example of substituting a mild, indirect, or vague term for one considered harsh, blunt, or offensive.

Mirror image/opposites

Making something sound worse than it is
“going to the dentist is the worst thing ever”

Ex. Colgate toothpaste is dynamite.
Ex. Mary is a Queen.



Mood is a state of mind or emotion


Manner in which an author expresses his/her attitude.

Doubtfulness or uncertainty as regards to an interpretation.

Acknowledgement of personal flaws or flaws to a proposal; speaker centered.

A seemingly contradictory statement that may nonetheless be true.
Ex. When the hurlyburly’s done, when the battle’s lost and won (Macbeth
I.i.1).

Paradox reduced to 2 words, to show a strong relationship.


They are laughing at me, not with me."
(Bart Simpson, The Simpsons)

"Buy a bucket of chicken and have a barrel of fun."
(slogan of Kentucky Fried Chicken)

"Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal."
(T.S. Eliot)

"I don’t want to live on in my work. I want to live on in my apartment."
(Woody Allen)

Similarity of structure in a pair or series of related words, phrases, or clauses. Also called parallel structure .


“You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. Dey’s uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo, pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried.” (Forest Gump)


“The dove, splashed, floated, splashed, swam, snorted.”

“He was a bag of bones, a floppy doll, a broken stick, an maniac.”

A style that omits conjunctions between words, phrases, or clauses.


“We lived and laughed and loved and left”
(James Joyce, Finnegans Wake)

“Oh my piglets, we are the origins of war-not history’s forces, nor ideas, nor kinds of government, nor causes, nor religions”
(Katherine Hepburn, in The Lion in Winter)

A style that employs many conjunctions (opposite of asyndeton)


Addressing a possible protest Before the
Opposition Can Raise It.
Ex. Lawyers


Statement showing the utter foolishness of another statement.
Ex.
1.
Rocks have weight, otherwise we would see them floating in the air.
2.
There is no smallest positive rational number, because if there were, it could be divided by two to get a smaller one




Alliteration occurs when a series of words in a row (or close to a row) have the same first consonant sound.
For example, “She sells sea-shells down by the sea-shore” or “Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled
Peppers”



“I am Sam, Sam I am” – Dr. Seuss
"They call for you: the general who became a
slave ; the slave who became a gladiator; the
gladiator who defied an Emperor" - Joaquin
Phoenix (from the movie Gladiator )


A rhetorical device that repeats one or several words that end one clause or sentence and begin another.


"When the enemy struck on that June day of
1950, what did America do? It did what it always has done in all its times of peril. It appealed to the heroism of its youth" - Dwight
D. Eisenhower


Raise a question and then immediately answer it.