Rhetoric Lesson Plan: Sell it!
Rationale: Guided by the message to teachers provided by chief reader David Jalliffe,
this lesson will help students recognize the importance of audience, pupose and tone (and
possibly culture; an add that succeeds in NYC may not play well in Japan) when
analyzing any persuasive argument. This skill is critical to AP students because virtually
every essay attempts to persuade or convince the reader of something. When writing an
expository essay that explores some literary aspect of a fictional novel, the author’s goal
is to PERSUADE the reader to accept his or her evaluation of the author’s craft.
Since everything’s an argument (Lunsford, et al), modeling with TV advertisements
affords the students the opportunity to appreciate Madison Avenue’s mastery of
techniques that appeal to a targeted audience, techniques that use pathos, ethos, logos,
and implied promises to sell a product or service
Unit objectives:
Students will:
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Design and present a TV ad that persuades/convinces a targeted audience
Realize that TV ads are always arguments about the future
Ensure the ad’s purpose is clear
Develop an ad that appeals to one or more of
o Pathos (emotion)
o Ethos (character; the right thing to do)
o Logos (facts and reason/common sense)
Demonstrate understanding of the style, arrangement/media of arguments
Appreciate the power of visual arguments
Recognize fallacies (arguments that are flawed by their very nature or structure
o Emotional: scare tactics, either/or choices, slippery slopes, sentimental
appeals, bandwagon appeals
o Ethical: appeals to false authority; dogmatism, Ad Hominem (attacks
character of a person rather than his or her claims)
o Logical: hasty generalizations, faulty causality, begging the question,
equivocation, non sequitur, the straw man, and faulty analogy
Sell It!
Pretend that you are part of an advertising team marketing a new
product or service. Working in groups of 2-3, you will select one of the
following clients that need help getting customers to choose their products
(or an original idea approved by the teacher):
 A new fast food chain
 A new subdivision (neighborhood) in Loudoun county
 A new nail salon in Sterling
 A new car
 A new video game
 A charitable organization needing to increase donations
 Google’s new social network trying to lure away Facebook customers.
Do the following:
 Select a name for your product, charitable organization, or company.
 Identify the target audience for your product/service (who do you
think will buy this?)
 Using Movie Maker, create a 60-second TV commercial using
images, text and sound that will motivate a viewer to respond to your
ad.
 Include three premises (reasons) for choosing their product or service
and explain or support each reason with some kind of evidence (e.g.
customers telling them how great it is, surveys, comparisons, etc.).
 Explain what types of strategies you used (logos, pathos, ethos)(how
did you convince people?)
 Explain how you would use the “implied promise of directive
language” to convince people to buy your products or services.
 Include at least four purr words or snarl words
 Create a slogan and logo for your product/company (e.g “Have it
Your Way” “Do the Dew”)
You will have 60 minutes to complete this task, which will count
towards your classwork grade. When you are have finished, you
will present and explain your advertisement to the class.
Name for your product/company: __________________________________
Identify the target audience for your product/service (who do you think will
buy this?)
Describe the images you would use in your ad:
Explain the strategies behind your selection of images (why use these images?):
Premise 1:
Explain the rhetorical strategies in this reason:
Premise 2:
Explain the rhetorical strategies in this reason:
Premise 3:
Explain the rhetorical strategies in this reason:
How did you use the “implied promise of directive language” to convince people to buy
your products or services?
Name four purr words or snarl words you used.
Slogan/logo:
Video clips available on youtube:
Pantene commercial
Prius Harmony commercial
1984 Apple commercial
Lyndon Johnson’s daisy ad
Ronald Reagan’s It’s Morning Again ad