RHETORICAL ANALYSIS ESSAYInformation derived from Ms. Burke’s fantabulous website

STEP ONE: COMMAND AND CONQUER

THE COMMAND

Find the Word that Means "Analyze" and Underline to the End of the Sentence

The “Command” is a simple way to force you to focus on the SAME THING every time you read a prompt.  Essentially, you are constantly reminded that you need to ANALYZE in the paper, not summarize or identify.  So, locating the “Command” always requires you to find the word (or variant) of “analyze”’; then you must underline from analyze to the end of the sentence.  Like I said, this is a reminder technique.

Therefore, in the Kincaid prompt, the "Command" would be "Analyze the rhetorical strategies Kincaid employs to convey her attitude toward England."

THE PROMPT

Prompt: The passage below is from the opening of an essay, “On Seeing England for the First Time,” by Jamaica Kincaid. Kincaid grew up on the Caribbean island of Antigua before it became independent from England in 1981. Read the entire passage carefully. Then write an essay analyzing the rhetorical strategies Kincaid employs to convey her attitude toward England.

THE CONQUER: THE MOST IMPORTANT PARTLook at the "Command" for the Infinitive Verb and Double-Underline from the Infinitive to the End of the Sentence

Creating the “Conquer” question—the MOST IMPORTANT element to this whole process—is done by looking in the “Command” for the authorial action verb.  This is USUALLY, but not always, the infinitive that follows the word (or variant) of “analyze.”  Once you have found the infinitive, you must then double underline from the infinitive to the end of the sentence.  Then generate a question by asking yourself, “While only looking at the double underlined text, what can’t I know until I have actually read this essay?” 

Make a Conquer Question Starting with "What" Using the information in the "conquer" section, put it after the word "What."  For example, in the Kincaid prompt, the "Conquer" would be "her attitude toward England," so logically, the conquer question must be, "What is Kincaid's attitude toward England?"

THE QUESTION MUST START WITH THE WORD “WHAT”!!!!!  This question also may not have anything to do with rhetorical strategies; students struggle with this at first, so I consistently remind them that they must only look at the words that are DOUBLE UNDERLINED and ask “What don’t I know?”  You’ll see that rhetorical strategies is not double underlined, therefore it can’t be in their question.

EXAMPLESPrompt : Benjamin Banneker, the son of former slaves, was a farmer, astronomer, mathematician, surveyor, and author. In 1791 he wrote to Thomas Jefferson, framer of the Declaration of Independence and secretary of state to President George Washington. Read the following excerpt from the letter and write an essay that analyzes how Banneker uses rhetorical strategies to argue against slavery.

Conquer Question: WHAT does Banneker argue against slavery? WHAT is his argument about slavery?

Prompt: Florence Kelley (1859-1932) was a United States social worker and reformer who fought successfully for child labor laws and improved conditions for working women. She delivered the following speech before the convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in Philadelphia on July 22, 1905. Read the speech carefully. Then write an essay in which you analyze the rhetorical strategies Kelley uses to convey her message about child labor to her audience. Support your analysis with specific references to the text.   Conquer Question: What is Kelley's message about child labor?

STEP 2: 6 PIECES OF EVIDENCE

EVIDENCE AND LABELS

The next step is to read the passage carefully, LOOKING FOR ANSWERS TO THE "CONQUER" question as you read, and annotating or marking any and all evidence that pertains or seems to pertain to the question.  Draw a line through the first 1/3 of the text, the second 1/3, and so on, because you will need to find six pieces of evidence that answers the question.  Find two pieces from the beginning, two from the middle, and two from the end.  This then becomes your textual evidence for your essay.

Finding at least six pieces of evidence -- from throughout the text -- is crucial because one of the qualities that AP graders are looking for is "coverage": your ability to look at a text holistically; to see the development of an idea throughout the text from the beginning to the middle and to the end.

STEP THREE: THE CLAIM CHART

EXAMPLES from the text

Rhetorical STRATEGY

(What is the speaker doing?)

ANSWERS to the conquer question

"Dwell[s]..but in the suburbs of [his] pleasure?” (II.i.285) “Portia is Brutus’ wife, not his harlot.” (II.i.287)

CHALLENGING Brutus' devotion Pity

"Upon my knees, I charm you" (II.ii.270)

EMBRACING a submissive posture Guilt

STEP FOUR: THE THESIS

THE THESIS

THESIS TEMPLATE:   In the ( Genre)      (Title) ,  (Contextual Information about Author and/or Text) (Author’s Name)(Powerful Verb & Strategy) and (Powerful Verb & Strategy), (optional powerful verb & strategy), in order to (larger goal or message) .  Be sure you have answered the "conquer."   Example In Act II.ii of Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare, Portia—Brutus’s wife--challenges Brutus’s devotion to their marriage and submissively postures herself in order to get him to feel guilty for not telling her the cause of his recent agitation and ill temper.

I think we can all agree that the example prompt reads much better than something along the lines of “Portia uses ethos, pathos, and logos in order to evoke her intended emotional response.” 

THE ESSAY WRITES ITSELF

With your completed chart with six (or more) pieces of evidence, six tactics, and (at least) two strategies, you’ve basically written the entire essay. 

Why? 1 The first strategy = the first point in your thesis. 2 The second strategy = the second point in your thesis. 3 The 2-3 quotes that went with the first strategy = data for your first body paragraph. 4 The 2-3 quotes that went with the second strategy = data for your second body

paragraph.

Your thesis will AUTOMATICALLY be supported by the data because this entire chart was driven by the data in the first place. In short, you have custom-tailored your thesis around your evidence, and the rest of the paper will fall into place.

STEP SIX: CHECK YOUR THESIS

CHECK YOUR THESIS WITH YOUR CLAIMS

Example HUMOROUS Thesis In a personal letter to his son traveling abroad, Lord Chesterfield threatens his son with endless downloads of Justin Bieber videos, belittles his son's attachment to Nickelback, and ignores his request for a tribal tattoo in order to emphasize the importance of style and status in the life of an English nobleman.

STEP SEVEN: ESSAY AND PARAGRAPH

STRUCTURE

SAMPLE CLAIM CHART

Rhetorical TACTIC/STRATEGY

EXAMPLES that answer the “Conquer question”

Answer to “Conquer question

BELITTLING his son’s devotion to Nickelback

“No one listens to Nickelback” (12-13)

Chesterfield values musical superiority.

THREATENING his son with Justin Bieber downloads

"I understand it's out on iTunes.  I can afford all the downloads that will fit on your phone" (3)

IGNORING his son's request for a tribal tattoo .

"I assume you've lost your mind.  I refuse even to read that annoying request." (23)

Chesterfield values a professional style

STEP EIGHT: WRITING THE BODY PARAGRAPH

BODY PARAGRAPH TEMPLATE

Claim Sentence (What/Why): • [Ordering Word],  [Author's Name] + [strategy #1 from thesis] + [strategy

#2 from thesis] in order to (answer to the conquer question.  Focus on the author's MESSAGE or GOAL or both). 

Data (Textual Evidence /Where):    • Take, for example how [insert context and textual evidence that shows the

strategy from the claim sentence] (citation). Warrant (Analysis/How):  The warrant is more complicated.  See the breakdown below.

REPEAT DATA AND WARRANT AS NEEDED.  YOU WILL NEED A MINIMUM OF TWO DATA PER PARAGRAPH.

WARRANT TEMPLATE

Here is a suggested template for doing a warrant along with a specific example below so you can see how this all looks when put together. • In other words • In order to • [Strategy] + [strong verb] + [likely effect]  so/therefore/because [reason], and since...[reason].

• The effect would likely be...because...and since • Judge and Connect

KEY IDEAS FROM THE THESIS, ESPECIALLY POWERFUL VERBS, RHETORICAL STRATEGIES, AND CRUCIAL TRANSITIONS, HAVE BEEN BOLDED OR UNDERLINED.

First, Portia challenges Brutus’s devotion to their marriage in order to get Brutus to feel guilty for not telling her the reason for his agitation and unrest.  Take, for example, the moment in which Portia, after asking Brutus the reason for his emotional turmoil and getting a dishonest response, moves to question if she, “Dwell[s]…but in the suburbs of [his] good pleasure?” (II.i.285), or in other words, she wonders whether she is only a peripheral interest in his life, a question she asks in order to lead Brutus to feel guilty because this question exposes the degree to which Portia feels like she is being mistreated. When Portia essentially calls his love and their marriage into question, she knows Brutus wouldn’t want his wife to believe that she isn’t “in [his] good pleasure,” so Brutus should be moved to prove his love by telling her his secrets.  Portia, in this instance, makes it seem as though the only manner in which Brutus can prove his love to her is by revealing the reason he is so troubled, and if he doesn’t, it must mean he does not love her.  Knowing that he does love her, Brutus should feel guilty for even moving Portia to consider that she is unloved, and since this is the case, he may be potentially moved to reveal his secret.  When Brutus doesn’t reveal the information she wants, Portia follows this question with the assertion that if he cannot tell her, “Portia is Brutus’ harlot, not his wife” (II.i.287), essentially asking whether she is truly his wife, or only a prostitute, a statement Portia makes to evoke guilt from Brutus because, by keeping secrets from his wife, he is causing her to devalue herself; she says he is treating her as if she were a "harlot," not as if she were an equal partner.  Seeing as Brutus he views Portia as a “true […] honorable […and…] noble wife” (II.i.275, 291), it’s implied that Brutus would never want his wife to feel so excluded and devalued. Knowing Brutus as she does, Portia implies that if Brutus tells her his secret, she will no longer feel so unequal, thus prompting a potential revelation from her husband. Next, Portia submissively postures herself in order to get Brutus to feel guilty for not telling her the source of his anxiety.  Take, for example, how after all of her other tactics fail, Portia approaches him “upon [her] knees” (II.ii. 270).  This gesture of submission should cause Brutus to feel guilty because his wife is embracing a posture a lowly beggar.  By humbling herself in such a manner, Portia dramatizes the fact that Brutus is being so cold that she has no other choice but to vulnerably position herself as a slave or commoner, not his wife.  She strips herself of her status, and in doing so, hopes to evoke pity from Brutus because if he pities her, he may tell her the reason for his unrest.

In chapter 9 of his book, Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser’s explores how the fast-food industry produces and obtains its meat.  After reading “What’s in the Meat?,” chapter 9 of Fast Food Nation, analyze how Eric Schlosser uses rhetorical devices in order to evoke the emotions of the audience as he argues against the deregulation of the meat-packing industry.

Example Thesis

Throughout his non-fiction piece, Fast Food Nation, author Eric Schlosser augments his argument against the greed and deregulation of the meat industry by presenting morbid truths and narrating tragic, graphic stories that force his audience to empathize with the victims of the industries’ practices. 

Example Body Paragraph

Schlosser’s presentation of emphatic profanity in chapter 9 instills disgust, fear, shock and anger within the mind of the reader. After describing a tragic case of food poisoning, which in and of itself is an emotional appeal, Schlosser reveals the problem was due to the fact that “there [was] sh*t in the meat” (197).This use of vulgar diction gives a clear indication that the issues surrounding consumed tainted meat relate directly to hygiene, or a lack there of.  It is commonly believed that the government and businesses would want to keep their products clean to promote healthy lifestyles and safety, but as demonstrated by Schlosser’s claim, the blatant truth is profane.  Using such a negative, colloquial word—sh*t—to define waste establishes a relationship that reveals the baseness of the major corporations that are selling the questionable meat.  Furthermore, this simple truth—much like his word choice—shocks and angers the readers due to the fact that they have probably eaten fast-food burgers; this instantly presents the idea that they may have consumed excrement before, and it doesn’t seem that the people in charge of the well being of the public seem to care.

BONUS: ADDING QUOTES FOR LITERARY ANALYSIS (WITHOUT)

In the poem, “The Raven”—which was written shortly after the poet lost his wife—Poe develops an ominous symbol and a dark setting, while repeating eerie responses, in order to expose the ever-present grief of the speaker.

Poe develops an ominous symbol in order to present the ever-present grief of the speaker.  Take, for example, how the troubled speaker wakes—startled—in the middle of the night, only to find a “Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering” (Poe 108) into his house and, “Perch[ing] upon a bust of Pallas just above [his] chamber door”  (Poe 95). This demonstrates the grief of the speaker because the raven is described as “ghastly and grim,” and these negative descriptions directly correlate with the negative thoughts of the speaker.  Furthermore, the raven, as a bird, is considered to be a vicious scavenger that preys upon the defeated—a dead and/or dying animal—which directly reflects the emotional turmoil of the speaker as he is struggling with dealing with losing his lover.  The speaker himself is in vulnerable state, and the raven recognizes this, so it preys upon his sorrow.  The fact that the “Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting /On the pallid bust of Pallas just above [his] chamber door” (Poe 203-204) demonstrates the ever-present nature of the speaker’s grief because he can’t get rid of the raven, just like he can’t get past the idea that he’ll never again be able see Lenore.  Because of this fact, of which the raven consistently reminds him, the speaker is forced to recognize that he will not recover from his depression.

BONUS: ADDING QUOTES FOR LITERARY ANALYSIS (WITH)In the poem, “The Raven”—which was written shortly after the poet lost his wife—Poe develops a dark setting and ominous symbolism, while repeating eerie responses in order to expose that the speaker’s heart contains “Darkness there and nothing more” (Poe 22).   Poe develops an ominous symbol in order to present the ever-present grief of the speaker.  Take, for example, how the troubled speaker wakes—startled—in the middle of the night, only to find a “Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering” (Poe 108) into his house and, “Perch[ing] upon a bust of Pallas just above [his] chamber door”  (Poe 95). This demonstrates the grief of the speaker because the raven is described as “ghastly and grim,” and these negative descriptions directly correlate with the negative thoughts of the speaker.  Furthermore, the raven, as a bird, is considered to be a vicious scavenger that preys upon the defeated—a dead and/or dying animal—which directly reflects the emotional turmoil of the speaker as he is struggling with dealing with his “sorrow for the lost Lenore” (Poe 25).  The speaker himself is in a vulnerable state, and the raven recognizes this, so it preys upon his sorrow.  The fact that the “Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting /On the pallid bust of Pallas just above [his] chamber door” (Poe 203-204) demonstrates the ever-present nature of the speaker’s grief because he can’t get rid of the raven, just like he can’t get past the idea that he’ll never again be able “Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore” (Poe 185).  Because of this fact, of which the raven consistently reminds him, the speaker is forced to recognize that “[his] soul […] Shall be lifted—nevermore!” (Poe 216-217).