Rhetorical Analysis Paper. Purpose:
To compose a rhetorical analysis that evaluates a speaker’s strategies and determines if the speaker was effective in accomplishing their goal.
This assignment meets the following SLO’s:
Listen critically to a publicly delivered speech and analyze the credibility of the content and the effectiveness of delivery.
This assignment meets the following ISLO’s:
Critically listen to and analyze their own and others’ oral presentations.
Give and receive appropriate feedback on oral presentations.
Goal:
For this assignment, you will pick one of the two TED choices listed below and answer the following questions in paragraph essay form:
Do a little research to understand the speaker’s rhetorical situation.What was happening that led to the speech?
What is the time period?
What is the bigger issue being discussed?
What problem did the speaker need to solve? What did the speaker need to accomplish with this speech?
Does this problem still exist today?
Analyze the speaker’s rhetorical strategies (see breakdown of what is meant bu strategies below) to see if they are effective as a response to the situation/problem the speaker is facing.
Ethos (build credibility)What specific examples are present in the speech in regards to ethos?
Pathos (appeal to emotion)What specific evidence is presented in the speech in regards to pathos?
Logos (Appeal to logic)Do you hear any logical fallacies presented? What were they?
Hint: There is at least one in each speech.
What is the speaker’s call to action?Is it tangible? Do you leave with a direct action step you can take?
Why or why not?
Option 1: Ron Finley: A Guerilla Gardner in South Central LA
https://www.ted.com/talks/ron_finley_a_guerrilla_g…
Option 2. Alice Goffman: How we are priming some kids for and others for prison
https://www.ted.com/talks/alice_goffman_how_we_re_…
Strategies
By “strategies,” what’s meant is anything the speaker does to persuade the audience or get them to adopt their point-of-view. This could include the speaker’s arguments, use of narrative, compelling word choice, evidence, appeals to emotions, appeals to shared values, organization, etc. Think of all the concepts and all the approaches we’ve talked about in this class, from delivery to finding the right angle for your speech: in your analysis, you may find any of these to be key strategies of the speaker. While the prime directive for this assignment is to ask whether the speech was effective, you should also look to comment on the ethics of the speech: in other words, does the speaker take liberties with truth or evidence to make his/her point? Does the speaker use stereotypical or loaded or hateful language? Does the speaker manipulate the audience?
Grading Rubric
Essay makes explicit analysis of the speech “strategies” in an appropriate and thoughtful way. (5 points)
Essay uses specific examples from the speech to reflect on the speakers use of appeals: logos, pathos and/or ethos (5 points)
Essay concludes by reflecting on the purpose of and audience for the speech. (5 points)
Essay is 3-4 pages in length, double spaced, uses MLA citation where needed, and is generally free of errors spelling and grammatical errors (5 points)
Total points possible: 20 points
So the steps to doing rhetorical criticism may be:
Describe the situation that the speaker faces (background, context, history, etc). You’ll have to do some research to identify all of this. It’s best to stick with a famous speech to make it easier to find into.
As part of this situation, identify the “crisis” that the speaker faces. In some cases, this may be a real crisis that needs to be resolved. In other cases, “crisis” may be too strong: maybe it’s something that needs to be changed or a problem. You will have to avoid speeches like graduation speeches, where there isn’t usually a crisis (though that Barbara Bush speech we watched
