This post is part of the series The Rhetoric of Changing Times, a collection in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and its global consequences. In this series, we'll look at poignant historical speeches and documents and examine questions and topics for discussion/writing. Feel free to share your thinking in the comments or assign these questions … Continue reading The Rhetoric of Changing Times: First Inaugural Address of Franklin D. Roosevelt
Teaching Shakespeare? You Need These Anchor Charts!
If you have ever taught Shakespeare's plays or sonnets, then you know students can struggle to unlock the language and meaning of the text. The following two anchor charts have been tremendously helpful in giving my students a process to understand the Bard's verse. In my classroom, these two posters sit side-by-side. They are the two … Continue reading Teaching Shakespeare? You Need These Anchor Charts!
Essential Tools for Teaching Rhetoric: Logos
What are the essential tools for teaching rhetoric and rhetorical analysis? This blog series will explore one tool each week. Logos Logos: it's "the principle of reason and judgment," according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Our current understanding of logos in rhetoric is actually linked with Jungian psychology (the same Jungian psychology that gives us … Continue reading Essential Tools for Teaching Rhetoric: Logos
Essential Tools for Teaching Rhetoric: Ethos
What are the essential tools for teaching rhetoric and rhetorical analysis? This blog series will explore one tool each week. Ethos As we established in last week's post about rhetorical appeals, ethos is an appeal to personality or character. Aristotle conceptualized ethos as morality, expertise, and knowledge. A speaker's ethos might rely on virtue and goodness, … Continue reading Essential Tools for Teaching Rhetoric: Ethos
Essential Tools for Teaching Rhetoric: The Appeals
What are the essential tools for teaching rhetoric and rhetorical analysis? This blog series will explore one tool each week. Aristotle's Appeals Perhaps the best-known part of Aristotelian rhetoric is the appeal. Aristotle presents three appeals, also known as the Aristotelian triad: ethos, pathos, and logos. All three appeals can be found in most arguments. … Continue reading Essential Tools for Teaching Rhetoric: The Appeals
Beyond the Political Cartoon: Rhetorical Analysis of Visuals
One of the most neglected form of analysis in my school is of visual arguments. Sure, students might look briefly at an historical photograph or a political cartoon now and then. There are so many other visuals, though, that students may encounter in their college and professional work. I️ love to use artwork, charts, and … Continue reading Beyond the Political Cartoon: Rhetorical Analysis of Visuals
KABOOM! The Rhetorical Analysis Game that Makes Engagement Explode
I am SO EXCITED to share this one with you! I came across a few elementary school blogs about a center game called KABOOM. Something just clicked--why couldn't this work for rhetorical analysis at the high school level? After some testing and adjusting, I'm pretty thrilled to bring KABOOM to my classroom this fall. Here's … Continue reading KABOOM! The Rhetorical Analysis Game that Makes Engagement Explode
75 Questions for Rhetorical Analysis
One of the very best close reading strategies I teach is questioning using Costa's levels; however, students sometimes need to build familiarity with what effective questions actually look like. They need to internalize them. They need to use them regularly. Asking the right questions can move struggling students beyond pedestrian summary into the realm of … Continue reading 75 Questions for Rhetorical Analysis
How Assertion Journals Can Inspire and Challenge Your Students
They're analytical. They're argumentative. They're intriguing. They're bite-sized. Assertion journals are hands-down my favorite way to teach and assess writing. Here's how they work: Students are given an assertion, usually in the form of a pithy quotation. How much context you want to give your students is totally up to you. I just project the assertion … Continue reading How Assertion Journals Can Inspire and Challenge Your Students
Get Out of the Kiddie Pool!
This was the mantra repeated by a presenter at one of the first AP conferences I attended. We were examining methods to break students out of shallow analysis. The past few years of teaching AP Lang have convinced me that teaching students to write really comes down to three things: thesis statements, organization, and support. … Continue reading Get Out of the Kiddie Pool!