Week 6 — Rhetorical Analysis

Welcome to your Week 6 Start Here page.

Why this matters

A marketing major judging why an ad lands, a nursing student reading a clinic's flyer, and a volunteer studying a speech before a town meeting all need to see how a text works before deciding whether to agree.

In plain language

Every text you meet is trying to move someone: an ad, a speech, a fundraising email, a doctor's advice. This week you learn to explain how a text does that, which is called rhetorical analysis (an account of how a text persuades its audience, not whether you agree with it). You use a model of four appeals (the means a text reaches for to persuade): credibility, emotion, reasoning, and timing. You practice on short, exact fragments of a real speech, "I Have a Dream", which Martin Luther King Jr. delivered on 28 August 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial. By the end you can write an analytical paragraph (a paragraph that names a move, quotes a few exact words, and explains the move's effect on the audience).

• Already covered: Weeks 1–5 gave you the five questions, summary and response, the paragraph, the thesis, and the first modes.
• This week: the four appeals, devices, and claim, evidence, effect.
• How they connect: analysis explains what a text does to its audience.
• Where we're going next: Week 7, Argument: Claims, Evidence & Warrants, has you build your own case.

Focus

How does a text persuade its audience, whether or not I agree?

By the end of this module, you should be able to:

• [ ] keep summary, agreement, and analysis in separate sentences
• [ ] name the four appeals and tell ethos from logos and kairos from pathos
• [ ] tie a device to the appeal it serves
• [ ] turn a label into claim, evidence, and effect

To-do

Plan your week

1. Read Chapter 6 (about 40 minutes), then the lecture and slides.
2. Work the lecture tutorial (60–90 minutes) and the practice set (about 20 minutes).
3. Do the Writing Studio (about 90 minutes), the discussion, and the assignment.
4. Take the quiz.

Checkpoint: rebuild "King uses pathos" into a claim, a few exact words, and an effect.

You've got this

Take it in order, and ask your instructor early if a step snags.

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