Speech Rhetorical Analysis

ASSIGNMENT GOALS

For this assignment, you will write an essay that evaluates the effectiveness of an argument by examining the choices the author has made in order to convince a general reader. Examining a written argument gives you practice in three main areas: 1) Reading closely and carefully; 2) Learning to detect the strategies used to “sell” you on an idea, thus giving you a better vantage point from which to judge the motives behind and credibility of various texts; and 3) Learning various strategies of argumentation to integrate into your own writing in order to make your own writing more persuasive. A rhetorical analysis essay requires that you decide whether or not the argumentative techniques used in an essay effectively convince readers. Your opinion on the topic is irrelevant in a rhetorical analysis, but your opinion about the quality of the of the author’s argument is very important in a rhetorical analysis. 

Pick 3 to analyze the essay

Analogy, anecdote, assertion, authority, allusion, ethos, pathos, or logos.

2 PAGES LONG

Speech: A More Perfect Union- Barack Obama

http://constitutioncenter.org/amoreperfectunion/