How to Ace the AP Language Rhetorical Analysis Essay | Annotate With Me

Summary

In her insightful video, Ms. Peer Editor guides viewers through the process of acing the AP English Language and Composition rhetorical analysis essay. Using a prompt from the 2017 AP exam, she emphasizes the importance of annotating the passage and identifying rhetorical devices. She provides useful strategies and suggestions for structuring the essay, highlighting the need to link rhetorical devices to the overall purpose of the speech. Throughout the video, she walks through examples of humor, irony, and emotional appeal used in the passage, offering a detailed analysis to aid students in crafting their essays effectively.

Highlights

• The video illustrates how to tackle the AP rhetorical analysis essay using a real 2017 exam prompt 📝
• Ms. Peer Editor emphasizes annotating the passage and planning the essay meticulously ⏰✍️
• Key rhetorical devices like humor, irony, and emotional appeal are discussed in depth to connect with the audience 🎭
• The video's engaging tone encourages viewers to reflect on rhetorical strategies and their influence on readers 📚
• Suggestions for structuring the essay include having two main body paragraphs focusing on major rhetorical devices 🏗️

Key Takeaways

• Annotate the passage to identify rhetorical devices and important information 📝
• Focus on analyzing how rhetorical devices affect the audience 🎯
• Plan and structure your essay thoughtfully, with a concise introduction and a clear thesis 🧠
• Include examples from the text and explain their impact 💬
• Use humor, irony, and emotional appeals effectively to engage the reader 😂🎭

Overview

In this engaging video, Ms. Peer Editor walks students through the steps of writing a successful rhetorical analysis essay for the AP English Language and Composition exam. She uses an actual prompt from the 2017 exam to demonstrate her process and shares the tools she employed to achieve a score of 5. Emphasizing the importance of annotation, she encourages students to thoroughly understand the rhetorical devices used in passages.

Ms. Peer Editor breaks down the essay structure, offering insightful tips on creating clear introductions and effective thesis statements. She highlights the importance of linking rhetorical devices to the passage's overall purpose, offering practical examples from the 2017 prompt to cement the strategy. Her detailed explanation of using humor and irony not only clarifies how to engage the audience but also illustrates the devices' purpose in reaching and impacting them.

Throughout the video, Ms. Peer Editor maintains a lively and informative tone, encouraging active participation from viewers. Her friendly demeanor and practical advice make this video a valuable resource for students preparing for the AP exam. With offerings such as emotional appeal examples and annotation tips, viewers are invited to deepen their understanding and improve their analytical writing skills.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to Rhetorical Analysis Essay In the 'Introduction to Rhetorical Analysis Essay' chapter, the speaker provides guidance on excelling in the AP English Language and Composition rhetorical analysis essay. The chapter begins by taking an actual prompt from the 2017 AP exam as a case study. The speaker, who scored a 5 on this exam, explains that the essay task involves analyzing the rhetorical devices employed by the author of a given passage. The time constraint for this task is 40 minutes, and this chapter aims to detail the approach needed to efficiently tackle such essays.
• 00:30 - 01:00: Time Management Tips In the chapter titled 'Time Management Tips,' the author emphasizes the importance of annotating and planning an essay within a limited time frame. The recommendation is to spend approximately 5 to 8 minutes on planning and 32 to 38 minutes on writing, but these are flexible guidelines that can be adjusted according to personal preference. The chapter highlights the importance of thoroughly reading the essay prompt, particularly the introductory blurb, to understand the rhetorical analysis essay for 2017.
• 01:00 - 01:30: Understanding the Prompt and Passage The chapter discusses understanding prompts and passages, emphasizing that the content provided is only a part of a larger speech—specifically, the introduction. It highlights the importance of recognizing the context and purpose of the passage. The author, an American journalist and politician, is addressing fellow journalists. The chapter encourages careful annotation and consideration of context when analyzing passages.
• 01:30 - 02:00: Essay Structure Overview The chapter 'Essay Structure Overview' deals with the critical examination of the American press by the speaker, identified as 'loose.' The speaker intends to critique the American media for often exaggerating or not fully telling the truth about news stories. The tone is expected to be critical, as the speaker addresses the need for truthful reporting and the tendency of the press to distort facts for various reasons.
• 02:00 - 04:00: Analyzing the Example Passage The chapter titled 'Analyzing the Example Passage' focuses on understanding how a speaker strategically uses the introduction to set the stage for the message that follows. It emphasizes the purpose of introductions in capturing the audience's attention and preparing them for the main content. The chapter also briefly discusses the structural aspect of essay writing, noting that introductory paragraphs can be concise yet effective. The critical takeaway is the importance of the introduction in both spoken and written communication as a tool for engaging the audience and establishing the context for the message.
• 04:00 - 04:30: Drafting the Thesis Statement The chapter titled 'Drafting the Thesis Statement' guides on structuring an essay. It emphasizes starting with a purpose statement for the excerpt, followed by crafting a thesis statement as the final sentence of the introductory paragraph. The body paragraphs should each begin with a topic sentence that highlights a rhetorical device used by the speaker, supporting it with specific text examples, including citations of specific lines from the passage.
• 04:30 - 05:30: Examples of Rhetorical Devices In the chapter titled 'Examples of Rhetorical Devices', the focus is on not just listing rhetorical devices, but also explaining their impact on the audience. The chapter emphasizes the importance of explaining the effect of each rhetorical device used in examples, as this is crucial for what evaluators are looking for. Moreover, it underscores the necessity of linking each rhetorical device back to the overall purpose of the speech in the conclusion of each body paragraph.
• 05:30 - 06:00: Conclusion and Additional Tips The conclusion chapter focuses on summarizing the essay by restating the thesis and analyzing how the author effectively communicates their message. It encourages readers to pause and scrutinize the passage to identify rhetorical devices.

How to Ace the AP Language Rhetorical Analysis Essay | Annotate With Me Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 what's up guys today I'm going to show you how to ace the AP English language and composition rhetorical analysis essay step-by-step using an actual prompt from the 2017 AP exam which is the exam that I took and got a 5 on so let's get started for this essay you are given a passage and you're asked to analyze the rhetorical devices used by the speaker or the author of the passage so you are given 40 minutes to complete
• 00:30 - 01:00 this essay I suggest that you annotate your passage and plan the essay for roughly 5 to 8 minutes and you can spend 32 to 38 minutes to actually write the essay however you can split up the time however you see fit these are just suggestions so let's read the prompt for the 2017 rhetorical analysis essay it's really important to read this blurb that comes before the actual passage because
• 01:00 - 01:30 it can include some really important information you can pause this video to read it over but I'm going to jump right in so we can see here that the passage is going to be the opening to a speech so this is really important because what we're about to read is not the whole speech itself but rather just the introduction so let's keep that in mind when we are annotating next we can see that the author is an American journalist and politician and she is actually addressing journalists herself
• 01:30 - 02:00 so we know now who the speaker and who the audience is we can also see that loose or the speaker is going to criticize the American press so the tone of the speech is going to be pretty critical and the speech itself is the introduction to the speeches about how the American press tends to perhaps exaggerate or not necessarily tell the truth about news stories because they're
• 02:00 - 02:30 looking for sensationalist news and here's the really important part we are going to analyze how the speaker uses the introduction to prepare the audience for her mess so that is the purpose of these introduction in total let's keep that in mind as well and when we're looking at the structure of our essay itself our introductory paragraph can be really short it can be actually just two to
• 02:30 - 03:00 three sentences we first want to explain the purpose of the excerpt and then we'll jump right into our thesis which will be the last sentence of our introductory paragraph and our body paragraphs will have a topic sentence that refers to a specific rhetorical device used by the speaker and we're going to make sure to include examples for the from the text so we want to actually cite specific lines from our passage in the essay itself and what
• 03:00 - 03:30 we're going to do is instead of simply just listing out these rhetorical devices whenever we mention a rhetorical device or a specific example we have to make sure we explain the effect of each example on the audience that is really key really important that's what you're the Freder is looking for and at the end of each body paragraph we have to tie it back to tie back that rhetorical device to the overall purpose of the speech or
• 03:30 - 04:00 this introduction and the conclusion of our essay is really straightforward we're just going to restate thesis and we're going to describe how the author succeeds in relying his or her message here's the full passage that we are about to analyze I suggest that you pause this video and read it over for yourself maybe even annotate it to see if you can identify any rhetorical devices so let's just jump right in
• 04:00 - 04:30 first off we can see an analogy comparing the speaker's criticism to throwing rocks in line six so that kind of sets us up for this humorous tone for the rest of the passage also we can see irony in the next line she says you have asked me to tell you what's wrong with you the American press so this is ironic or kind of countering expectations because the audience has asked the speaker to come
• 04:30 - 05:00 and criticize them to their faces which is pretty odd next we can see that the speaker is using a lot of dashes or kind of humorous slightly sarcastic interruptions to lighten the mood make the audience a little bit more receptive to her message and in this next line here we see that the speaker is talking about Billy Graham and Bishop Sheen and if you notice there's a small box I've
• 05:00 - 05:30 highlighted in the bottom right of this passage that talks about who these people are and the College Board has provided this information to us to pretty much point out that the speaker here is using an illusion or a reference to pop culture to supplement her message with additional information so we can definitely use this next we can see that in the end of the third paragraph the
• 05:30 - 06:00 speaker is kind of using a jokingly accusatory tone because she's using an exclamatory sentence she's saying you asked for it I'm not the one who's invited myself here so whatever I say next it's because you guys have asked me to be here and now we see a shift in the tone of this passage because the speaker is now kind of switching to a more introspective pondering tone because she's asking a rhetorical question she
• 06:00 - 06:30 asks the audience for what is good journalism all about and now she's seeking to actually answer this question in the rest of her introduction we see a lot of repetition because she repeatedly says the phrase it is the effort for the next three sentences at the beginning of those sentences so we see here that the speaker is actually answering her own question and she's using illustration to
• 06:30 - 07:00 actually prove what her point is she's using specific examples she's talking about how journalism can come or anything from a summit conference to astronomical phenomena and next we see that she uses an emotional appeal or pathos so the speaker is appealing to the audience's own struggles to pursue the truth because she she knows that her audience is made of journalists who have
• 07:00 - 07:30 probably sometimes failed in their own careers and they also probably know what it's like to fall short of the truth so she's definitely appealing to the audience's own memories in their own careers and lastly she's also using another appeal to the audience's sense of honesty because the speaker is saying that even if this even if this goes against the journalists professional
• 07:30 - 08:00 grain she wants them to know that they have to tell the truth they have a duty to remain faithful to the news story even if they don't make as much money or sell as many newspapers and lasts and she ends with an optimistic tone because she pretty much says that the US press is the best press in the world so we know that she's definitely ending on a high note setting up a hopeful tone for
• 08:00 - 08:30 the rest of her speech now it's time to draft our thesis here's what I have written while emphasizing the presses duty to tell the truth Luce uses humor and an appeal to the journalists sense of honesty to make the audience more receptive to her criticism so notice how I've structured my thesis I've structured it so that the rest of the essay is going to have two body paragraphs you can see that because my
• 08:30 - 09:00 first body paragraph is going to talk about Lucis use of humor and my second body paragraph is going to talk about her appeal to the journalist sense of honesty so those are two kind of larger rhetorical devices that I'm going to talk about in my essay and this is really important I have specifically highlighted what the function of the rhetorical devices is in the si the function is to make the audience more receptive to her criticism let's look at
• 09:00 - 09:30 what examples of rhetorical devices we can talk about in each of our body paragraphs so in our first body paragraph a great example of humor is that rock-throwing analogy in lines five to six so whenever you are referring to a specific line or quoting something from the speech itself make sure to include the line numbers in parentheses at the end of the sentence in your essay so we can see that this rock-throwing analogy startles the audience using a
• 09:30 - 10:00 funny image so pretty much just throwing rocks and this actually shows Lucis own precarious position because you know she's facing the risk of receiving pretty negative feedback for her speech because she's criticizing the audience right to their faces but this analogy also lightens the mood because she's showing that she's not taking herself
• 10:00 - 10:30 too seriously so notice what I've done here I have not only listed what the device is but I've explained what the did what the actual purpose of the device is in the overall speech so I won't actually do that for the rest of the devices for the sake of time but I'm just going to list out some other examples I found of humor so definitely that example of irony about the purpose of the speech overall as an example of
• 10:30 - 11:00 humor and the illusion is also another example to set up this humorous tone in the essay in the passage overall next in our second body paragraph we can see examples of emotional appeals with the rhetorical question about the purpose of good journalism so this question makes the audience think about what drives them to pursue new stories this acts this asks them to reflect on their own
• 11:00 - 11:30 experiences and it also reminds the audience that ilysm is essentially about finding answers to difficult questions that's what the purpose of those rhetorical questions is and next we can possibly talk about the example of the repetition of the phrase it is the effort in paragraph four of the passage that's another example of an emotional appeal
• 11:30 - 12:00 and we can also see that there is more examples of pathos when the author evokes the own audience's own struggles in paragraphs five to seven to pretty much make sure that the journalists are being honest in their portrayal of news stories thanks for watching if you find any other rhetorical devices in this passage let me know in the comments down
• 12:00 - 12:30 below along with any questions you might have about the AP lang exam in general subscribe and tap the bell to receive notifications whenever I make a new video I will see you next time