My BEST Tip for Rhetorical Analysis Commentary

Summary

In "My BEST Tip for Rhetorical Analysis Commentary," Coach Hall Writes delivers a comprehensive guide to scoring higher on AP Language rhetorical analysis essays, focusing on the importance of connecting commentary to the rhetorical situation. The video outlines crucial elements: understanding the rhetorical situation, underlining key phrases in prompts, and explicitly discussing message, argument, or purpose in each paragraph. Practical advice includes diversifying phrasing in essays to avoid redundancy and noting speaker credentials and audience dynamics. Overall, the video emphasizes clarity, precision, and depth in analysis to meet AP Lang standards.

Highlights

• Unlock the Power of the Rhetorical Situation: Be the master of dissecting the context, speaker, and audience dynamics! 🧠
• Don’t Repeat Yourself: Express similar ideas differently across your essay. Variety is the spice of writing! 🌶️
• Draw Direct Connections: Every rhetorical choice should loop back to the central message or purpose. It’s like tying the perfect bow! 🎀
• Know Who’s Speaking: Emphasize the speaker’s role and identity to sharpen your analysis. Make it clear, make it count! 👥
• Mind the Audience: Dig into what the audience needs or believes; it’s the heart of connecting your rhetorical commentary. 💬
• Contextual Brilliance: Broaden your analysis with context – go beyond the text with historical or situational insights. 📚

Key Takeaways

• Understanding the Rhetorical Situation: Break down the speaker, audience, context, exigence, purpose, and message like a pro! 🧩
• Diversify Phrasing: Avoid redundancy by listing different ways to express a point. Your essay will thank you! 📝
• Connect Choices to Message: Always tie your analysis back to the purpose, message, or argument. It’s gold in AP Lang! 💡
• Speaker’s Credentials Matter: Incorporate the speaker’s role and background to deepen your essay’s impact. 🎤
• Audience Analysis: Tailor your discussion to reflect the audience's needs, beliefs, desires, or values. Connect like a boss! 🤝
• Context and Exigence Insights: Use outside knowledge to enrich your analysis. Paint the big picture as well as the catalyst! 🌍

Overview

Have you ever wondered what it takes to nab those high scores in AP Lang rhetorical analysis essays? Coach Hall Writes is here to spill the beans with a simple tip to help you earn a four out of six. The secret sauce is all about making solid connections between rhetorical choices and the rhetorical situation. Understanding components like the speaker, audience, context, exigence, purpose, and message turns your essays from drab to fab!

Acing those essays require strategic moves like underlining key phrases in prompts and explicitly defining purpose, message, or argument in your work. Coach Hall emphasizes the magic of having alternatives to phrase your analysis—talk about avoiding redundancy in style! Credentials of the speaker and the dynamics of the audience aren’t mere footnotes; they’re center stage, adding weight to your commentary and boosting those scores.

Context isn’t just a side dish—it’s a part of the entrée of your analysis. Coach Hall talks about skillfully blending background details with your insights, using examples like FDR’s Pearl Harbor speech to illustrate brilliant paragraph crafting. Remember, every rhetorical choice should loop back to the big three: purpose, message, or argument. This means paying close attention to the why’s and how’s of everything to make your essay shine!

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to Rhetorical Analysis This chapter introduces the concept of rhetorical analysis, particularly focusing on the AP Lang rhetorical analysis essay. The instructor shares a tip on how to achieve a score of four out of six by ensuring commentary thoroughly explains the connection between rhetorical choices and the rhetorical situation, warning against superficial commentary. The chapter hints at further exploration of what constitutes a rhetorical situation.
• 00:30 - 01:00: The Rhetorical Situation The chapter titled 'The Rhetorical Situation' discusses the concept of the rhetorical situation, which is the context from which a text arises. It highlights six key components of this situation: speaker, audience, context, exigence, purpose, and message or argument. The text introduces two acronyms to help remember these components: SPACE (Speaker, Purpose, Audience, Context, Exigence) and SOAP (Speaker, Occasion or context, Audience, Purpose).
• 01:00 - 02:00: Components of the Rhetorical Situation The chapter discusses 'Components of the Rhetorical Situation,' represented metaphorically as a circle to indicate how each component works together akin to puzzle pieces that influence the passage. The focus is on connecting with the rhetorical situation, specifically for an AP Language exam context where one should look for key phrases in the exam prompt such as 'convey a message,' 'develop an argument,' or 'achieve a purpose.' The advice includes the technique of underlining these phrases as part of engaging with the rhetorical situation.
• 02:00 - 02:30: Connecting to the Rhetorical Situation The chapter emphasizes the importance of clearly understanding and connecting with the rhetorical situation in essay writing, particularly under exam conditions. It advises students to actively engage with the prompt by underlining key elements such as purpose, message, or argument to ensure these are addressed in their essays. This proactive step can help prevent forgetfulness and enhance focus during the stress of writing exams. The author asserts that, from their perspective, all passages inherently pose a rhetorical challenge that must be recognized and tackled.
• 02:30 - 03:00: Addressing the Purpose, Message, or Argument The chapter discusses the importance of identifying the purpose, message, or argument behind a speech or writing. It emphasizes incorporating the purpose into analyses, even when addressing the message or argument, as it's a critical aspect of the rhetorical situation. The chapter advises explicitly stating the message, argument, or purpose in each body paragraph. It also suggests that while the term 'purpose' can be used, it's not always necessary; instead, using 'to' can often implicitly communicate the purpose effectively.
• 04:30 - 05:30: Speaker's Influence on the Rhetorical Situation This chapter focuses on effectively communicating the purpose, message, or argument in a rhetorical situation. It emphasizes the importance of specificity in communication by urging speakers or writers to explicitly state what their message or argument is. Rather than vaguely mentioning a 'message' or 'argument,' the chapter encourages defining what that message or argument entails clearly, such as saying 'an argument against this' or 'a message of blank,' to ensure the audience fully understands the speaker's intent.
• 05:30 - 07:00: Audience Relationship and Tailoring Messages The chapter titled 'Audience Relationship and Tailoring Messages' underscores the importance of going beyond the superficial details provided in a passage or prompt to convey a deeper understanding of the message or argument. The transcript advises that while writing an essay, one should be prepared to discuss the main message more than once in the body paragraphs to ensure thoroughness, even if it might seem redundant. A crucial tip highlighted is the significance of preparing and crafting a clear structure before embarking on writing, immediately after reading the passage.
• 07:00 - 08:30: Context and Exigence This chapter focuses on understanding the purpose and message of a piece of writing. It guides the reader to identify and articulate the main purpose by writing it down. The example given is a eulogy, where the purpose could be to honor the deceased. It encourages the reader to find different expressions for the same purpose, such as 'to memorialize,' 'to solidify someone's legacy,' or 'to pay tribute.' This exercise helps in diversifying expression while maintaining the central intent of the message.
• 08:30 - 15:00: Analyzing FDR's Pearl Harbor Speech The chapter "Analyzing FDR's Pearl Harbor Speech" provides strategies for analyzing speeches, specifically focusing on Franklin D. Roosevelt's address following the attack on Pearl Harbor. It emphasizes the importance of taking comprehensive notes when examining the purpose, message, or argument of the speech. The chapter advises on understanding the 'why' and 'how' behind the speaker's choices to effectively convey the message or develop an argument. It suggests varying vocabulary to avoid repetition and aids in memory retention during time-restricted writing tasks.
• 16:30 - 17:00: Conclusion and Call to Action The chapter discusses the importance of understanding the complete rhetorical situation when analyzing a passage. It emphasizes not just focusing on the message purpose and argument, but also considering the speaker's credentials. These credentials, which might be provided in a prompt, can include roles such as a president, senator, or activist, and they significantly influence the discussion topic. Understanding the speaker's background is key to a more nuanced analysis.

My BEST Tip for Rhetorical Analysis Commentary Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 hey everyone welcome back to coach all rights in today's video i'm going to give you my number one tip to earn a four out of six on an ap lang rhetorical analysis essay the essays that i've seen that have scored a three in row b therefore earning a four out of six have had commentary that wasn't superficial in fact it thoroughly explained the connection of at least one rhetorical choice to the rhetorical situation now if you're wondering what exactly is the rhetorical situation
• 00:30 - 01:00 let me tell you the rhetorical situation is the situation from which the text arises there are six components the speaker audience context exigence purpose and message or argument there are two ways that you can remember this one is the acronym space which stands for speaker purpose audience context and exigence or soap which is speaker occasion which means context and negligence audience and purpose now notice that in this graphic the
• 01:00 - 01:30 rhetorical situation is represented by a circle i did that on purpose because i wanted to show my students that each of these components work together think of them kind of like puzzle pieces they work together to influence the passage now let's talk about how to connect to the rhetorical situation the first thing you're going to want to do is look at the prompt on your apling exam you're going to see one of three phrases in your prompt convey a message develop an argument or achieve a purpose i would encourage you to underline or
• 01:30 - 02:00 circle that phrase that way you know what you're supposed to be talking about in your essay you might think oh no don't worry about it i'll remember but honestly i've seen a lot of essays where students did not actually reference the purpose message or argument when you're writing under pressure for the exam sometimes it's hard to remember your own name so be kind to yourself take a second to underline it in the prompt and make sure you're actually addressing that in your essay now technically speaking at least in my opinion all passages have a
• 02:00 - 02:30 purpose there's a reason why somebody wrote it or spoke it so even if you're not asked about the purpose let's say you're asked about the message or the argument you can still incorporate purpose into your analysis because remember it's part of the rhetorical situation another tip is to make sure that you explicitly mention what the message argument or purpose is and do so within each body paragraph now for a purpose you don't necessarily need to use the word purpose you can but usually when we say the word to like
• 02:30 - 03:00 t o or the phrase in order to what follows is the purpose so you don't actually have to tell us it's the purpose now with message or argument you might actually need to use the word message or argument however don't just stop there don't just say to develop an argument or convey a message tell us what the message or argument is so an argument against this or an argument in favor of that or a message of blank actually tell us what the message is because if you don't then it
• 03:00 - 03:30 shows us that you don't really understand the passage also sometimes the message or argument is included in the prompt they tell you what it is but it's usually a bit superficial so go beyond what the passage says and be more specific now you might be thinking okay but if i'm supposed to talk about this in each body paragraph and maybe even more than once in the body paragraph that's going to be redundant and you might be right so i have a tip for you before you even start writing your essay after you've read the passage though
• 03:30 - 04:00 think about what the purpose message or argument is write it down on your paper then try to come up with at least three other ways to say that so let's say that your passage is a eulogy for instance a funeral speech well the purpose is probably to honor the deceased person so on your paper write to honor then write three other ways to say that you might say to memorialize to solidify someone's legacy to pay tribute or to pay respects now you have multiple ways to convey the purpose throughout your
• 04:00 - 04:30 essay that way you're not using the phrase to honor every single time and that tactic also works for the argument or the message as well and you might be thinking oh it's okay i'll remember that as i'm writing again when you're writing a timed essay sometimes it's really hard to even remember your name so take good notes as you are examining the message purpose or argument really think about how the choice helps the speaker convey that message achieve that purpose or develop an argument remember we're looking for the why and the how now the
• 04:30 - 05:00 message purpose and argument are a portion of the rhetorical situation but it's not the entire rhetorical situation so what about the rest of it well let's talk about the speaker when you're analyzing a passage ask yourself what are the speaker's credentials sometimes this is provided in the prompt they might tell you that the person is a president or a senator or an activist use that information to your advantage you can include it in your essay because the person's credentials influence the topic that they're talking about and
• 05:00 - 05:30 also the choices that they're making so keep that in mind what are the speakers credentials what is their role in the situation you also want to think about the different adjectives that you could use to characterize the speaker are they passionate are they patriotic are they honest or frank or candid add that to your notes as well and the last bullet point is also really important because it's based off of one of the ap lang standards what are the speakers needs beliefs desires or values now notice it says or meaning that you do
• 05:30 - 06:00 not have to analyze all four and sometimes admittedly there is a bit of overlap however i like my own students to examine the needs beliefs desires or values as they're thinking about the speaker because our needs beliefs desires or values influence how we speak and what we speak about it influences the rhetorical choices that we make so maybe the person values education or security or maybe they need justice think about that as you're reading the passage we also want to think about the relationship with the audience so is it
• 06:00 - 06:30 a mother writing to a son is it a president speaking to his constituents what's that relationship there and is it reluctant or is it amicable meaning are they hesitant to accept the message or the argument are they going to be resistant to it or are they already sort of on the speaker's side therefore the speaker doesn't have to be as convincing or persuasive because they already agree with them keep that in mind as well and then just as we look at the speakers needs beliefs desires or
• 06:30 - 07:00 values we also want to think about the audience's needs beliefs desires or values because speakers tailor their message to their audience we change the way we speak depending on who our audience is now let's talk about the context and exigence or we can combine it and call it the occasion so i like to think of the context as sort of like the timeline big picture it could be relevant events that happen before during or after it could be local national or global so big picture stuff
• 07:00 - 07:30 the exigence however operates on a much smaller scale because the exigence is like the catalyst or the impetus the exigence is what prompts the writer to write or the speaker to speak these questions are what i want you to think about as you're actually approaching a passage but how do we actually take these insights and put them in an essay how do we connect the choice to the rhetorical situation well let's look at an example for this example i'm going to be talking about fdr speech after pearl
• 07:30 - 08:00 harbor it's one of my favorites to teach i even included it in my ebook about rhetorical analysis in the beginning of that speech fdr creates a common enemy why does he do this well ultimately he wants congress to declare war on japan but in order for them to declare war they have to believe that war is justified and fun fact at the time the u.s was isolationist meaning that they didn't want to get involved in the war or european affairs so they were reluctant to join the war however after this attack feelings
• 08:00 - 08:30 changed so in the beginning of his speech fdr creates a common enemy that's what he's doing now how is he doing that well through repetition and condemnatory diction fancy word there but remember diction is word choice we want to put some sort of descriptor or adjective in front of the word diction because otherwise we're just saying that the writer uses words and that's not exactly a profound thought you could also use patriotic diction or accusatory diction whatever
• 08:30 - 09:00 you want to do to describe it but put a word in front of the word diction so let's look at a sample paragraph here now this is not the entire paragraph it actually spans multiple slides but i wanted to talk you through the process of how you can start to incorporate what we talked about earlier in the video into your writing so let's start by acknowledging the purpose you can see there in the blue it says in order to ultimately convince congress to declare war well that's the purpose now notice that i never actually used the word
• 09:00 - 09:30 purpose in that sentence however it's clear that that's what he wants to accomplish so let's look at the rest of the sentence it says in order to ultimately convince congress to declare war fdr must convince them that remaining isolationist poses more of a threat than entering world war ii so we start with the purpose there and you can actually use that as a sentence frame meaning that you could use that same concept and apply it to a different passage so you could start your paragraph with in order to
• 09:30 - 10:00 and then talk about the purpose of your passage then tell us what the speaker does at the beginning of the speech now the light blue portion of that sentence that's the context in this case it's some outside information though you can sort of infer it from reading the speech itself for some passages you might know more about the context than others so if you don't know a lot about the context or the exigence don't panic just use what you know from the passage also double check the prompt because the college board likes to include little details in there that are very helpful
• 10:00 - 10:30 but that sentence there is a way to incorporate some of the context it tells us what was going on in the world at the time it also starts to address the audience a little bit too because we know that the congress members were isolationist now let's continue it says as such fdr notes the sudden and deliberate nature of the attack so i have some evidence there i incorporated two different words sudden and deliberate into a sentence of my own now you can use one word or a short phrase just try not to use huge quotes
• 10:30 - 11:00 because it's not your own words and it's harder to embed it into a sentence those quotes there are embedded meaning that i put them into my own sentence we don't want to just drop a quote in the next sentence says his matter of fact yet condemnatory description of japan's actions demonstrates japan's guilt because the u.s thought the two nations were at peace in the gray there you can see that it says matter-of-fact yet condemnatory those words help to modify the word
• 11:00 - 11:30 description we want to use precise adverbs and adjectives to help add clarity to our writing now i could have just said his description of japan's actions that would have made sense but by adding those adjectives it helps me to better convey what he was actually doing the last part of that sentence demonstrates japan's guilt remember we said earlier that verbs like demonstrates highlights and suggests can lead to commentary well here's an example of that now let's see how the paragraph continues it says
• 11:30 - 12:00 since congress must protect the american citizens okay well that's addressing the audience's needs beliefs desires or values they need to protect the citizens they will want to be sure that going to war is not only justified but necessary so again building off of those needs beliefs desires or values knowing this fdr lists a series of locations japan attacked the night before now notice that i didn't actually say repetition or repeats here i said lists but i'm still referring to repetition
• 12:00 - 12:30 fdr could have listed those locations in a single sentence yet he chose to repeat the phrases last night and attacked to convey the magnitude of japan's actions okay so let's break that sentence down a little bit i wanted to think about why did he repeat the phrase so he repeated the words last night and attacked now a lot of times students want to just say well he does it for emphasis okay that's true but why well he wants to emphasize that it was intentional how does he do that well he
• 12:30 - 13:00 shows that they attacked multiple locations so it was widespread you see how if we ask ourselves why and how we can actually be more specific also something else about this sentence that i think is kind of interesting is we want to think about what he didn't do not just what he did now i'm not saying that you should use this tactic in every single paragraph but for this one fdr listed each location in its own sentence he could have just put it all in one sentence but it was more impactful for it to be separate sentences especially
• 13:00 - 13:30 because it was a speech people heard the word attacked four times if he had put it all in one sentence and said the japanese attacked this place this place this place in this place then he wouldn't have been repeating the word attacked remember his purpose he's trying to create a common enemy so repeating the word attacked helps him to achieve that purpose by creating a common enemy congress is more likely to declare war so you see what we did there we started to think about the choice we have some
• 13:30 - 14:00 evidence to prove it and we're thinking about how it helps with the purpose you can see that we dig into it more here doing so erases any doubt that the attack on pearl harbor could have been an accident as the japanese attacked multiple other locations in the pacific so again why does he repeat the words attacked in last night he wants congress to know that it was intentional why does he want congress to know that it was intentional because if they know it was intentional they are more likely to declare war if they don't think it's
• 14:00 - 14:30 intentional they could just miss it as an accident and then they wouldn't want to go to war now his audience was a bit hesitant already they were isolationists so they're not going to be willing to risk their lives over what could have been an accident he has to prove that it was malicious the paragraph continues and if this seems long by the way it's because i tend to prefer very developed paragraphs to developed paragraphs instead of three mediocre ones that's just my philosophy i encourage my students to develop their
• 14:30 - 15:00 paragraph as thoroughly as they can before moving on to the next one so let's look at the remainder of the paragraph it says since radio was a popular way of disseminating information at the time by broadcasting the speech on the radio fdr simultaneously informs congress and the american public of the attack on the u.s naval base i highlighted the beginning of the sentence in blue to represent context that's because that's outside information that i know i know that during the world war ii era they relied
• 15:00 - 15:30 on radio and newspapers for their information they didn't have twitter they didn't have snapchat no instagram no tick tock they had newspaper and radio it didn't tell me that necessarily in the passage itself but i was able to use my own knowledge of the time period and incorporate that into my analysis now look at the next sentence it says repeatedly noting so you don't always have to say uses repetition or repeats sometimes you can say repeatedly notes or repeatedly claims it still conveys
• 15:30 - 16:00 the idea of repetition without actually using the word repetition and in my opinion saying repeatedly noting sounds much better than he uses repetition repeatedly noting japan's guilt rouses a sense of patriotism within his audience okay so now we're starting to connect to an appeal he's appealing to patriotism remember that choices create appeals so by repeatedly mentioning japan's guilt he evokes a sense of patriotism within his audience preparing them to accept
• 16:00 - 16:30 his inevitable forthcoming call to action the us must declare war so again i'm ending my paragraph by tying it back to the purpose and notice that i didn't say purpose however it's clear by saying call to action and the u.s must declare war that that is what the goal of a speech is ultimately he wants congress to declare war that's why he's proving that japan was guilty all right if you made it this far in the video first of all thank you so much for watching if you found this
• 16:30 - 17:00 video helpful it would mean a lot to me if you would do me a huge favor and give the video a thumbs up that lets other teachers and students know that the video is beneficial also if you're preparing for the appealing exam and you have any questions be sure to leave them in the comments below who knows your comment might inspire a future video and until next time happy writing