Hey everyone, I'm Tim Freighus from the Garden of English. I'm here to help you with your English classes. Today is going to be an AP Lang kind of day. It's no secret that almost every year the lowest scoring essay on the AP Lang exam is the rhetorical analysis essay. So, the data seems to indicate that this is often the hardest task for students to complete. Now, I already have a bunch of videos about how to write the rhetorical analysis essay, and I've compiled them into a playlist that looks like this, and is found in the video description right below this video. But today, I want to talk about an issue that continues to plague my life as a teacher and as an exam reader. And working this issue out now could help you write significantly better rhetorical analysis essays, not only in your classroom, but also on your AP Lang exams. and dealing with the problem could really help your understanding of the rhetorical analysis task. Now, before I fix this problem, I need to let you know what the issue is and why it even exists in the first place. You see, the AP Lang exam has been around for a long time. I mean, since like the Stone Age. We're talking like since the 1980s, which is clearly just so long ago. I mean, honestly, that's even in the 1900s. Anyway, over the almost 40 plus year existence of the exam, there have been multiple evolutions. One of the most major ones happening in 2007 when the synthesis essay was added to the test. But I digress. All the way from the 80s through the early 2000s, the rhetorical analysis question that existed had prompts that were worded in a myriad of different ways, which is quite unlike the standard prompt wording that we have now that requires students to analyze the rhetorical choices an author makes to convey a message or purpose. Now, some of these older prompts would ask students to analyze an author's style. Some would ask students to analyze how a writer crafted a text. Some would ask students to analyze the rhetorical strategies and devices a writer would use or employ. And some would throw even bigger curve balls in the wording and hardly even make the task clear at all. Jeez. You can just ask any student who took the 2017 exam. If you don't know what I'm referring to when I mention that, look it up. The internet is never wrong. Anyway, because of the lack of standard prompt language and the importance placed on stylistic elements in the earlier versions of the task when most of your veteran AP teachers were trained to teach this course, teachers have since focused on teaching students to search for common stylistic items and lit terms like simileies and metaphors and personification, alliteration, illusions, repetition, parallel structure, and the typical appeals. You know, the ethos, pathos, logos. Oh, quick tip. Don't use Greek on the English exam. It doesn't make any sense. And if you want more information about that, you can actually find out more by watching my video that looks like this. Anyway, since the teaching of common rhetorical devices had been the norm for so long, it's kind of stuck. And because most students have been writing about rhetorical devices more than anything else, sample essays where this happens are a dime a dozen when trying to find score points at the actual AP reading. But things began changing in the second decade of the 2000s when the prompt wording changed from asking students to analyze the rhetorical strategies that authors employed or used and transformed the task into asking students to analyze an author's rhetorical choices. Even though the task wording changed, many teachers did not shift with the language considering rhetorical devices, rhetorical strategies, and rhetorical choices as all being synonymous. Unfortunately, they aren't synonyms. And now here we are in this conundrum. So what you need to do is learn how to update your essay to be a rhetorical choice driven essay as opposed to a rhetorical device- driven essay. This is important so you can learn how to truly AP. That means answer the prompt. Now full disclosure, is it possible to produce a rhetorical device- driven essay and still score well on exam day? Yes. Will you also find plenty of College Board released sample essays that are device driven essays that score just fine? Yeah. But should you actually consider writing about rhetorical choices to make your paper significantly more dynamic and less constrained to a list of literary or rhetorical terms? You betcha. Yeah. Now, I'm going to leave more of the history lessons to my friends and colleagues like Tom Richie and Steve Heinler. Instead, today I'm going to show you how this is done. I'm going to help you upgrade your abilities to write about an author's rhetorical choices. But first things first, definitions. You need to know that a rhetorical device and a rhetorical choice are not the same thing. A rhetorical device will always be a noun and a rhetorical choice will always be a verb. If you want a deep dive into this difference, you could check out the video one of unit 2 in my laying support materials that I've linked in this video's description. If you sign up for the free version of laying support, you'll have full access to units one and two in their videos and their guided worksheets. These are materials for students and teachers that cover the breadth of the lane course and provide you with tons of practice unit tests and full exams. Some of which are even aligned with the content and time frames of the AP US history frameworks. Anyway, when students only know a list of literary terms as rhetorical devices, they become limited in what they can look for and what they can write about in any given rhetorical analysis essay. Honestly, what happens when a piece doesn't have a metaphor in it or parallel structure or repetition? Well, students typically end up talking vaguely about diction, syntax, and the three appeals, or they spontaneously combust. What you need to start doing so you can begin being successful is seeing rhetorical devices as anything a speaker uses to convey meaning. And you need to begin seeing rhetorical choices as anything a speaker does to convey meaning. Did you catch the difference there? A choice is something a speaker does. So, that makes it an action. When you write about rhetorical choices, you want them to be actions, precise actions that carry quantitative meanings and help convey a message and a purpose. So, let me show you how to do this. As a model for today, I'm going to rely on a prompt and a modified student sample thesis provided to me by Applied Practice. This prompted sample comes from one of their retired practice exams, and you can find the information linked in this video description if you're interested in checking out all that Applied Practice has to offer schools and students. Applied Practice is a company that provides a myriad of instructor resources for a bunch of AP subjects. But each year, I've been relying on them to be the facilitators of my annual practice exam, particularly because they score my student samples, provide a bunch of data for me and my students, and allow me and my classes to set goals for what we can work on leading up to exam day. Let's take a peek at the rhetorical analysis prompt our sample rhetorical analysis intro paragraph will be responding to. It's about to pop up on your screen. In November 1841, American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, statesman, and former slave Frederick Douglas gave the following speech at the Plymouth County Anti-Slavery Society. In the speech, he explains the relationship between religion, prejudice, and slavery. Read the passage carefully. Write an essay that analyzes the rhetorical choices Douglas makes to convey his message to his audience. If you want access to the full speech from Douglas that this prompt refers to, of course, I think you know where to find it. right in the description. I really encourage you to read the speech so that you can know what parts of the text each rhetorical choice is referring to later on in the video when we throw the thesis up on the screen. Now, in order to successfully answer this prompt, students would need to read the speech and identify Douglas's message to the Plymouth County Anti-Slavery Society. Students would also need to identify some rhetorical choices that Douglas makes to convey that message. So, let's look at a sample intro paragraph with a thesis. When we do though, you'll notice that the thesis is rhetorical device focused rather than rhetorical choice focused. After we take a look at the original, we'll talk about how to transform the thesis into something better. Also, if you want to see what the original looks like and what it's transformed into, and if you'd like to have a list of good rhetorical choice and effect verbs, and if you'd like to know how to transform some common rhetorical devices into verbs for rhetorical choices, you can find a free worksheet, of course, right in the description down below. But you're only allowed to access the worksheet if you click the like and subscribe buttons before you click that link. Okay, here's the intro paragraph of the essay in response to this particular rhetorical analysis prompt. I'll highlight the rhetorical devices in the thesis. Take a look. [Music] All right, we must first be honest here. This may seem, but it's actually now this intro and thesis would absolutely get the thesis point on exam day. I mean, if I were to read it when scoring exams, I would probably bet that this paper would potentially be one of the higher scoring papers, even as is. But just because it might be borderline good, doesn't mean that we can't make it better. And we could do that by ditching the word uses and substituting some significantly more precise verbs to more accurately characterize the rhetorical choices. And we're not talking about using the word utilize or the word employs. Let me explain why. Imagine that you and I have never met, which we probably haven't anyway, but imagine you saw me and I walked into the room and I did this with a ring. Would you actually know anything about me because I did that? No. I used the ring. I utilized the ring. I employed the use of the ring. And yet, there's no meaning being projected by this ring or my use of it if I just do a stupid magic trick. But what actually happens when I wear my ring? What can you know about me now? And that's right, I'm married. But you didn't know that I'm married because I used my ring, utilized my ring, or employed the use of my ring. Instead, you are now able to tell that I'm married because I am wearing my ring. You see, the ring as a device only doesn't convey the meaning. It needs to be tied to my choice of wearing the ring. The same is true in rhetorical analysis. The word choice and anecdotal evidence, parallel structure and mocking attitude don't convey the meanings by themselves. Douglas has to do something with them all. So, let's see how we can reword the thesis here. Let's start with the word choice and anecdotal evidence part of the thesis. Here's a lesson that will save your life someday. Never rely on the phrase word choice or the word diction as a rhetorical device in any of your essays. I'm going to throw up. If you do this, you'll honestly sound so so stupid. I mean, honestly, when you say something like the author uses word choice or the author uses diction, you are actually just telling someone that the author uses words. Thank you, Captain. Obvious. If you insist on using the word diction or the phrase word choice in your essay, please preede it with a strong verb and an accurate adjective and adverb. Let's imagine that you are reading something and all the words were critical in nature. Well, then say that the author consistently incorporates demeaning diction or the author consistently includes demeaning language. But please don't make me beg here. Don't just say word choice or diction. Either really sucks. I suck. Now, in the case of our practice thesis though, we are going to transform the first attempt at identifying a rhetorical choice, which is how Douglas uses word choice along with anecdotal evidence. And we're going to change the verb uses to narrate because narrating is telling a story. And anecdotes are short stories that exemplify a point. So, our thesis for our essay is going to begin to read like this. Within the speech, Douglas narrates a story of religious prejudice. Notice how I changed the word anecdotes, too. I made it more precise by calling it a story of religious prejudice. By doing so, I'm showing how precisely I can both read and write. But now, we need to deal with the parallel structure that shows up right after this first device in the thesis. Well, to change this, we need to think about what parallel structure is. Parallel structure or parallelism, which it can also be called, is when sentences that are close to one another are structured the same way. Words and phrases can also be in parallel structure, but that's a different story for a different time. In the case of Douglas's speech, in the essay that I'm revising, the student author wanted to specify parts of sentences from the sixth paragraph that focus on Douglas's repeated accusations about what a group of folks he refers to as they do. And this word they is meant to create an exclusionary us versus verse them dynamic. I'm going to put the text from paragraph 6 from this speech right on the screen here so you can see exactly where I'm referring to in the reading itself. [Music] To transform this device of parallel structure into a choice rather than saying uses parallel structure, it would be best to transform that into the verb repeats because that's what parallel structure does. It repeats word and sentence patterns. So, as I revise my thesis, it will now continue to read like this. Within the speech, Douglas narrates a story of religious prejudice, repeats exclusionary phrases, and now we move to the last part of the thesis that discusses how Douglas uses a mocking attitude. But rather than keeping this device inactive, we need a verb that will incorporate this mocking attitude. And I can't think of a better one than the word parodies. Now, if you don't know what this means, it actually means to mock something. So, it fits perfectly. Also, the word mocks could even be appropriate to incorporate here as well, but I'm going to use the word parodies because it's more sophisticated. And in the piece, he parodies some of the preachers of the time. So, you know that thesis that the author originally couldn't write? Well, within the speech, Douglas narrates a story of religious prejudice, repeats exclusionary phrases, and parodies some of the preachers of the time in order to emphasize the hypocrisy of those propping up religion as an ethical front for the dehumanizing act of slavery. Pretty pretty good. Now, you may have noticed I added a little more flare to the part of the thesis following the phrase in order to. And I did so because I wanted to get the word utilize out of that part of the sentence as well. It's really not a good verb. I also wanted to make my thesis as precise as possible because good writing is precise writing and precision thesis statements with strong choices make for papers that are beautifully gorgeous. I mean, honestly, this thesis is absolutely excellent and anyone who can write about choices like this will. Now, if you want to access a bunch of different templates to write strong thesis statements for any rhetorical analysis essay, you could check out my video that looks like this. In fact, that video and others that can help you own any rhetorical analysis essay ever will all pop up on your screen right about now because we are done. [Music] No time