AP English Language · Lesson 2

Rhetorical analysis: choices and purpose

Know Know it

The rhetorical analysis essay asks how a nonfiction writer’s choices help the text do its job for its audience. You are not judging whether the writer is right. You are explaining how the writing works.

Start with the rhetorical situation: the speaker, the audience, the purpose, the occasion and the exigence that prompted the text. A choice only makes sense against that situation: humble language may suit a speaker asking a favor better than one demanding action.

A strong thesis names the writer’s purpose and the main choices that serve it. Then each body paragraph takes one choice (or one part of the text), quotes it, and explains its effect on the audience and how that effect serves the purpose.

Use analytic verbs: the writer concedes, contrasts, invokes, understates, reframes. They push you past “the writer says” toward what the writer is doing.

Summary sentences and analysis sentences about a fictional coach’s speech
Summary (retells)Analysis (explains the effect)
The coach talks about last year’s loss.By reopening last year’s loss, the coach turns old embarrassment into a reason to work harder now.
The coach uses a metaphor about a mountain.Calling the season a mountain prepares players for a long, slow climb, so early losses won’t discourage them.
The coach ends by thanking the parents.Thanking the parents last brings families into the effort, so the players hear support from the stands as well.

Trap The device hunt

Listing every device you can find (a metaphor here, a statistic there) in the order they appear produces a tour, not an analysis. Pick the few choices that matter most for the purpose, and spend your words on their effect.

Don’t argue with the writer. A sentence such as “She is right that the town needs volunteers” belongs in an argument essay, not in this one.

Worked example Easy

A fictional mayor speaks to residents after a flood to ask them to support a new levee. Which thesis is best for a rhetorical analysis essay about the speech?

  1. The mayor is right that the town needs a levee, because floods like this one will only become more common in the coming years.
  2. The mayor uses imagery, statistics, repetition, a rhetorical question and a personal story in her speech to the residents of the town.
  3. The mayor pairs vivid memories of the flood with plain numbers so that frightened residents see the levee as necessary and affordable.Answer
  4. The mayor gave a speech to the town after the flood in which she talked about why the town should build a new levee.

How to solve it

  1. A rhetorical analysis thesis needs the writer’s purpose and the choices that serve it.
  2. Rule out the thesis that argues, the one that only lists devices, and the one that only summarizes.

Why each choice is right or wrong

  • A. Incorrect. This thesis argues about the levee itself instead of analyzing how the speech persuades.
  • B. Incorrect. This lists devices with no purpose or effect, so it sets up a device hunt rather than an analysis.
  • C. Correct. This thesis names the purpose (winning support for the levee), the audience (frightened residents) and two choices that serve it.
  • D. Incorrect. This only retells that the mayor gave a speech and talked about the levee; it names no choice and no effect.

Explain Explain it

Task verbs: analyze, explain

Each analysis sentence should answer three questions: what the writer does (quote it), what that makes this audience think or feel, and how that helps the purpose. If your sentence would still be true of any speech, it is too general: tie it to this audience and this occasion.

Worked example Medium

The following is from an original speech, written for Peakscor practice; the speaker and the town are fictional. Dana Whitlock, chief of the Brannock volunteer fire department, gave it at a town meeting.

Most of you have never seen the inside of our station. That is how it should be: we are the people you hope never to need. But last March, when the Riley barn caught fire at two in the morning, eleven of us answered the call. Eleven, for a town of four thousand. We are a teacher, two farmers, a pharmacist, a retired mail carrier. We are not heroes. We are your neighbors, and there are not enough of us. I am not asking you to run into a burning building on your first night. I am asking you to come see the station on Thursday.

Which sentence best analyzes Whitlock’s choice to list the volunteers’ jobs?

  1. By naming ordinary jobs, Whitlock shows her audience that volunteers are people like them, so joining feels possible.Answer
  2. Whitlock lists the jobs that the volunteers hold: a teacher, two farmers, a pharmacist and a retired mail carrier, in that order.
  3. Whitlock uses a list of jobs, which is a common rhetorical device in many kinds of speeches given at public events.
  4. Whitlock lists the volunteers’ jobs to persuade the town to hire paid firefighters to replace them.

How to solve it

  1. The audience is residents who have never been inside the station.
  2. Ordinary jobs tell them volunteers are people like themselves.
  3. That serves the purpose: getting residents to volunteer.

Why each choice is right or wrong

  • A. Correct. The sentence names the choice, explains its effect on this audience (they see themselves in the list) and ties it to the purpose (recruiting).
  • B. Incorrect. This retells the list without saying what it does for the audience, so it is summary.
  • C. Incorrect. This names the device but explains no effect on this audience or this purpose.
  • D. Incorrect. Whitlock asks residents to come see the station, not to hire paid firefighters, so this misreads her purpose.

Analyze Your turn

The following is from an original speech, written for Peakscor practice; the speaker is fictional. Asking neighbors to sign up for plots in a new community garden, a retired teacher says: “Last summer I grew forty pounds of tomatoes in a plot the size of a dining table. I gave most of them away. This year, I would rather teach you to grow your own.” Name one choice the speaker makes, and say what it makes the neighbors think or feel about joining the garden.

Write it, then compare. Nothing you type here is saved or graded.

Compare with a model answer

A full answer does this

  • Identifies a specific choice in the speaker’s words
  • States a thought or feeling about joining the garden that the named choice gives the neighbors

Model answer

The speaker compares the garden plot to something every neighbor knows: it was only “the size of a dining table.” That homely comparison makes neighbors feel that a plot this small is something they could manage too, so joining the garden seems within their reach.

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