speech for rhetorical analysis

My Favorite Speeches for Rhetorical Analysis: 10 Speeches for Middle School ELA and High School English

Teaching rhetorical analysis is one of my absolute favorite units to complete with my students. I love teaching my students about rhetorical strategies and devices, analyzing what makes an effective and persuasive argument, and reading critical speeches with my students. Here is a quick list of some of my favorite speeches for rhetorical analysis. This post may contain affiliate links.

I absolutely LOVE teaching rhetorical analysis. I think it might be one of my favorite units to teach to my high school students. There are just so many different text options to choose from. Here is a list of some of my favorite speeches to include in my rhetorical analysis teaching unit.

10 Speeches for Teaching Rhetorical Analysis

1. the gettysburg address (abraham lincoln).

Some notable things to mention in this speech include allusion and parallel structure. To make your analysis more meaningful, point out these devices to students and explain how these devices enhance the meaning of the text.

Teaching Resource : The Gettysburg Address Rhetorical Analysis Activity Packet

2. Lou Gehrig’s Farewell Speech (Lou Gehrig)

This speech is one that many of my athletes love to analyze, and it is an excellent exemplar text to teach pathos. And like The Gettysburg Address, it is short. This is another speech that you can read, analyze, and even write about in one class period.

When I use this speech in my class, I have students look for examples of pathos. Mainly, I have them look at word choice, tone, and mood. How does Lou Gehrig’s choice of words affect his tone and the overall mood of the speech?

3. I Have a Dream (Martin Luther King,  Jr.)

In the classroom, it is important to point out the sermonic feel to the speech and also to have your students look for calls to action and pathos. Have your students look for tone, allusions, and word choice to help them notice these rhetoric expressions throughout it.

Teaching Resource : I Have a Dream Close Read and Rhetorical Analysis

4. Speech at the March on Washington (Josephine Baker)

This is another important speech that held a lot of importance for the changes that needed to be made in America. The speech is a shorter one, so in the classroom, it will not take as long to analyze it, and students can understand the significance of the use of rhetoric in a shorter amount of time than some other speeches.

When teaching this speech, I like to remind my students to search for devices that portray an excellent example of the pathos that is so present in this speech. Some of these devices could be mood, repetition, and diction.

5. Steve Jobs’ Commencement Speech (Steve Jobs)

In class, it is good to have your students annotate and analyze the speech just as they have done for the others. The organization of the speech will help them to notice the similarities and differences between each point Jobs makes.

6. Space Shuttle Challenger (Ronald Reagan)

This speech represents a strong sense of pathos as a movement to help the American people cope with loss after the deaths of the astronauts aboard the Challenger. It is another speech that is not too long, so it should not take a long time to both analyze and annotate the entire speech.

When teaching this speech in class, be sure to mention how pathos is the driving force behind the speech, through the tone and the diction. How does Reagan use emotion to focus on the astronauts as humans, rather than solely focusing on the tragedy?

7. The Perils of Indifference (Elie Wiesel)

This speech is a good one to teach because it both makes students question their own lives, but also how the world works. The speech relies on pathos, and a little ethos too, to get the audience to feel the full effect of the tragedy of the Holocaust and what the speaker went through. It is a long speech so it may take longer for the students to fully grasp all the details that make it such a persuasive speech.

When I teach this speech, I like to have students annotate every place they notice an example of pathos, and then have them explain why in their annotations this makes them feel an emotion. The same with the ethos, and then we can further analyze the rest together.

8. 9/11 Address to the Nation (George W. Bush)

This speech shows another example of the use of pathos in the midst of a tragedy. The President wanted to show the American people how much he was feeling for those lost in the tragedy of 9/11. It is not a long speech, but the amount of emotion within the words is significant for students to notice.

When teaching this speech, it is essential that students look very closely at each part of it, noticing each piece that reveals tone, mood, and other literary devices. How do the different devices add to the pathos of the speech?

FREE TEACHING ACTIVITY : September 11 Address to the Nation Sampler

Teaching Resource : September 11 Address to the Nation Rhetorical Analysis Unit

9. We are Virginia Tech (Nikki Giovanni)

This speech is probably the shortest speech on this list but provides one of the most emotional and pathos-filled rhetoric. This describes another tragedy that is spoken about with pathos to give the audience a safe feeling after such an emotional thing. Students can spend time analyzing the different devices that make the piece so strong in its emotion.

In the classroom, make sure your students make a note of the repetition, and what that does for the speech. Does it make the emotion more impactful? How does it make the audience feel like they are a part of something bigger?

10. Woman’s Right to the Suffrage (Susan B. Anthony)

This is another short speech that holds a lot of power within it. A lot of students will enjoy reading this to see how much the country has changed, and how this speech may have some part in influencing this change. It is a great speech to help teach logos in the classroom, and it will not take a long time to analyze.

Make sure your students notice, and they also understand, the use of allusions within the speech. These allusions help to establish the use of logos, as Anthony wants the use of American historical documents to show how logical her argument is.

Ready-For-You Rhetorical Analysis Teaching Unit

You might also be interested in my blog post about 15 rhetorical analysis questions to ask your students.

Teaching rhetorical analysis and speeches in the classroom is a great way to teach informational text reading standards.

Rhetorical Analysis Teaching Resources:

These resources follow reading standards for informational text and are ideal for secondary ELA teachers.

• Rhetorical Analysis Unit with Sticky Notes
• Ethos, Pathos, Logos: Understanding Rhetorical Appeals\
• Rhetorical Analysis Mini Flip Book

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7 Powerful Speeches for Teaching Rhetorical Analysis in ELA

• Reading Instruction

Our state assessment always features a famous speech, so it’s essential to prepare students for rhetorical analysis. Beyond the state assessment, rhetorical analysis helps students understand the constant barrage of persuasive media they encounter each day. With the right skills, students can assess sponsored content, commercials, and advertisements with a critical and wary eye.

For this reason, I’ve put together a list of favorite speeches for teaching rhetorical analysis!

This post this post may contain affiliate links .  Please read the  Terms of Use .

Getting Started with Rhetorical Analysis

Before I take students too far into rhetorical analysis, I like to brush up on rhetorical appeals with this quick card sort .

Then, before we dig into a complex text, we practice identify rhetoric in a less stressful piece. To take some of the stress out of rhetorical analysis, I will often start with a video.

• First, “ The Danger of a Single Story ” is my favorite TedTalk ever! I even wrote an entire blog post about it, so there is no better place to start with rhetorical analysis!
• “ Why city flags may be the worst thing you’ve never noticed ” is a less obvious choice. However, this is a fun TedTalk that appeals to a variety of learners. Plus, I’ve designed some creative extension activities so students can practice a variety of skills.
• I also love Antony’s funeral speech from Julius Caesar . Reading this text and listening to an actor’s performance is a great way to consider tone in conjunction with rhetoric. Grab my free resource for Antony’s funeral speech !
• Finally, “ Credo ” by Neil Gaiman is such a powerful essay! Written in response to a terrorist attack, this text is shorter than the others but packs an incredible punch. Watch Gaiman perform the piece here .

Leveling Up with Rhetorical Analysis

As students become more comfortable with rhetorical analysis, we move into more complex texts. However, by this point, students are comfortable with these 4 steps to pre-read any nonfiction text . With these strategies, students have the tools to tackle any text.

• First, JFK’s Inaugural Address is a classic speech. Oftentimes students are familiar with his challenge to listeners, so this is a good opening. Plus, this speech is short enough that students can work through it in one or two class periods. Students can listen to it here .
• Similarly, students are usually familiar with Patrick Henry’s call to “give me liberty or give me death,” so his Speech to the Virginia Convention is a fitting text for rhetorical analysis. In particular, this is a great text for teaching restatement.
• Finally, students have often heard of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense , so The Crisis is a good complement to Henry’s work. As a bonus, this is a good piece for analyzing aphorism as a rhetorical tool.

More Complex Texts for Rhetorical Analysis

As our study of rhetorical analysis progresses, students become ready for more challenging texts. To help students attack these texts, we may use these rhetoric task cards or this editable SOAPSTone graphic organizer .

• To my mind, “ Sinners in the Hands of an Angry Go d” is a classic speech for rhetorical analysis. No two students ever have the same reaction to this text, so it’s always a memorable lesson!
• Additionally, FDR’s Four Freedoms Speech is a complex piece for rhetorical analysis. One of the challenges of this speech is its historical context. Its length is also another factor. Nevertheless, it’s a speech that continues to resonate with students.

Bonus Recommendations

While these two recommendations are not technically speeches, they still make for great rhetorical analysis.

• First, “ Privileged ” by Kyle Korver engages students because they love basketball. They don’t expect the speech to lend itself to such powerful rhetorical analysis!
• Second, “ Words and Behavior ” by Aldous Huxley is an incredibly dense essay. However, Huxley manages to criticize the use of rhetoric while also using rhetoric. By this token, this text pairs nicely with every other text on this list.

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20 Speeches and Text for Introducing SPACE CAT and Rhetorical Analysis

When it comes to introducing rhetorical analysis for the first time, choosing texts can feel like an intimidating task. But before you get bogged down with which text to pick, let’s talk through a few initial steps to help ensure your success.

TIP #1: Begin with a Framework

When I first was told to “teach rhetoric”, I had virtually no training or support. I resorted to what I knew from my undergrad: an overview powerpoint about ethos, pathos, and logos. This is exactly the path that I would actively AVOID if at all possible (I’ve written about that more here), and instead begin by introducing students to the framework that you’ll use in order to do the work of analysis. For me, I’ve found SPACE CAT to be my favorite ( BTW, I also do this with poetry using The Big 6 ).

TIP #2: SKIP ETHOS, PATHOS, LOGOS IN YOUR INTRO

Okay — hear me out. I’m not saying don’t teach ethos, pathos, or logos. I’m saying don’t use that as an INTRODUCTION to rhetoric.

Here’s why:

Whatever the first thing is that students learn is going to be the thing that they think is the most important. And to be perfectly honest — the appeals alone are NOT the most important part of rhetorical analysis.

So what to do instead? Introduce the RHETORICAL TRIANGLE.

The Rhetorical Triangle sets students up to see the ways in which an argument moves from one person to another. It centers students on their role as analysts and the need to be inside of the argument - not outside attacking it with a highlighter.

For two more in-depth discussions and lesson examples on the rhetorical triangle, start here:

“Be Our Guest” from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast

“ Mother Knows Best” from Disney’s Tangled

TIP #3: TEACH ON REPEAT

If you’ve not started “template teaching” let me encourage you to make this the day that you start. As you browse through the list below, try to think of these texts as opportunities to teach and reteach the same skills over and over — not a daunting list of individual lesson plans.

Begin by introducing the rhetorical triangle and situation using either of the two lessons listed above. During those lessons, introduce students to the rhetorical triangle graphic organizer template and help them become well acquainted. This graphic organizer will be the TEMPLATE to print and repeat for every lesson hereafter.

Once students are ready to move to more challenging texts, start movin’. What’s the lesson? It’s all baked in to your graphic organizer template. Using just that one handout, students can do a huge variety of tasks all with varying levels of challenge and independence. Here are a few ideas:

In small groups, bullet point details about the speaker. SHUFFLE GROUPS, and in the new group, bullet point details about the audience, SHUFFLE GROUPS, and in the new group bullet point details about the context. Repeat as needed for each element of SPACE.

Read/watch the text together. Complete S - P - A together and assign C - E to work on in pairs

Put students in small groups. Designate areas/tables around your room as S, P, A, C, and E. Have students move through each station with their group and their handout to analyze the text.

Have students choose any text from a provided list and complete the graphic organizer independently for homework / individual work

This template allows you to flex the details of your lesson without having to prep brand new handouts for every single new text!

THE LIST YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR: THE BEST TEXTS FOR INTRODUCING SPACE CAT

This list comes both from personal experience and teacher recommendations. If you have experience or more ideas, please feel free to add them to the comments at the end of this post!

“The Other Side” from The Greatest Showman

Battle speeches from Queen Magra and Baba Voss from the Apple TV Series See

“Be Prepared” from Disney’s The Lion King

“ I’ll Make a Man Out of You” from Disney’s Mulan

“Under the Sea” from Disney’s The Little Mermaid

“How to Mark a Book” by Mortimer Adler

“Farewell to Baseball” Lou Gherig

Challenger Speech from Ronald Reagan (and grab my close reading template for this speech here )

9/11 Address from George W. Bush

“Offensive Play” by Malcolm Gladwell

Op Ed: Deb Haaland

Op Ed: Brittney Griner

Opinion: 4- Pound Fur Ball of Destruction

Colin Kaepernick Nike Commercial

Verna Meyers: How to overcome our biases?

Food Label Fear Mongering

Back to School Commercials

Amazon Back to School

Back to School - Back to Walmart

Superheroes

What would you add to this list? I’d love to hear it in the comments below!

Happy teaching!

RHETORICAL ANALYSIS RESOURCES

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Writing Center

Rhetorical analysis, artistic and inartistic proofs, building analysis by prewriting, thesis, body, and conclusion, also recommended for you:.

Rhetorical Analyses

A rhetorical analysis considers all elements of the rhetorical situation--the audience, purpose, medium, and context--within which a communication was generated and delivered in order to make an argument about that communication. A strong rhetorical analysis will not only describe and analyze the text, but will also evaluate it; that evaluation represents your argument.

• Description: What does this text look like? Where did you find the text? Who sponsored it? What are the rhetorical appeals? (i.e. calm music in the background of a commercial establishes pathos) When was it written?
• Analysis: Why does the author incorporate these rhetorical appeals? (For example, why does the author incorporate calm music? What is the point of the pathos?) How would the reception of this text change if it were written today, as opposed to twenty years ago? What is left out of this text and why? Should there be more logos in the ad? Why?
• Evaluation: Is the text effective? Is the text ethical? What might you change about this text to make it more persuasive?

Rhetoric Defined

• Classically, "the art of persuasion".
• "About using language purposefully, in order to get something done in the world" ("What is Rhetoric").
• "Something that allows you to formulate ethical reading strategies [...] but also to invent your own responses to the world" ("What is Rhetoric").

Keywords and Concepts

Following are some basic terms and concepts (far from inclusive) that you should consider and use in a rhetorical analysis.

Rhetorical Situation

The rhetorical situation identifies the relationship among the elements of any communication--audience, author (rhetor), purpose, medium, context, and content.

Spectator, listeners, and/or readers of a performance, a speech, a reading, or printed material. Depending on the author's/writer's perception, an audience may be real (actually listening or reading), invoked (those to whom the writer explicitly writes) or imagined(those who the writer believes will read/hear her work) (Dept. of English)

Author/Rhetor/Speaker/Writer

The person or group of people who composed the text.

Purpose of the Author

The reason for communicating; the expected or intended outcome.

The delivery method, which varies by type of text:

• Alphabetic Text (for example, written speech, newspaper editorial, essay, passage out of a novel, poetry)
• Images (for example, TV commercials, advertisements in magazines or on websites)
• Sound (for example, radio or TV commercials, a website advertisement, speeches)
• Multimodal texts (YouTube videos, performances, digital stories)

The time, place, public conversations surrounding the text during its original generation and delivery; the text may also be analyzed within a different context such as how an historical text would be received by its audience today.

The main idea, thesis, opinion, or belief of an argument that the author must prove. The claim should be debatable and answer the question, "What's the point?"

The statements given to back up the claim. These can take the form of facts, data, personal experience, expert opinion, evidence from other texts or sources, emotional appeals, or other means. The more reliable and comprehensive the support, the more likely the audience is to accept the claim.

The connection, often unstated and assumed, between the claim and the supporting reason(s), or support. The warrant is the assumption that makes the claim seem plausible. More specifically, warrants are the beliefs, values, inferences and/or experiences that the writers/speakers assume they share with the audience. If the audience doesn't share the writers'/speakers' assumptions within the text, the argument will not be effective.

Rhetorical Triangle

The elements of the rhetorical situation interact with and influence one another. In learning to write an analysis, it is thus helpful to think about the relationship among these elements within the rhetorical triangle. By doing this, writers will be able to better understand how the elements of each text come together (often overlap) to make an argument or persuade an audience.

The authority or credibility of the author. Can refer to any of the following: the actual character of the speaker/writer, the character of the writer as it is presented in a text, or as a series of ground rules/customs, which are negotiated between speaker, audience, and specific traditions or locations. The speaker must convince the audience of their credibility through the language they use and through the delivery, or embodied performance, of their speech.

Did you analyze ethos enough in your essay?

• Have you looked at what experiences or claims to authority qualify this author to speak or write?
• Have you considered the credibility and moral character of the writer/speaker?
• Have you considered the design or appearance of the text you are analyzing? Does it look professional? What can you say about the author based on the appearance of the text alone?

Emotional appeals to the audience to evoke feelings of pity, sympathy, tenderness, or sorrow. The speaker may also want the audience to feel anger, fear, courage, love, happiness, sadness, etc.

Have you analyzed pathos enough in your essay?

• Have you considered how the author appeals to the emotions of the reader/viewer?
• How does the author establish a bond with his audience?
• How might the author change his strategy if he was trying to establish a bond with a different audience?
• Have you considered your own personal reaction to the background music of this advertisement?
• What kinds of feelings do the colors that the author uses provoke?
• What other images in the text provoke an emotional response? Why would the author include these images?

In classical rhetoric, logos is the means of persuasion by demonstration of the truth, real or apparent, the reasons or supporting information used to support a claim, the use of logic or reason to make an argument. Logos can include citing facts and statistics, historical events, and other forms of fact based evidence.

Do you analyze logos enough in your essay?

• How does the author back up his argument in this text? Does he incorporate facts, statistics, or numbers?
• Have you considered how logical the author's argument is?
• Are the claims this author is making realistic?
• Does the author consider alternative arguments?

The right time to speak or write; advantageous, exact, or critical time; a window of time during which action is most effective. (Ex. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a dream speech was delivered at the right moment in history—in the heat of civil rights debates.)

Literally, stasis is "a stand" or a "resting place" in an argument where opponents agree on what the issue is but disagree on what to do about it. The skilled rhetor is able to move the argument away from stasis. (Ex. Rhetor A asserts that abortion is murder. Rhetor B asserts that abortion is not murder. This is the point of stasis. The argument cannot rest here indefinitely. One of these rhetors must get the argument beyond the issue of murder.)

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How to Create a Compelling Rhetorical Analysis Essay Outline

Jim Peterson has over 20 years experience on speech writing. He wrote over 300 free speech topic ideas and how-to guides for any kind of public speaking and speech writing assignments at My Speech Class.

Do you need to write a rhetorical analysis essay outline? Even the word is quite a mouthful, and it can seem far more intimidating than it really is, especially if you’re new to the style. That’s why we’ve put together this super helpful guide to the rhetorical essay format and everything you need to know to get the job done.

In this article:

What is a Rhetorical Analysis Essay?

How long should my rhetorical analysis essay be, rhetorical appeals, analysis and evaluation, thesis statement, prepare to write:, rhetorical analysis introduction, ethos, pathos, logos, rhetorical analysis essay strategies.

Before we look at the rhetorical analysis format, let’s answer a fundamental question – what is a rhetorical analysis essay, anyway? Rhetorical analysis essays take another person’s work of nonfiction (usually, sometimes fiction is allowed) and dig deep into how the message was presented and why. They can be about anything – from books to magazine articles, famous speeches, and even TV commercials and videos. It’s all about looking deeply into how the media created its message and whether it’s effective at delivering it.

Why learn how to write a rhetorical analysis essay? It’s essential to know how people deliver a message. Think of marketing. Successful marketers don’t just make things up and hope for the best! They review what their successful competition is doing and figure out how to leverage it for their brand. This includes creating the right effect with the message, using power words that will drive their campaign, and so on – all skills you will learn while creating the outline for your rhetorical analysis essay.

As you can see, it’s an important critical skill to develop, and your rhetorical analysis essay will help you learn a lot about how humans respond to what we consume as well.

There is no strict rule about how long a rhetorical analysis essay should be, unless you have been given a target word length by your school or professor. You will, however, need to include key parts in your rhetorical analysis-conclusion, opening paragraph, thesis statement, and enough body sections to adequately make your analysis and argument. Our rhetorical analysis thesis outline will assist with this.

How to Write a Rhetorical Analysis Essay?

We will look at the rhetorical analysis essay outline in more detail below. First, however, it’s important to identify the steps you will take in writing your essay, to make sure it is insightful and clear to the reader. How do you analyze your source material?

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You will start by noting the overall rhetorical elements used. Here are four key elements:

• Purpose : Why did the speaker or author create this piece? What were they hoping to achieve or convince people of?
• Audience : Who was the piece directed at? What are their backgrounds and demographics? What unites them as an audience?
• Context : No piece is an island. What was/is happening around the work you are analyzing? What was the social climate, place, and time when it was written? What was happening around it?
• Medium : How is the message being delivered to us? Why would this be the best way to express the thought?

With that framework in mind, now move on to the rhetorical appeals and devices the author uses. This includes ethos, pathos, and logos, which we’ve looked at in detail in the next section. Also, consider how they are evoked – the imagery used, the tone taken, the syntax offered, and so on.

Of course, the point here is an analysis of the content you’ve chosen. So now it’s time to dig deep into how they used these methods and why they selected them. Were they successful or not? Why? Why not? If it wasn’t a successful attempt, what do you think the audience actually felt? At this point, you are building the ‘meat’ of your actual rhetorical analysis essay, so spend a lot of time with this. Remember, your evaluation is your main argument!

We revisit this a little later, but it’s worth adding here, too. Try to take these overall ideas and refine them into a straightforward thesis statement. This will help you build a strong foundation for your essay. This statement must demonstrate:

• The purpose the content creator had for the content
• The methods they used
• How effective they were

And contain the very core of your argument, which the rest of the essay develops further. It could look something like this:

In (content piece), the author compellingly demonstrates how removing access to some forms of public transport adversely affected vulnerable community members. They presented factual data, alongside personal experience and anecdotes that spoke to the problem’s root.

With that core element of your essay nailed down, you can begin to organize the thoughts, ideas, and evidence you’ve unearthed so far into your outline. Let’s take a closer look at it.

Rhetorical Analysis Essay Outline

So, what goes into the outline of a rhetorical analysis essay? It’s worth spending some time creating a rhetorical analysis essay/thesis outline for your work, even if it seems like wasted time. With a streamlined, sensible process in place, and a solid framework to work within, it will be much easier to organize the flow of your thoughts. So it’s time to create your rhetorical analysis outline.

As you go, think about the work you’re analyzing. Focus on aspects like the creator, their intention and message, the setting, and other vital details. Not only will this help you easily create the rhetorical analysis outline, but it will also do a lot of the work.

How to start a rhetorical analysis is one of the most asked questions by students – and with good reason. The introduction needs to achieve many things. You will be telling the reader about what you’re analyzing, whether it achieved its goals, and hooking the reader to keep reading along with you. This means it has to be one of the strongest parts of your essay.

Open on something interesting to pull people into your writing, known as a hook . Then introduce the author and work you are examining. There is no need for deep detail as that’s for the body but enough to grasp the subject. Explain whether or not you think they were successful with their message and why you decided on that judgment.

Here at the end of the introduction is also where your thesis statement will reside. A strong thesis statement is critical to a rhetorical analysis essay. In many ways, it is the lynchpin of the whole essay. Think of it as a quick guide to the entire argument you will be making.

It should be one or two sentences long, very clear and concise, and carry the intent of informing what the reader will get from your paper. You will outline the tools you are using to analyze the source material. Three of these are most typical for rhetorical analysis essays:

• Diction : How the author uses words and styles
• Imagery : The visually descriptive language they use
• Simile : Direct ‘like’ and ‘as’ comparisons between items.

The Body of your rhetorical outline is the most changeable part of the rhetorical analysis essay template. You can make a convincing argument in as little as 500 words . Or you may need more space. Don’t confuse being wordy with being ‘smart’ or ‘effective’- try to use as few words as you need to be concise and clear.

Here is where you will do the bulk of your analysis. Look at how the author used their tools to drive the purpose of the text.

While you can use any number of paragraphs, we suggest at least 3. Each should open with a topic sentence that links it to your thesis statement, proving and fortifying it. Add a relevant quote from the original text that helps demonstrate your point. Then use the rest of the text for your analysis. This should be at least three times longer than the quoted text. Quotes and findings that support your point will be used throughout.

These are the three classic rhetorical appeals that you should use to help you analyze the text. Use them throughout the body.

• Ethos : How the author establishes themselves as reliable and trustworthy with their tone or credentials.
• Pathos : ‘Tugging on your feelings.’ This is how an appeal to the reader’s emotions is made through emotive language or touching stories.
• Logos : This is the root word for Logic, which should give you a hint. How does the author develop their ideas logically? Do they reach sensible conclusions?

Once you’ve established your argument and developed it through the body, you will round off with a paragraph as a conclusion. It’s the most forgotten part of the rhetorical analysis essay format, so keep it in mind! You need to reiterate your main argument to emphasize your point concisely. Give a quick overview of the pros and cons in the text, and restate whether you feel they were effective.

And there you have it! This is the basic rhetorical analysis template that can be adapted to a wide range of essays.

Now you have a rhetorical analysis essay outline/template to follow, but the hard work doesn’t stop there. Throughout your essay, you need to demonstrate strong use of rhetorical analysis strategies to examine the essay contents. This helps you persuade your audience and develop your argument. There are many different strategies, but these are the most commonly used:

• Description : This is the most straightforward strategy, merely telling your reader something through the direct description. What is it? What is it not? This helps them understand what a specific term means as you use it.
• Cause and effect : The key part of this strategy is the cause. The effect is what happened because of that cause. In this way, you join the present (effect) to the past (cause), or the present (cause) to future action (effect).
• Process Analysis : How was something achieved? This is a strategy that’s good for history-focused essays, as it shows how something was achieved in the past but can be used for any topic. For example, this article is a process analysis! You also find process analysis used to explore topics from simple descriptions of how to do tasks, to complex advice like processing grief.
• Exemplification : This is another commonly used strategy. You give examples to illustrate your overall point. Every time you analyze a quote, you’re using this. However, make sure that there is a transparent and explainable relationship between your quote and the point you’re making.
• Compare and Contrast : What is similar and different? This is a strong strategy used often in arguments, speeches, and reports, which is useful for rhetorical analysis.
• Narration : Narration takes the reader on a journey through storytelling, which is why it’s an essential rhetorical strategy. We use life experience and personal stories to make our points.

Analyzing rhetoric is how we evaluate and understand what other creators have made. We also arrive at better ways to make our arguments more efficient through such analysis. That’s why it’s worth exploring all of these rhetorical analysis strategies and how they can be applied to your topic even if you discard some for your practical purposes. 

Don’t just mechanically approach your topic. That way, you just hear what they say. Instead, pay attention to how they say it, using these strategies. This will help you develop your critical thinking, one of the most important things you will ever do. This is your toolkit that will help you evaluate media critically, a skill that will help you throughout your life.

And there you have it! You have learned how to write a rhetorical analysis essay, from choosing your topics to developing a coherent argument in a logical outline. We’ve even looked at some key tips and strategies for your rhetorical analysis essay, too. With this outline and these tools in your kit, you will be able to take your conclusions and express them to the reader logically. Now it’s up to you to practice those skills!

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Rhetorical Analysis

A rhetorical analysis asks you to explain how writers or speakers within specific social situations attempt to influence others through discourse (including written or spoken language, images, gestures, and so on). A rhetorical analysis is not a summary. It also does not ask you to agree or disagree with the author’s argument. Instead, the purpose of a rhetorical analysis is to make an argument about how an author conveys their message to a particular audience: you’re exploring the author’s goals, describing the techniques or tools used and providing examples of those techniques, and analyzing the effectiveness of those techniques.

To write a rhetorical analysis, you’ll first break down the rhetorical situation and analyze the author’s rhetorical strategies.

Rhetorical Situation

The rhetorical situation is the communicative context of a text, which includes:

Audience : The specific or intended audience of a text.

Author/speaker/writer : The person or group of people who composed the text.

Purpose : To inform, persuade, entertain; what the author wants the audience to believe, know, feel, or do.

Exigence : The text’s reason for being, such as an event, situation, or position within an ongoing debate that the writer is responding to.

Message : The content of the text, the key point(s) the author is communicating to the audience.

Medium and genre : The delivery method, which includes broadly and narrowly defined categories of communication such as:

• Alphabetic text (newspaper editorials, peer-reviewed academic articles, magazine feature essays),
• Images (advertisements, photographs),
• Sound (speeches, radio commercials, songs),
• Multimodal texts (YouTube videos, performances, graphic novels).

Rhetorical Strategies

After breaking down the rhetorical situation, you need to analyze how the author uses rhetorical techniques to convey the message. As you analyze the text, consider:

• How effectively does the author use the ethos appeal to accomplish their intended purpose? In other words, how does the author convince the audience of their credibility, authority, or trustworthiness? What qualifications do they have to address this topic? How does the author demonstrate shared values with the audience?
• How effectively does the author use the pathos appeal to accomplish their intended purpose? In other words, how does the author evoke emotions of pity, sympathy, anger, courage, happiness, sorrow, etc. in the audience? How does the author establish a bond with the audience? What kinds of images, colors, words, sounds does the author use to evoke these feelings?
• How effectively does the author use the logos appeal to accomplish their intended purpose? What evidence and types of reasoning does the author use? How does the author arrange their ideas or order their main points? Does the author use repetition, inductive logic, or deductive logic? Does the author refer to precedents? Address alternative arguments or viewpoints?

Writing a Thesis for Your Rhetorical Analysis

After you’ve analyzed the rhetorical situation and rhetorical strategies, you’ll need to create a thesis for your rhetorical analysis. Often, the thesis statement will assess the author’s effectiveness in accomplishing their purpose with the intended audience through the use of rhetorical strategies.

You might adapt a template like this one: “In [text], [author] effectively convinces [audience] of [message] by [rhetorical strategies].”

Here’s an example: The webpage “Rhetorical Analysis,” written by the Writers Workshop, effectively informs students about how to write a rhetorical analysis by breaking down the elements of the rhetorical situation in an easy-to-read list, posing a series of questions about rhetorical strategies, and capitalizing on the Workshop’s ethos as the campus writing center.

Related Links

Understanding Assignments

Reading Scholarly Sources

Integrating Sources

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