Rhetoric for AP Lang training Format of AP Language Exam: 3 hrs, 15 minutes Section 1: MC (55 minutes) counts for 45% of your total score Section 2: Three essays: 1. Analysis of a passage 2. Argumentative essay (this will support, refute, or qualify a provided statement) 3. Synthesis essay (integrates information from a variety of provided sources) What is rhetoric? The art of speaking or writing effectively. Also, the stylistic devices an author uses to appeal successfully to a specific audience-- usually persuasive in nature. Aristotelian rhetoric (LEAP) logos: appealing to logic (hard facts, statistics, etc.) ethos: appealing to authority and/or sense of respect and credibility pathos: appealing to emotion Rhetorical Modes This flexible term describes the variety, the conventions, and the purposes of the major kinds of writing. Most common: (1) Expository writing: explains and analyzes information by presenting an idea, relevant evidence, and appropriate discussion. The AP language exam essay questions are frequently expository topics. (2) Argumentation: proves the validity of an idea or point of view by presenting sound reasoning, discussion, and argument that thoroughly convince the reader. Persuasive writing is a type of argumentation, having an additional aim of urging some form of action. (3) Descriptive writing: recreates, invents, or visually presents a person, place, event or action so that the reader can picture what is being described. Sometimes an author engages all five senses in description; good descriptive writing can be sensuous and picturesque. Descriptive writing may be straightforward and objective or highly emotional and subjective. (4) Narration: tells a story or narrates an event or series of events. This writing mode frequently uses the tools of descriptive writing. Rhetorical devices parallel structure: this acts as an organizing force to attract the reader’s attention, add emphasis, or simply provide a musical rhythm. analogies: comparisons that, as in literature, allow the reader to vividly picture or understand a concept allegories: The device of using character and/or story elements symbolically to represent an abstraction in addition to the literal meaning. In some allegories, for example, an author may intend the characters to personify an abstraction like hope or freedom. The allegorical meaning usually deals with moral truth or a generalization about human existence. (etc. --use your list of AP Language terms!) Triads or the Rule of Three The rule of three is one of the oldest in the book – Aristotle wrote about it in his book Rhetoric. Put simply: people tend to easily remember three things, so the rhetorical device is to deliberately present ideas or words in patterns of three. Example: Stop, drop, and roll A classic example of the rule of three is Winston Churchill’s famous “Blood, Sweat and Tears” speech. He is widely attributed as saying, “I can promise you nothing but blood sweat and tears.” What he actually said was “I can promise you Blood, Sweat, Toil, and Tears”. Because of the rule of three we simply remember it as blood sweat and tears. Straw man argument Misrepresents a position in order to make it appear weaker than it actually is, refutes this misrepresentation of the position, and then concludes that the real position has been refuted. This, of course, is a fallacy, because the position that has been claimed to be refuted is different to that which has actually been refuted; the real target of the argument is untouched by it. Ex:? Logical fallacies A logical fallacy is an error of reasoning. When someone adopts a position, or tries to persuade someone else to adopt a position, based on a bad piece of reasoning, they commit a fallacy. Post hoc The Latin phrase “post hoc ergo propter hoc” means, literally, “after this therefore because of this.” The post hoc fallacy is committed when it is assumed that because one thing occurred after another, it must have occurred as a result of it. Mere temporal succession, however, does not entail causal succession. Just because one thing follows another does not mean that it was caused by it. Example: (1) Most people who are read the last rites die shortly afterwards. Therefore: (2) Priests are going around killing people with magic words! This argument commits the post hoc fallacy because it infers a causal connection based solely on temporal order. ad hominem a personal attack criticizing the person rather than their arguments. irrelevant appeals these attempt to sway the listener with information that, though persuasive, is irrelevant to the matter at hand. For example, an appeal to authority seeks to persuade by citing what someone else, a perceived authority, thinks on the subject, as if that resolves the question An appeal to consequences seeks to persuade by getting the listener to consider either the attractiveness of a belief, or the unattractiveness of the alternatives. We should form beliefs, however, not on the basis of what we would like to be true, but on the basis of what the evidence supports. Similarly, an appeal to pity persuades using emotion—specifically, sympathy—rather than reason. Others: appeal to antiquity/tradition Sources Adapted from V. Stevenson, Patrick Henry High School, and Abrams’ Glossary of Literary Terms http://www.logicalfallacies. info/relevance/appeals/.