Adding Sophistication to Your Rhetorical Analysis Essay

How to add sophistication to your rhetorical analysis?

By understanding the rhetorical situation (how to analyze that in relation to the rhetorical choices)

three ways for students to earn the sophistication point:

Explain significance/relevance of writer’s choices in relation to rhetorical situation, explain purpose or function of passage’s complexities or tensions (e.g. tensions between speaker and audience, historical tensions), employ consistently vivid/persuasive style

Possible methods for adding sophistication to writing:

analyze what writer does and doesn’t do, examine limits of argument, examine need for “build-up” to call to action, Examine the complex writer-audience relationship, examine effectiveness (knowing historical outcome), work in the details

How to analyze what writer does and doesn’t do?

Talk about why the rhetorical choice that the writer made was effective and why another one that he didn’t use was not ideal

How to examine effectiveness of writer’s argument?

Talk about what the writer failed to acknowledge

How to examine need for build-up to call for action?

Think about who the writer is addressing and why they might not perceive the urgency of the message (what the writer is not suggesting) so that the writer might have to explain that urgency (building up), and how she is preparing them for the taking action

What to think about when examining writer-audience relationships:

historical context

How to “work in the details”?

Adding details from the prompt and the passage that contribute to the writer’s purpose for choosing to use a rhetorical device (e.g. Because of (detail), (writer) (does rhetorical choice)), also add details based on the circumstance (e.g. what the people might be wearing on that occasion or event)