Rhetorical Devices

This icon indicates that teacher’s notes are available in the Notes Page.

For more detailed instructions, see the Getting Started presentation.

This icon indicates that a useful web address is included in the Notes page. This icon indicates the slide contains activities created in Flash. These activities are not editable.

1 of 21

© Boardworks Ltd 2003

Rhetorical devices Writers write with a purpose. Brainstorm the types of purposes a writer may have.

2 of 21

© Boardworks Ltd 2003

Here are some ideas: To explain something To persuade you To amuse you To give you information

To entertain you To shock you To make you feel strongly about something Look at your own answers and the list above.

Can you think of an example of each type of writing? 3 of 21

© Boardworks Ltd 2003

Sequencers If a writer is describing how to do something, they may use sequencers to show the steps the reader needs to take:

First lift up the receiver. Next dial the code for the country you are ringing. Then dial the area code. After that dial the telephone number of the person you are ringing. Finally their phone should ring.

Writers can use italics and bold to highlight important words and phrases. This presentation will show you some rhetorical devices people use to make their writing more effective.

4 of 21

© Boardworks Ltd 2003

Do you know what rhetorical devices are?

rhetorical means to do with persuasion and effective speaking and writing. Rhetorical devices include:

5 of 21

device is just another way of saying ‘technique’.

Repetition Lists Alliteration Metaphor and simile Rhetorical questions Personal involvement Audience involvement Quotes Facts and statistics © Boardworks Ltd 2003

Repetition Repeating important words or phrases can indicate to the reader that they are important. They help to make the writing more persuasive.

Tony Blair said that his main priority as Prime Minister would be:

Education. Education. Education. © HMSO 6 of 21

© Boardworks Ltd 2003

Lists A list of three fixes itself in a reader’s/listener’s mind. School uniform is uncomfortable, expensive and old-fashioned.

7 of 21

© Boardworks Ltd 2003

Alliteration Alliteration is where two or more words begin with the same letter.

You should take up juggling because it is fantastic fun.

Can you fill in these sentences with alliterative words? 1. The ____ weather made me feel _____ _______! 2. ____________ is a ______ _______ _________ 3. I can’t believe how _______ ______ ______ was!

8 of 21

© Boardworks Ltd 2003

Metaphor and simile A simile is where one thing is A metaphor is where one said to be the same as or like thing is said to be something else something else Decide if the quotes below contain metaphors or similes I wandered lonely as a cloud (Wordsworth)

simile

9 of 21

Juliet is the sun (Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet)

metaphor

© Boardworks Ltd 2003

Rhetorical questions These are questions where you don’t expect the audience or the reader to answer. They are a way of putting a question in their mind so that you can answer it. Teachers do this all the time!

10 of 21

© Boardworks Ltd 2003

Personal involvement This is useful when you are trying to persuade people to your point of view or when you want people to, say, buy something from you. I was a heavy smoker and thought I’d never be able to give up. Then I discovered ‘Smokenomore’ patches.

I, too, know what it is like to sit in a hot classroom wearing a thick school blazer.

11 of 21

© Boardworks Ltd 2003

Audience Involvement Your writing can be more effective if you draw the audience into the topic.

I know that many of you have endured the misery of over-cooked school dinners…

12 of 21

© Boardworks Ltd 2003

Quotes Using the words of famous people can enhance your meaning.

As John F. Kennedy once said,

‘Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.’

13 of 21

© Boardworks Ltd 2003

Facts and statistics These help to show that what you are saying is backed up by more than just your opinion.

A University of Neasden study showed that 85% of homework was a waste of time.

90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30%

useful quite useful waste of time

20% 10% 0% homework

14 of 21

© Boardworks Ltd 2003

Facts and statistics You can combine these devices. A University of Neasden study proved that 85%, I repeat, 85% of homework was dull, dreary drudgery.

15 of 21

© Boardworks Ltd 2003

Identify the rhetorical device

16 of 21

© Boardworks Ltd 2003

Activity Choose a controversial topic such as school uniform, homework or animal experiments.

Write a few sentences that could be found in a campaign speech, or a letter to the press. Try and use some of the rhetorical devices you have learned.

17 of 21

© Boardworks Ltd 2003

In this famous speech how has Martin Luther King made his meaning so effective? rhetorical question

repetition

including the audience There are those who are asking the devotees of civil

rights, ‘When will you be satisfied?’ We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of our cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating ‘For whites only’. We cannot be satisfied as long fact as the Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. 18 of 21

simile © Boardworks Ltd 2003

How effective would Martin Luther King’s speech have been if he hadn’t used rhetorical devices?

Here is an edited version of the speech with some of the rhetorical devices removed. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights when they will be satisfied. They say they can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of police brutality, as long as their bodies, tired after travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities, as long as their children are faced with signs stating ‘For whites only’. The Negro in Mississippi still cannot vote and a Negro in New York still believes he has nothing to vote for. They will not be satisfied until they get justice. Which version is more powerful? 19 of 21

© Boardworks Ltd 2003

Read Macbeth’s soliloquy in Act 2, Scene 1. What rhetorical devices does Shakespeare use? What effect do they have? Is this a dagger which I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch theeI have thee not and yet I see thee still! Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but A dagger of the mind, a false creation, Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain? I see thee yet, in form as palpable As this which now I draw…

20 of 21

© Boardworks Ltd 2003

Can you name the rhetorical devices Churchill uses in the speeches below?

…We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air…

You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: it is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory however long and hard the road may be…

21 of 21

repetition lists rhetorical question metaphor

© Boardworks Ltd 2003