Rhetorical Analysis Can Spark Joy

Rhetorical analysis typically doesn’t spark much joy in our students.

Of the expository modes, it lacks luster and pizazz given its pedantic and overly academic nature.

And conceptually, it’s difficult for our students to grasp.

So … as always … we need to ask the age-old question:

How can I make this more engaging and meaningful?

The letter from Marge Simpson to First Lady Barbara Bush is a fantastic piece that is rife for discussion and yielded some great essays from my students. 

There is so much complexity to this seemingly flippant response.

What I have done is capture the Plato’s Play-Doh Discussion I hosted with my students. In brief, this is a discussion modality that I have honed over my career. The big difference between my approach and other formats like the Socratic Seminar, Harkness, and Fishbowl is in that students are the ones generating the text-based questions.

Further, through the elements of collaboration and competition, the discussion is gamified.

As you’ll see in the video, my students played a game of Hollywood Squares.

Here’s what I contend – if we can get our students to ask really good questions of a text, then they will crush their reads.

And the kicker – given that they are using writing templates – they will likewise write the lights out of their essays.

Here’s the link to the Plato’s Play-Doh Discussion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeitXOoLiks

The discussion set us up nicely to tackle our essays.

I have also recorded our writing workshop. In the video, I walk you and your students through the process of constructing the essay while incorporating my templates.

Here’s the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzHk-57iDHc

In the message I sent out last week, I gave an update with regards to the irons I have in the fire.

I still have a couple of seats available for the Teach It “Write” 5-Week Mastermind which will begin on March 13^th.

If you’d like more information, please reach out or visit my webpage:

https://teachinghow2write.com/teach-it-write-mastermind/

And as always, if you’d like the PowerPoint templates for the Plato’s Play-Doh Discussion and/or the writing workshop, just let me know and I’ll send everything your way.

Happy teaching and happy writing!

Kristian