Developing Citizenship through Rhetorical Analysis
“Developing Citizenship Through Rhetorical Analysis” is a lesson plan available on the ReadWriteThink website that aims to teach students to identify and analyze rhetorical strategies. Intended for students in grades 6-8, the six 50-minute sessions involve: introducing rhetorical strategies used in editorials; teaching students the relationship between rhetorical strategies, author’s purpose, and audience; and providing opportunities for students to critique the effectiveness of strategies used in editorials.
This lesson is an example of one approach to teaching students how to critique a source of information. It focuses on editorials as one genre of text. The lesson tasks walk students through how authors of editorials use rhetorical strategies in relation to their purpose and intended audience. There are sample editorials, rubrics, and other handouts to support the tasks. The “From Theory to Practice” section of the lesson preview includes an English Journal article to support the design of this lesson.