RHETORICAL DEVICES #1

ENGLISH 3, 2010

KEY TERMS

Parallel Structure (Parallelism)

Repetition

Call To Action

Specific Details

PARALLEL STRUCTURE

Parallel structure, or parallelism, is the repetition of a word or phrase in a grammatical structure

EXAMPLE…

What do we want of these men?

What do we want of ourselves?

ANAPHORA is a phrase which appears more than once at the beginning of lines

PARALLELISM CONTINUEDANTISTROPHE is words or phrases that appear more than

once at the end of lines.

“I told you to do it, again. Like last time, I had to repeat myself again. Why do I always have to say things again and again?”

“She is the object of my affection and love, just as I am the object of her affection and love.”

“I know the best party. The Democrats are the best party. I will vote for the best party.”

REPETITION

Repetition is the simple repeating of a word, within a sentence or a poetical line, with no particular placement of the words, in order to emphasize.

EXAMPLE:

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny compared to what lies within us." (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

"Words, words, words." (Hamlet)

CALL TO ACTION

Call to Action is words that urge the reader, listener, or viewer to take an immediate action.

Example: Howard Dean Clip:

http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=PYLPLNNX

SPECIFIC DETAILS

Details are items or parts that make up a larger picture or story, and offer a clearer or more specific portrayal

EXAMPLE Chaucer's "Prologue" to The Canterbury Tales is

celebrated for its use of a few details to bring the characters to life.

The miller, for example, is described as being brawny and big-boned, able to win wrestling contests or to break a door with his head, and having a wart on his nose on which grew a "tuft of hairs red as the bristles of a sow's ears."

ASSIGNMENT

Read excerpt of President Obama’s “Back To School Speech.”

In pairs, students will find at least one example of the rhetorical device as used in the speech.

Students will complete a graphic example (i.e. picture, collage) for at least one of the key terms