The AP Lang Rhetorical Analysis Essay is an exam that challenges students’ ability to review and judge modern political or social commentary. To write a proper AP Lang Rhetorical Analysis Essay, you should follow the universal principles of writing a rhetorical analysis essay.
To learn about writing a rhetorical analysis essay, please take a look at this article: How to Write a Rhetorical Analysis Essay. However, in addition to these basic principles, you should also focus on the specific rubric of the AP Lang Rhetorical analysis essay.
In this article, I explain 1. What is the AP Lang Rhetorical Analysis Essay; 2. Steps to follow to write a good AP Lang Essay; and A well-written AP Lang essay.
What is the AP Lang Rhetorical Analysis Essay?
The AP Lang Rhetorical Analysis Essay is one of three essays that is required as the written portion of the AP English Exam. The essay is based on a prompt that references a speech or a piece of social or political commentary, which you have to analyze.
The analysis should focus primarily on determining the effect of the speech and how well the writer or speaker is able to achieve that intended effect on the audience. In other to do so, you need to have in-depth knowledge of the basic or fundamental principles of rhetoric as well as knowledge of the specific rubric used by the AP Lang.
This means having an understanding of logos, pathos, and ethos. These are the three types of appeals that speakers or writers typically use to appeal to an audience. Logos refers to the appeal to reason and logic. Pathos refers to appeals to emotion, and Ethos refers to appeals to authority and reputation. The table below provides the definition and examples of each.
Concept | Definition | Example |
Logos | Logos relies on arguments based on reason and logic to persuade an audience. | Federick Douglass uses logos in his speech “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?” to point out the irony of the US celebrating independence while keeping slaves. |
Pathos | Pathos relies on appealing to the emotions of an audience to persuade them. | Winston Churchill relies on appealing to a spirit of heroic emotion when he says, “We are fighting by ourselves alone; but we are not fighting for ourselves alone.” |
Ethos | Ethos describes the authority of the speaker on the topic they’re speaking on. | A doctor can appeal to ethos to show their experience qualifies them to promote a specific health policy. |
In addition, you also need to be familiar with rhetorical devices, such as repetition and rhetorical questions or erotema. I have already covered rhetorical devices in a previous essay on rhetorical analysis. You can consult it here: How to Write a Rhetorical Analysis Essay
Lastly, you should be fully familiar with the rubric for the AP Lang Rhetorical Analysis Essay Exam. This will be provided in the next section.
Steps to write an AP Lang Rhetorical analysis essay
The steps to writing a good AP Lang Rhetorical Analysis Essay include writing a proper thesis statement, providing evidence for your points, and making a convincing argument. These steps depend on the rubric of the exam. Therefore, to write an effective essay you should be familiar with this standard or rubric. The AP Lang exam has three components:
Writing an accurate thesis statement
Providing evidence and commentary
Making a sophisticated argument
Each criterion is worth a certain amount of points. Your final score is determined after summing up the score of each component. The table below breaks down how each section is scored. The criteria is based on the college board. You can consult the article here yourself: AP English Language Scoring Rubric.
Criteria | Description | Maximum Points Awarded |
Thesis | Responds to the prompt with a defensible thesis that analyzes the writer’s rhetorical choices. | 1/1 |
Evidence and Commentary | 1. Provides specific evidence to support all claims in a line of reasoning. 2. Consistently explains how the evidence supports a line of reasoning. 3. Explains how multiple rhetorical choices in the passage contribute to the writer’s argument, purpose, or message. | 4/4 |
Sophistication | 1. Crafting a nuanced argument by consistently identifying and exploring complexities or tensions. 2. Explaining the implications or limitations of an argument by placing it within a broader context. 3. Making effective rhetorical choices that consistently strengthen the force of your argument. 4. Using a style that is effective and persuasive. | 1/1 |
1. Develop a thesis statement
Developing a thesis steament means reading both the prompt and the rhetorical piece that is provided and writing down your main argument in one to three sentences. It is best to write down your thesis statement as the very beginning of the paragraph. After completing your essay, please o back to ensure that your thesis statement is in line with the entire essay. If not you should revise it.
2. Provide evidence and commentary
Providing evidence and commentary s the criterion that is weighted the heaviest in the AP Lang rubric. Therefore, this means you should pay particular attention to this section. It means that your essay should not be general. You should take specific excerpts from the given article to write your essay.
This means using direct quotes, summarizing, and paraphrasing. You should think of adopting strategies such as including line numbers in brackets when referring to material in the essay.
3. Make a “sophisticated” argument
It is not enough to provide evidence and commentary directly from the text. You should be able to recognize rhetorical devices and explain their effects. By rhetorical devices, I mean figures of speech that are particular to oratory and rhetoric.
Imagery, metaphor, and simile are often included in rhetoric. However, they more properly belong to literary devices. Rhetorical devices include figures of speech such as erotema or rhetorical questions; forms of repetition, such as anaphora and symploce; and variations in structure such as isocolon and chiasmus.
Not only should be readily available with these rhetorical devices, you should also be able to explain their effects. You should think of questions such as:
Why did the writer use this particular rhetorical device?
What effect did it have on the audience and why?
Was this device competently used?
Was this device appropriate?
Here is an example of commentary on Sir Winston’s Chruchill famous line from a World War II radio speech as an example. In this commentary, the rhetorical device is named and explained — symploce. In addition, its effect is explained in detail.
Sir Winston Churchill's London radio broadcast in 1940: "We are fighting by ourselves alone; but we are not fighting for ourselves alone."
This was part of a speech made during World War II when the British were fighting against NAZI air raids over London before the Americans joined the war. Here, Churchill uses symploce — that is, repeating elements at the end with a small change in the middle in a speech or in writing. The small change in wording — from by to for — results in a massive change in meaning. The sentiment changes from the anxiety and sense of abandonment from fighting alone to the strength and pride of fighting and sacrificing for a cause and struggle bigger or greater than one’s self. The fact that such a large shift in sentiment rests on changing a single word would impress a powerful and immediate effect on the listeners. Listeners would be inspired to fight on and persevere.
An AP Lang Rhetorical Analysis Essay Example
This is an example of a high-scoring AP Lang essay example from the College Board via College Transitions:
This is the prompt that the essay is based on:
On February 27, 2013, while in office, former president Barack Obama delivered the following address dedicating the Rosa Parks statue in the National Statuary Hall of the United States Capitol building. Rosa Parks was an African American civil rights activist who was arrested in 1955 for refusing to give up her seat on a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Read the passage carefully. Write an essay that analyzes the rhetorical choices Obama makes to convey his message.
Here is the thesis statement and opening paragraph of the high-scoring student essay:
In his speech delivered in 2013 at the dedication of Rosa Park’s statue, President Barack Obama acknowledges everything that Parks’ activism made possible in the United States. Telling the story of Parks’ life and achievements, Obama highlights the fact that Parks was a regular person whose actions accomplished enormous change during the civil rights era. Through the use of diction that portrays Parks as quiet and demure, long lists that emphasize the extent of her impacts, and Biblical references, Obama suggests that all of us are capable of achieving greater good, just as Parks did.
The bolded last sentence is the thesis statement of the argument. To see the complete essay, check out College Transitions: How to Write the AP Lang Rhetorical Analysis Essay (With Example).
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Cite this EminentEdit article |
Antoine, M. (2024, November 19). How to Write the AP Lang Rhetorical Analysis Essay. https://www.eminentediting.com/post/how-to-write-the-ap-lang-rhetorical-analysis-essay |
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