FRQ 2 – Rhetorical Analysis

Overview

• Worth 6 points (out of 18 total FRQ points, one-third of your free-response score)
• Budget about 40 minutes (out of 2 hours 15 minutes total)
• Analyze a passage of 600-800 words of nonfiction prose
• Focus on rhetorical choices the writer makes to achieve their purpose

The rhetorical analysis essay represents critical analysis at its core. Writers create meaning through deliberate choices - each speech, letter, essay, or memoir excerpt becomes a text requiring careful examination. Your task goes beyond agreeing or fact-checking; you must reveal the building blocks of persuasion itself. Words matter not for what they say, but for how they affect the reader.

Strategy Deep Dive

Rhetorical analysis requires dual awareness - experiencing the text as a reader while analyzing it as a critic. Writers create effects through language; your task involves revealing the techniques without losing the impact. Each sentence structure, each transition, each tone shift represents deliberate craft. You occupy the space between audience and analyst.

Initial Read: Establishing the Foundation

Your first reading requires quick but careful attention - a 3-4 minute survey of the rhetorical landscape. Analysis shows that meaning develops through structural progression. Mark the key transitions: where personal story becomes universal principle, where emotion transforms into logic, where intimate address becomes public declaration. Writers craft these transitions as deliberately as composers change keys.

The rhetorical situation requires systematic analysis through SPACE:

• Speaker: The writer's voice comes from specific circumstances and interests
• Purpose: Every text pursues specific goals through calculated methods
• Audience: The intended reader shapes every rhetorical decision
• Context: Historical and cultural moments frame meaning
• Exigence: The urgent reason that demands this text exist

Understanding these elements isn't just academic exercise - they directly inform your analysis. A senator speaking to Congress makes different rhetorical choices than an activist writing an open letter. Context shapes everything.

Second Read: Mining for Gold

The second reading turns you into a textual detective, uncovering rhetorical evidence with precision. Analysis reveals a key distinction: listing devices differs completely from analyzing effect. That metaphor in paragraph three may be beautiful, but it matters only when it advances the argument. Writers craft each element deliberately - your analysis must show equal purpose.

Elements requiring critical attention:

• Structure: Writers organize arguments with deliberate intent - beginnings and endings frame meaning
• Evidence Types: Examine how proof appears - through personal experience, data, or historical examples
• Word Choice: Words matter beyond decoration - shifts between formal and casual, technical and accessible, passionate and clinical serve rhetorical purposes
• Sentence Patterns: Short sentences create emphasis; complex sentences unfold ideas; parallel structures amplify power
• Appeals: Beyond naming ethos, pathos, and logos, analyze their specific forms - how credibility builds, which emotions appear and why
• Tone Shifts: Writers craft voice as carefully as argument - mark where and why the tone changes

The key insight: Everything in a well-crafted text serves the writer's purpose. Your job is to explain how.

Constructing Your Analysis

Avoid writing the rhetorical grocery list essay - the type that mechanically catalogs: "In paragraph one, ethos. In paragraph two, pathos. In paragraph three, metaphor." That's not analysis - that's inventory management. Strong essays organize around the argument's architecture, not the tools in the toolbox.

Consider organizing around:

• The stages of the writer's argument (how they progress from opening to conclusion)
• The different appeals or strategies the writer employs
• The different audiences the writer addresses
• The problems the writer identifies and solutions they propose

Whatever organization you choose, make sure each body paragraph has a clear focus on how specific rhetorical choices serve the writer's purpose. Don't just identify; analyze. Don't just describe; explain effects.

Rubric Breakdown

The rhetorical analysis rubric rewards precision and insight. Understanding exactly what earns each point helps you prioritize during your limited writing time.

Thesis (0-1 point)

"Responds to the prompt with a defensible thesis that analyzes the writer's rhetorical choices."

Your thesis must do more than say "the writer uses rhetorical strategies to achieve their purpose." That's like saying "the chef uses ingredients to make food." Be specific about what the writer does and why it matters.

Weak thesis: "Condoleezza Rice uses various rhetorical strategies to inspire the graduates."

Strong thesis: "Through strategic shifts between personal narrative and universal principles, combined with historical parallels that reframe contemporary challenges, Rice transforms a commencement address into a call for optimistic activism that acknowledges struggle while insisting on possibility."

Notice how the strong thesis previews specific analytical points while maintaining focus on purpose and effect.

Evidence and Commentary (0-4 points)

This is where rhetorical analysis gets challenging. You need to:

• Select relevant evidence (specific textual references)
• Explain how that evidence represents rhetorical choices
• Analyze how those choices contribute to the writer's purpose
• Do all of this consistently throughout your essay

The 4-point response "explains how multiple rhetorical choices in the passage contribute to the writer's argument, purpose, or message." This means you can't just analyze one extended metaphor brilliantly and call it done. You need to show how various choices work together.

It's important that this looks like in practice:

Insufficient (1-2 points): "Rice uses a personal anecdote about growing up in Birmingham to establish ethos."

Developing (3 points): "Rice's Birmingham anecdote serves multiple rhetorical purposes: it establishes her personal authority on overcoming discrimination, creates an emotional connection with audience members who have faced their own obstacles, and sets up the essay's central metaphor of transformation."

Sophisticated (4 points): "Rice strategically delays her Birmingham revelation until after establishing universal principles of human aspiration, a structural choice that transforms what could be mere personal testimony into evidence for a broader argument about human possibility. The anecdote's specific details - 'couldn't eat at a restaurant' juxtaposed with 'became Secretary of State' - create a powerful arc that she then universalizes to her audience: 'things that seem impossible very often seem inevitable in retrospect.'"

Sophistication (0-1 point)

This point rewards essays that go beyond competent analysis to show genuine insight. You might earn it by:

• Explaining the significance of the writer's rhetorical choices given the rhetorical situation (why these choices for this audience at this moment?)
• Analyzing tensions or complexities in how the passage works
• Demonstrating how style reinforces meaning throughout your essay

That sophistication point? It shows up when you stop hunting for it. Get genuinely curious about why this writer made these weird, wonderful choices, and suddenly you're writing the kind of analysis that makes readers lean in.

Common Rhetorical Patterns

Certain types of passages appear repeatedly because they're rhetorically rich. Recognizing these patterns helps you know what to look for:

The Commencement Address

These blend personal reflection, universal wisdom, and calls to action. Watch for:

• Movement between specific (personal anecdotes) and general (life principles)
• Attempts to bridge generational perspectives
• Balance between acknowledging challenges and maintaining optimism
• Direct address that creates intimacy despite large audience

The Public Letter/Appeal

Whether open letters or formal addresses, these texts negotiate between public and private discourse. Analyze:

• How writers establish their right to speak on the issue
• Balancing emotional appeal with logical argument
• Strategic use of inclusive vs. exclusive language ("we" vs. "they")
• Building crescendo toward specific action

The Cultural Criticism

These passages critique some aspect of society or culture. Look for:

• How writers establish the problem's urgency
• Use of irony, satire, or humor to make criticism palatable
• Contrast between what is and what should be
• Appeals to shared values even while challenging current practice

The Personal Narrative with Public Purpose

Memoir excerpts or personal essays that make larger arguments through individual experience. Notice:

• Strategic selection of which details to include
• Movement from particular to universal
• Vulnerability as rhetorical strategy
• Implicit arguments made through narrative structure

Time Management Reality

Forty minutes disappears quickly when you're doing sophisticated analysis. Here's a realistic breakdown:

Minutes 1-8: Read the passage twice - once for overview, once for analysis. Make meaningful annotations. Don't just underline; write marginal notes about purpose and effect.

Minutes 9-12: Plan your essay. Thesis, basic outline, key evidence you'll use. This planning phase is crucial - it's much harder to organize complex analysis on the fly.

Minutes 13-35: Write the essay. Introduction with thesis (3 min), body paragraphs with integrated analysis (20 min), conclusion that does more than repeat (2 min).

Minutes 36-40: Review and refine. Check that you're analyzing rhetorical choices, not just summarizing. Ensure you're explaining effects, not just identifying techniques.

The time crunch means you can't analyze everything. Choose the rhetorical choices that most powerfully serve the writer's purpose. Three techniques analyzed brilliantly beats six techniques mentioned superficially.

Final Thoughts

The lightbulb moment for me came When you stopped treating rhetorical analysis like a treasure hunt. I wasn't looking for buried rhetorical devices anymore. Instead, I started seeing these passages as machines built to do specific work on readers' minds. Once you see language as technology rather than decoration, the whole essay transforms.

Success requires a mindset shift. In your English classes, you might focus on what texts mean. Here, you focus on what texts do. How do they position readers? How do they make ideas feel inevitable? How do they transform abstractions into felt experience?

My practice routine was weird but it worked: I analyzed everything. My mom's text asking me to clean my room? Pure pathos with a threat of logos ("your college apps are due soon"). The principal's morning announcements? Ethos establishment followed by policy justification. Start seeing rhetoric everywhere, and the test passages feel like old friends.

When you sit down to write, remember that great rhetorical analysis reads like a conversation between insightful readers. You're not displaying your knowledge of terms; you're sharing genuine insights about how language creates effects. The one-third of your free-response score that comes from rhetorical analysis rewards students who can see texts as constructed objects, built with purpose and craft. Master that perspective, and the points will follow.