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โœ๐ŸฝAP English Language
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โœ๐ŸฝAP English Language

FRQ 2 โ€“ Rhetorical Analysis
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Guided Practice

Practice FRQ 1 of 1651/165
2. Russell Conwell was an American Baptist minister, orator, and the founder of Temple University. He is best known for his lecture Acres of Diamonds, which he delivered thousands of times across the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The following is an excerpt from that lecture.
Read the passage carefully. Write an essay that analyzes the rhetorical choices Conwell makes to develop his argument that opportunities for wealth and success are available within one's own community.

In your response you should do the following:

  • Respond to the prompt with a thesis that analyzes the writer's rhetorical choices.
  • Select and use evidence to support your line of reasoning.
  • Explain how the evidence supports your line of reasoning.
  • Demonstrate an understanding of the rhetorical situation.
  • Use appropriate grammar and punctuation in communicating your argument.
Par.
1
I say to you that you have 'acres of diamonds' in Philadelphia right where you now live. 'Oh,' but you will say, 'you cannot know much about your city if you think there are any 'acres of diamonds' here.' I was greatly interested in that account in the newspaper of the young man who found that diamond in North Carolina. It was one of the purest diamonds that has ever been discovered, and it has several predecessors near the same locality. I went to a distinguished professor in mineralogy and asked him where he thought those diamonds came from. The professor secured the map of the geologic formations of our continent, and traced it. He said it went either through the underlying carboniferous strata adapted for such production, westward through Ohio and the Mississippi, or in more probability came eastward through Virginia and up the shore of the sea and to the New Jersey coast. 'Hence,' said he, 'if there are any diamonds in North Carolina at all it is probable that there are diamonds all through that region and from that discovery will come the great diamond mines of the Eastern States.' Does anybody know where the diamonds are? I don't know where they are, but I do know this: that wherever one was found, there were others. And that wherever they have been found, there are more to be found. So I say again that the opportunity to get rich, to attain unto great wealth, is here in Philadelphia now, within the reach of almost every man and woman who hears me speak tonight, and I mean just what I say.






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