Analyzing a Famous Speech

After gaining skill through analyzing a historic and contemporary speech as a class, students will select a famous speech from a list compiled from several resources and write an essay that identifies and explains the rhetorical strategies that the author deliberately chose while crafting the text to make an effective argument. Their analysis will consider questions such as: What makes the speech an argument?, How did the author's rhetoric evoke a response from the audience?, and Why are the words still venerated today?

Material Type: Assessment, Lesson Plan, Unit of Study

Author: Melissa Weeks Noel

Academic English

Academic/Business English is designed as a practical course to develop an authentic understanding of how to use concepts of writing and discourse to communicate in the workforce. Students will have the ability to express their thoughts, feelings, and opinions in using real-life situations and learning scenarios. All new concepts will be introduced in context while incorporating various writing, speaking and listening activities.

Material Type: Full Course

Author: Deanna Mayers

All's Well that Sells Well: A Creative Introduction to Shakespeare

Students compare attending a performance at The Globe Theater with attending a modern theater production or movie. They then create a commercial for an Elizabethan audience promoting a modern product.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan

Active Reading through Self-Assessment: The Student-Made Quiz

This recurring lesson encourages students to comprehend their reading through inquiry and collaboration. They choose important quotations from the text and work in groups to formulate "quiz" questions that their peers will answer.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan

The Tempest

The Folger Shakespeare Library provides the full searchable text of "The Tempest" to read online or download as a PDF. All of the lines are numbered sequentially to make it easier and more convenient to find any line.

Material Type: Reading

Author: William Shakespeare

Approaching Shakespeare Lecture Series

Each lecture in this series focuses on a single play by Shakespeare, and employs a range of different approaches to try to understand a central critical question about it. Rather than providing overarching readings or interpretations, the series aims to show the variety of different ways we might understand Shakespeare, the kinds of evidence that might be used to strengthen our critical analysis, and, above all, the enjoyable and unavoidable fact that Shakespeare's plays tend to generate our questions rather than answer them.

Material Type: Full Course, Lecture

Author: Emma Smith

Analyzing Character in Hamlet through Epitaphs

Students create epitaphs for characters from a tragedy, such as "Hamlet".

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan

Analyzing Famous Speeches as Arguments

Students are often asked to perform speeches, but rarely do we require students to analyze speeches as carefully as we study works of literature. In this unit, students are required to identify the rhetorical strategies in a famous speech and the specific purpose for each chosen device. They will write an essay about its effectiveness and why it is still famous after all these years.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan

Analyzing the Purpose and Meaning of Political Cartoons

It is important for students to know how to evaluate messages conveyed by the news media. Exploration of the artistic techniques used in political cartoons leads to critical questioning.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan

Analyzing the Stylistic Choices of Political Cartoonists

Students explore and analyze the techniques that political (or editorial) cartoonists use and draw conclusions about why the cartoonists choose those techniques to communicate their messages.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson Plan