IXL | Analyze rhetorical strategies in historical texts: set 2

Read the following excerpt. It is adapted from Ralph Waldo Emerson's 1837 address before the top twenty-five men in Harvard's graduating class.

The theory of books is noble. The scholar of the first age experienced the world; gave it a new arrangement of his own mind and uttered it again. It came into him, life; it went out from him, truth. It came to him, short-lived actions; it went out from him, immortal thoughts. It came to him, business; it went from him, poetry. It was dead fact; now, it is quick thought. It can stand and it can go. It now endures, it now flies, it now inspires. Precisely in proportion to the depth of mind from which it issued, so high does it soar, so long does it sing.
But no book is quite perfect. As no air-pump can by any means make a perfect vacuum, so neither can any artist entirely exclude the conventional, the local, the perishable from his book or write a book of pure thought that shall make as much sense to posterity as to his contemporary readers. Each age, it is found, must write its own books; or, rather, each generation must write for the next succeeding . . . .
The book, the college, the school of art, the institution of any kind, stop with some past utterance of genius. That is good, they say: let us stick with this. They pin books down. They look backward and not forward. But genius looks forward: the eyes of man are set in his forehead, not in his hindhead; man hopes, genius creates.

Adapted from Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The American Scholar"

Based on the excerpt, what is the purpose of Ralph Waldo Emerson's speech?

to encourage the graduates to continue writing books

to criticize the graduates' overreliance on books

to persuade the graduates to read classic works of literature

to motivate the graduates to pursue more advanced degrees

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question

Read the following excerpt. It is adapted from a 1906 speech that Mary Church Terrell, an advocate for civil rights and for the right to vote, delivered to the United Women's Club in Washington, D.C. At the time, "colored people" was a common term for African Americans in the United States.

Washington, D.C., has been called "The Colored Man's Paradise." It is certain that it would be difficult to find a worse misnomer for Washington than "The Colored Man's Paradise."
For fifteen years I have resided in Washington, and while it was far from being a paradise for colored people when I first touched these shores it has been doing its level best ever since to make conditions for us intolerable. As a colored woman I might enter Washington any night, a stranger in a strange land, and walk miles without finding a place to lay my head. The colored man alone is thrust out of the hotels of the national capital like a leper.
As a colored woman I may walk from the Capitol to the White House, ravenously hungry and abundantly supplied with money with which to purchase a meal, without finding a single restaurant in which I would be permitted to take a morsel of food.
As a colored woman I may enter more than one white church in Washington without receiving that welcome which as a human being I have the right to expect in the sanctuary of God. . . .
And so I might go on citing instance after instance to show the variety of ways in which our people are sacrificed on the altar of prejudice in the capital of the United States and how almost insurmountable are the obstacles which block our path to success.

Adapted from Mary Church Terrell, "What It Means to be Colored in the Capital of the U.S."

Based on the excerpt, what is the purpose of Mary Church Terrell's speech?

to elaborate on the problems African Americans face when going to church

to demonstrate the difficulties that African Americans face in the capital

to suggest that a new name be given to the capital

to persuade hotels to offer accommodations to African Americans

key idea

Rhetorical strategies are the ways that a writer or speaker uses language to influence his or her audience. They include decisions about word choice, sentence structure, and tone, as well as repetition, metaphors, and other devices.

When you analyze an author's rhetorical strategy, you can better understand what makes a text so effective. To do so, first consider the author's purpose, or what the author hopes to accomplish with the text. For example, an author might want to inspire his or her audience, or to persuade them to do something.

Then consider how an author's use of language advances that purpose. For example, a metaphor may make a key idea more memorable, or a touching story may make the author's causes seem more sympathetic.

solution

The purpose of Mary Church Terrell's speech is to demonstrate the difficulties that African Americans face in the capital.

You can tell because Terrell discusses the terrible treatment that African Americans face when trying to find hotel accommodations, eat at restaurants, and enter churches in the city.

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