Rhetorical analysis: analyzing an effective speech
Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered this speech at a pivotal point in American history. The nation was in crisis. The crash of the financial markets and the banking industry in 1929 impacted businesses across all regions the country. The resulting wide-scale unemployment led to a crisis of confidence in the business community as well as individual hardship. The failure of banks hit families hard as life savings were wiped out. The people lost faith in the government’s ability to make sound economic decisions. Some even began to question the capitalist system as a whole. In 1932, Roosevelt defeated the incumbent, Herbert Hoover, in a landslide victory. In this inaugural speech, his first address to the American people at this time of crisis, the incoming president laid out his new agenda for his administration. This text is historically significant and provides an excellent demonstration of Roosevelt’s use of rhetorical appeals, word choice, and literary devices to relay his message to the American people.
common core state standards
Students will practice the following standards through the analysis of the text and the completion of the performance assessment: SL.9-10.3: Evaluate a speaker’s point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric, identifying any fallacious reasoning or exaggerated or distorted evidence. RI.9-10.1: Cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. RI.9-10.3: Analyze how the author unfolds an analysis or series of ideas or events, including the order in which the points are made, how they are introduced and developed, and the connections that are drawn between them.
the text
Text dependent questions
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