Readings
- Kill ‘Em, Crush ‘Em, Eat ‘Em Raw, John McMurty
- The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker
- Dreaming America, Danyel Smith
- Letters, John and Abigail Adams
Procedures
Step I: After you have been assigned your group and given a text, read the text either individually or as a group. As a group, decide on four consecutive paragraphs that you feel are the most essential paragraphs of the text. These paragraphs will be what you develop your questions off of.
Step II: Consider the types of questions you have encountered on the multiple choice exams we have taken in class. For further reference, check out the categories listed below. Your group will develop a total of five multichoice questions, one that represents each of the categories listed below.
Step III: As a group, take the exam that you created. Make sure there are no errors or questionable answers present. Remember, although two “answers” are usually obviously wrong, they are not “freebies.” Also, make sure you are not intentionally tricking your future test takers. One answer should simply be better than another.
Rhetorical Analysis Question Types
- Recognition of tone using paired nouns
- Effects and purpose of juxtaposition
- Effect a specific rhetorical strategy
- Effect of appeal
- Recognition of theme
- Purpose of syntax
- Impact of connotation diction
- Inferences made from descriptions
- Purpose of passage or sentence
- Effect of sentence structure
- All of the following can be found in the passage EXCEPT…
- Which of the following best identifies the meaning of this word…
- The author emphasizes this in order to achieve what…
- The connotative meaning of this word suggests…
- In context, which of the following are contained in this word…
Main Ideas
- The theme of the passages is…
- The main purpose of paragraph is…
- The speaker’s attitude toward the subject is…
- It can be inferred from the passage that the speaker values these qualities…
- These assertions are made in the passage…
- All of the following ideas can be found in the passage EXCEPT…
Sentence Structure
- The grammatical effect of this sentence is…
- The use of repetition in this paragraph expresses this…
- The purpose of the parallelism in this sentence is…
- This sentence represents the juxtaposition of ideas by…
Organization
- This sentence or quotation signifies a shift from…
- The purpose of this paragraph/sentence in relation to the preceding is…
- The purpose of this paragraph in relation to the entire passage is to demonstrate…
