Reading the passage: rhetorical situation, choices and shifts

By the end you’ll be able to

• Extract the writer, audience, occasion, exigence and purpose from the prompt’s introduction and the passage
• Identify the writer’s most significant rhetorical choices (appeals to values, evidence, comparisons, structure, diction, syntax, tone) rather than cataloguing every device
• Trace how the passage moves: its shifts in focus, tone or strategy and what each section is doing for the audience