Language Arts 11 Module 2: Section A

Module 2: Section A

The Right Tool for the Job

Choose the right communication tool for the job.

Let's say you have a job to do, something to fix, or something to say. If you want to fix a broken sink, you can bust out a home improvement manual. But what if you have something to say? What if you need to write a letter to your great aunt Wanda asking if you can stay with her in New York for a week this summer? What if you want to blog about how to get through high school while working a crummy job?

So put away your wrenches and screwdrivers. Close the books, and check out these tools for making your communications more compelling and convincing with rhetorical devices.

Read the rhetorical device and the example in the chart below. See if you can come up with a definition for each tool and another example that you create or that you have heard. Later in this unit you will use these tools to build your own essay.

Then click on a rhetorical device to see the definition for each communication tool.

Rhetorical Device	Definition	Example
Irony	The use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning OR An outcome of events contrary to what was, or might have been, expected	Your car breaks down, and you say, "That's great!" The student voted most likely to succeed ends up in prison for armed robbery.
Paradox	A statement or proposition that seems self-contradictory or absurd but in reality expresses a possible truth	"If you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love."
Juxtaposition	An act or instance of placing close together or side by side, esp. for comparison or contrast	A wedding taking place next to a prison.
Metaphor	The comparison of one thing to another without the use of like or as	"The road was a ribbon of moonlight"
Simile	A common figure of speech that explicitly compares two things usually considered different. Most similes are introduced by like or as	The realization hit me like a bucket of cold water.
Repetition	The use of a word or phrase again and again for effect or emphasis	The past has passed, so let it pass.
Alliteration	The repetition of the same sounds or of the same kinds of sounds at the beginning of words or in stressed syllables	"on scrolls of silver snowy sentences"
Oxymoron	contradictory terms are combined	deafening silence
Parallelism	The use of identical or equivalent syntactic constructions in corresponding clauses or phrases.	"Give me liberty or give me death"
Hyperbole	A figure of speech in which exaggeration is used for emphasis or effect	I could sleep for a year
Understatement	A form of irony in which something is intentionally represented as less than it is	"Hank Aaron was a pretty good ball player."
Analogy	A comparison of two different things that are alike in some way	"Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true."
Rhetorical Question	A question asked solely to produce an effect or to make an assertion and not to elicit a reply	What is the meaning of this?
Allusion	An indirect reference to some piece of knowledge not actually mentioned. Allusions usually come from a body of information that the author presumes the reader will know	"She was another Helen," alluding to the beauty of Helen of Troy
Personification	A comparison that gives something non-human human characteristics or qualities	The sun smiled down on us.