Teach Argument With Trump's Inaugural Address

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Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has provided us with an abundance of interesting text to analyze — for the manner in which he uses language, for deliberate and “unconventional” word choices, for unexpected appeals to certain audiences, for unrelenting logical fallacies, and more.

 

But as Donald Trump speaks his first words as the President of the United States, things become even more interesting.  As the speaker evolves from candidate, to president-elect, to President of the United States, the rhetorical situation is whirls with purposeful shifts that are just begging to be analyzed and explicated by our students!

 

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Lesson Description

This comprehensive bundle contains everything you need to analyze Trump’s inaugural address — perfect whether you’re analyzing the election, studying presidential rhetoric, tracing the evolution of language across an evolving speaker, or seeking a compelling text to contrast with the likes of JFK.

Here’s what you can expect to find in this bundle:

  • A guided macro-analysis of Trump’s inaugural address — providing students with comparative statistics before prompting them to make analytical observations themselves.  (For instance… Trump uses the word “I” three times in his inaugural address, but 194 times in the presidential announcement speech in which he declared his candidacy.  Why the discrepancy?  What’s the rhetorical choice, and the intended impact?)
  • A small-group or jigsaw activity that prompts students to analyze, compare, and contrast word-cloud visualizations of several speeches.  (Comparing a “word cloud” of Trump’s inaugural address with Obama’s inaugural address, Obama’s farewell speech, and Trump’s own presidential announcement speech.)
  • A structured close reading of Trump’s inaugural address — providing students with selected excerpts from the speech (as well as pertinent excerpts from other speeches) to analyze.
  • A comparative rhetorical analysis essay prompt.
  • A bundle of neatly formatted and print-ready speeches for analysis.

This is an awesome and comprehensive lesson bundle!

Join the TeachArgument Community to access this (and ALL of our pop culture lessons) instantly!

OR, purchase this comprehensive lesson bundle now for only $4.99!

Add to Cart

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