Performance Task Title: Rhetorical Analysis

Grade: 11th
Designer: Tracey Anderson
Performance Task Annotation: Students will both analyze and apply rhetorical
strategies in The Rattler.
Subject(s): AP English Language and American Literature
Approximate Duration of Performance Task: five 50-minute class periods
Focus Standards:
1. ELAGSE9-10RI4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are
used in a text, including figurative, connotative, and technical meanings;
analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone.
2. ELAGSE9-10RI5 Analyze in detail how an authors ideas or claims are
developed and refined by particular sentences, paragraphs, or larger portions
of a text (e.g., a section or chapter).
3. ELAGSE9-10RI6 Determine an authors point of view or purpose in a text and
analyze how an author uses rhetoric to advance that point of view or
purpose.
National ISTE Standards:
1. Design and develop digital age learning experiences and assessments.
a. Desire or adapt relevant learning experiences that incorporate digital tools
and resources.
b. Develop technology-rich learning environments that enable all students to
become active participants in managing their own learning and assessing
their own progress.
2. Model digital age work and learning.
a. Demonstrate fluency in technology systems.
b. Collaborate with students using digital tools and resources to support
student success.
Description and Teacher Directions:
Day 1
After jotting down their responses to the title and their perceptions of snakes,
students read the story in class. After reading it, students write the topic or issue of
the story (examples: death, nature). Then students read the story again to
determine the argument the story makes, trying to answer the What? question
(What is the narrator saying about death or saying about nature?). After students
write their responses on their copies of the story, they should post their articulation
of the argument on the blog. Then students review these arguments to see which
ones can and cant supported by the text and revise these arguments, making sure
that students post their substantiated reasons for questioning or revising an
argument on the classs Edmodo page.

Homework: Students post at least two detailed comments about how an argument
of the story exists in other settings so they can appreciate the universality of
arguments (the man has to kill the snake just as someone may have to do
something he doesnt want to for the good of other people or to protect himself).
Day 2
Students should begin by re-reading the story for abstract and concrete details.
They should use two different colored highlighters to highlight these abstract and
concrete details. Then students should re-read the story for diction and tone. They
should circle any words that illustrate the narrators view of the snake and of killing
the snake and identify the circled words as such. Students will re-read the story one
more time for syntax. They should underline different length and type sentences
and then marginally annotate whether these sentences are speaking of the snake or
the man.
Students should then be divided up into groups of three so that each group has a
details person, a diction/tone person, and a sentence person. Each group should
create a google doc to which they can add the textual evidence (the parts of the
text they highlighted, circled, underlined).
Homework: Students should finish adding their textual evidence to their groups
google doc.
Day 3
Students work collaboratively in their groups to write an analysis of the story. Each
group member should create a new word document to write a paragraph analyzing
an aspect of the text (details, diction, syntax) for which they didnt gather textual
evidence. Then each group member should copy and paste their paragraph into
their groups google doc so that each group member can read, revise, and edit their
peers analysis.
Homework: Brainstorm ideas for a short story adapting the same use of detail,
diction, and syntax in The Rattler.
Day 4
After group members have determined the idea/argument and the important
elements of their story, each student should write one paragraph or part of the
story in a word document. Then students should copy and paste their parts into a
new google doc.
Homework: Students should finish and/or revise and edit their stories and then post
them on the classs Edmodo page.
Day 5
Students pull up other groups short stories on Edmodo to read and evaluate them.
Rubric Title

Rubric Description
Rubric or Other Performance Evaluation Tool (INSERT THE ACTUAL RUBRIC)
Example of Student Work with Teacher Commentary (Insert one example of
what you would expect a student to submit.)
Materials and Equipment: Copies of the one-page The Rattler short story; pen
or pencil and two different colored highlighters per student; desk top computer or
lap top for each student.
What 21st Century Technology was used in this performance task?
Computer; google doc; edmodo.
Differentiated Instruction: Students apply their own experiences or observations
to the universality of the argument; students choose which aspect of the text to
examine for their group; students choose their own story ideas and details.
Web Resources:
Edmodo: https://www.edmodo.com/
Google docs: https://www.google.com/docs/about/
Setting
The daily activities will take place in Lakeside High Schools computer lab where
each student will have access to a desktop computer. For days 3 and 4, students will
sit near their group members so they can collaborate digitally as well as face-toface. 9 desks are on 4 rows of long tables, so that most students will be able to
communicate easily with their group members sitting next to them.
Homework should take place at home; however, any student who doesnt have
access to a computer at home can come by the teachers classroom after school or
arrange to work on one of the media centers computers before school or during
lunch.
Learners
Students completing these activities are high school juniors enrolled in Accelerated
American Literature or in the hybrid AP English Language/American Literature.
These students are sixteen and seventeen year-old males and females. Some are
identified as gifted; some have 504 plans or IEPs. Students ethnicities include the
following: white, African American, Puerto Rican, Mexican, and other Hispanic. No
student has an ESOL designation, but some are bilingual.