Before writing an essay, analyze the rhetorical situation — use any of the strategies mentioned in the previous section to decide what you think is important.
(begin chisholm activity)
In order to convince Congress that the US should spend more money on fixing America's cities and less on defense, Chisholm puts every number into context: 80bn is of every tax dollar, 2 more years of hunger/death of best young men, etc. She also talks about the differences between what people say and what people do (what Nixon said vs. not leaving Vietnam, Robert Finch "we should spend more on education" but not spending more on education, etc).
(end chisholm activity)
Before you start writing, just put the main idea in one sentence. Then, your thesis should be something that summarizes the rhetorical strategies and addresses the specifics of the argument. For your body paragraphs, make sure to use specific evidence from the text. Beyond that, you need to have analysis of every quote. That is, how it ties in to the argument you are constructing about the author's writing.
(begin rhetorical analysis of rhetorical analysis essay activity)
The thesis statement essentially enumerates the arguments that each paragraph makes. So, the topic sentences of each paragraph put together very closely resemble the thesis sentence itself. I think this is effective because it constructs a visual (essentially a "shape") in the reader's mind that allows them to better understand the argument. It also makes it easy to follow a clear line of argumentation, which makes it easier to convince the reader of a point.
I especially like the third paragraph that talks about American values. I think the writer effectively constructs an analysis of the way American "values" are used by Chisholm. She first talks about the administration's perceived values: "...administration's policy on financing war machines, asking “what kind of values can be involved in spending $9 billion” on..." Then, she highlights Chisholm's notice of America's hypocrisy, which makes us understand how the administration is failing not only to deliver for the people it is supposedly fighting for in Vietnam, but also for the people within its own borders. By showing Chisholm's argument about America's global hyprocisy and unsolved problems at home, the writer effectively shows the values that the American government should keep to by showing what the American government is not keeping to, and how it impacts American citizens and global relations.
Honestly, I think most of rhetorical analysis is often made up and puts words in the mouths of writers that had no deeper intention. This essay seems to be a general summary of Chisholm's speech, and it reaches a reasonable conclusion about Chisholm's goals (to highlight how bad spending on defense is). I'd say that it's on the better side of rhetorical analysis essays.
I think that the speech is also largely a voting stunt — Shirley Chisholm was the first female African American representative in Congress, and this was one of her first speeches. She was a "first", and needed to prove herself in Congress — so she did this by putting forth a contrarian viewpoint (the first half of her speech is mostly just criticising the government's actions and the newly elected president) before showing her voter base that she has their interests at heart (refusing to vote for DoD bills), which presents herself again as a "first" (i.e. in contrast to the "rest of Congress" that allows mindless spending on the DoD). Overall, I think her speech is an appeal to her voters and a way to establish herself as a "first" in not just race and gender. (end)