Florida B.E.S.T. ELA.6.R.3.4
The Standard
Identify rhetorical appeals in a text.
Florida B.E.S.T. Standards for English Language Arts
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students find places where a writer uses credibility, emotion, or logic to persuade an audience. They label each example as ethos, pathos, or logos and cite the clue from the text.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Students correctly identify ethos, pathos, and logos in speeches, articles, and advertisements. They point to specific words, facts, or speaker details that support each choice.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may label any emotional topic as pathos, any number as logos, or any named person as ethos. They may also confuse rhetorical appeals with figurative language or an author’s main claim.
How to Assess It
- Give students a short advertisement containing one clear appeal. Ask them to label the appeal and underline the words that reveal it.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs a printed advertisement and three highlighters to mark examples of ethos, pathos, and logos in different colors.
Ask students which appeal would best persuade classmates to reduce cafeteria waste, then have them write one matching sentence.
Play an appeal card sort where teams match short claims with ethos, pathos, or logos and explain each match.
Compare two public service announcements and identify how each uses credibility, emotion, or evidence to influence its audience.
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Related Standards
- ELA.10.R.3.4
Analyze an author's use of rhetoric in a text.
- ELA.11.R.3.4
Evaluate an author's use of rhetoric in text.
- ELA.8.R.3.4
Explain how an author uses rhetorical devices to support or advance an appeal.
- ELA.9.R.2.3
Analyze how an author establishes and achieves purpose(s) through rhetorical appeals and/or figurative language.
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