Patrick Henry Essay Format

Oration is the art of effective public speaking.

Patrick Henry effectively uses several oratorical devices in his Speech in the Virginia Convention. Amony those he uses are these:

• rhetorical questions: A rhetorical question is one that the speaker asks to get the audience to actively think about what he is saying. The speaker does not expect the listeners to interrupt him to give the answer, but to give the answer silently in their own minds.
• restatement: Restatement is an oratorical device whereby the speaker uses different words or phrases to express the same idea. Look for synonyms.
• repetition: Repetition is literally the repeating of the exact word or phrase to drive home a point.
• parallelism: Parallelism is the grouping of related ideas by expressing them using the same grammatical structure. Look for phrases that have common structure, such as repeated use of noun clauses, or repeated use of gerunds, etc.

The Essay Format

Paragraph 1: Write a thesis statement that informs the reader of this essay that the essay will cover four oratorical devices used in Patrick Henry's Speech in the Virginia Convention.
Paragraph 2: Select one of the oratorical devices. Define it. Quote three examples of it.
Paragraph 3: Select a second oratorical device. Define it. Quote three examples of it.
Paragraph 4: Select a third oratorical device. Define it. Quote three examples of it.
Paragraph 5: Select the fourth oratorical device. Define it. Quote three examples of it.
Paragraph 6: Write a simple summary, naming the four devices.