One of the biggest mistakes students make in the VCE Argument Analysis essay is to start a body paragraph with a persuasive device / persuasive technique / language feature.
English teachers and VCAA: can we please come to a consensus about what we call them already?
Students often forget that authors and speakers use persuasive techniques in service of an argument. Persuasive techniques do not exist in a vacuum – authors and speakers don’t use them just for the fun of it – they are used in a larger context of an argument being made!
Writing about a persuasive technique in the first sentence of the body paragraph sets up the student to discuss that technique in a very superficial way, simply because there was no prior discussion of the arguments before this sentence that the student can refer back to, or build upon.
So, the first sentence should NEVER read: The author uses [technique] to [reader effect].
Instead, we should encourage our students to consider the verb: instead of ‘used’, what is the author actually doing? Are they supporting, praising, attaching, condemning, encouraging, highlighting, undermining…?
Once the student has dedicated the first two sentences to analysing the arguments being made, THEN they are in a much better position to insightfully discuss the techniques used, because they are now situated in the context of the author’s argument.
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