Lesson on Persuasion
For Nonfiction
Knowing Who Is Listening
Patrick Henry, “Speech in the Virginia Convention” · Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”
Lessons in Nonfiction
Persuasion begins with knowing who is listening. Henry speaks to colleagues who hope for peace; Douglass speaks to a white audience on the day after their national holiday. Both shape every sentence to that audience: what it believes, what it fears and what it will not want to hear.
Questions on the Classic Readings
Patrick Henry, Speech in the Virginia Convention
- Henry begins by granting that “different men often see the same subject in different lights.” Why open with respect for those who disagree?
- Why does Henry ask so many questions (“Shall we try argument?”)?
Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”
- Douglass asks, “What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?” What does the word “your” do?
- How does Douglass use his listeners’ own values against them?
Activities
These draw on the classic readings on this page.
- Questions as argument. Write a one-page argument on a subject you care about in which most of the reasoning is carried by questions to the reader.
- The audience’s own words. Choose a value your reader holds dear and write a paragraph showing how a current practice betrays it.
—Silver Current Press