Wayne Community College Letter from Birmingham City Jail Discussion

Now that you’ve read and analyzed the “Letter from Birmingham City Jail” I want you to discuss the rhetoric you saw Martin Luther King, Jr. using.

Once you’ve posted your notes, reply to one (1) other student’s post.

To do this, you can fill out an argument map (with at least one column discussing a claim, evidence, strategy, audience, and effectiveness), or you can simply write your notes in paragraph form.

You should discuss:

1. Project:
   • Topic, Purpose, Method of Delivery
2. Argument: What is his main (overall) argument?
3. Claim: list at least one claim he use to support their argument. Provide a quote from the text.
4. What claim is he responding to in the letter from the clergymen?
5. Evidence: for the claim you have listed above, what type of evidence did the clergymen use? (historical example, numerical, anecdote, etc.)
6. Did King use evidence similar to the clergymen?
7. Strategy: for the claim listed above, what type of strategy did the clergymen use? (one of the appeals, identification, compare & contrast, prolepsis, etc.)
8. Did King use a strategy similar to the clergymen?
9. What tone did King use? Did he keep that tone throughout or did he vary his tone? How was his tone compared to that of the writing in the letter from the clergymen?
10. Who was his primary audience?
11. Do you think the type of evidence and the strategy King used effectively convinced the audience? Why or why not?

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