Rhetorical Schemes

1. Rhetorical Schemes

2. What is a scheme? • A scheme is an artful way to organize a sentence.

3. Parallel Structure • Parallel Structure: Sentences that are balanced grammatically. • *She tries to smiledaily, laughregularly, and speakthoughtfully. • *Frustrated by her children’s apathy, discouraged by their lethargy, the mom developed a plan. • *She drove home happily, encouraged by the events of the day, cheered by the kind words of her colleagues.

4. Anaphora • Anaphora: Beginning successive sentences with the same word. • *Education needs teachers who care. Education needs students who are prepared for the real word. Education needs you.

5. Asyndeton • Asyndeton: Omitting conjunctions between clauses or phrases. • *Ms. Smith taught the class enthusiastically, passionately, intelligently. • *Each day when he teaches, he acts as a parent, teacher, mentor, friend.

6. polysyndeton • Polysyndeton: Using more conjunctions than usual between clauses or phrases. • *Ms. Smith taught the class enthusiastically and passionately and intelligently. • * The first graders love recess and lunch and snack time.

7. Alliteration • Alliteration: Beginning successive words with the same letter. • *She strives to live, to laugh, and to love.

8. For homework • Go back to the Alexie and White readings. Find 5 sentences you like for their style. Using these sentences as models, write sentences that are structured the same way but use different words.

9. Examples • Zeugma or Syllepsis—The verb “carried” applies to books and dreams but in a different way for each word. • “She carried her books and her dreams to school.” • From Alexie (also parallel structure) • “We lived on a combination of irregular paychecks, hope, fear, and government surplus food” (Alexie 15-16). • My sentence: • “She taught with chalk, passion, inspiration, and books.”