Discursive Writing

What is the purpose of discursive pieces?

• To push one argument

• To discurse and discourse

• To discuss a wide range of ideas

• To analyse how an event has shaped the world

Which of the following DO NOT belong at the beginning of a discursive piece:

• Anecdote

• Expert Quote

• Event

• Decisive argument

What discursive writing techniques are in the following:

"I am asking you to help him. I am asking you to help me. I am asking you to help us black people in America."

• Grouping of three

• Anaphora

• Repetition

• Emotive language

• All of the above

What technique is the following:

"On May 26, I woke up to the news that an African American man named George Floyd, 46 years old, was killed 12 blocks from my home—in front of Cup Foods, an Arab-American mom-and-pop corner store my family and I would infrequently patronize, one of the only ones still standing in our expeditiously gentrifying neighborhood."

What is the most significant technique in the following excerpt:

"I am George Floyd. I am Ahmaud Arbery. I am Tamir Rice. I am Eric Garner. I am Philando Castile. I am Alton Sterling. I am Oscar Grant. I am Trayvon Martin. I am Emmett Till."

• Awkward

• Historical references

• Anecdote

• Repetition

Why are statues being torn down around the world as a result of the George Floyd protests?

What persuasive technique is the following:

"Starved and beaten, the poor puppy would have died a miserable death without your help."

• Emotive language

• Hyperbole

• Truncated sentences

• Third person language

Which persuasive technique is this?

Using words like ‘we’, ‘you’, ‘our’ and ‘us’ to make your audience think you are talking only to them.

• Repetition

• Alliteration

• Exaggeration

• Personal Pronouns

Which persuasive technique is this?

When you pick holes in your opposition’s argument so that your point of view sounds better.

• Rhetorical questions

• Criticise other points of view

• Groups of three

• Emotive language

What is this an example of?

Homework is boring, dull and uninteresting.

• Exaggeration

• Repetition

• Emotive Language

• Groups of Three