Rhetoric in Bad News Letters

Lesson by Daniel Roche

Description (for Instructors)

This in-class lesson plan helps students develop a critical understanding of the rhetorical appeals—ethos, pathos, and logos—as applied in business genres, particularly letters/emails. This lesson uses a variety of textual samples—from letters/emails to scholarly research papers to online blogs—to guide students’ investigation, thereby ensuring the post-course application of rhetorical skills.

The following lesson is designed to be completed synchronously in class. However, it can be adapted into an asynchronous lesson using various tools, such as an interactive quiz, on the Course Management System (CMS) of your choice.

Materials

Download “Rhetoric in Bad News Lesson PowerPoint”

Explanation (for Students)

1. Discuss Terms

Consider the three rhetorical appeals: ethos, logos, and pathos. Take 2-3 minutes to jot down your associations with these terms. What do they mean? How do they differ from one another? How do they relate to writing? Then, we’ll discuss our associations, definitions, and ideas as a class.

For Instructors:

During/after this discussion, give students a summary definition of the three terms and explain how they relate to writing. Examples can be found below.

Ethos: An ethical or moral argument. A writer who appeals to ethos…

  • Is fair to the reader
  • Is knowledgeable
  • Considers complexity

Pathos: An emotional argument. A writer who appeals to pathos…

  • Grounds their argument in audience values
  • Uses emotional examples
  • Uses a unique tone

Logos: A logical argument. A writer who appeals to logos…

  • Begins with a premise
  • Uses sufficient evidence
  • Leads to a conclusion

2. Evaluate Texts

Over the next several minutes, you will analyze and evaluate two different articles according to their appeal to ethos. However, you will only be provided the first page of each article. After your analysis, discuss with a partner how you would “rank” these articles’ appeal to ethos on a scale of 1-5.

Consider the following questions during your analysis:

  • Does the writer have the credibility/authority to discuss the topic?
  • If so, how do you know? 
  • If not, how does the writer gain credibility?

Article 1: “Exploration of the Location-Identity Split”

Article 2:  “Deconstructing Voice-over-IP” (1 of 2)

Article 3: “Deconstructing Voice-over-IP” (2 of 2)


Following your article analysis, we will come together as a class and consider the following questions:

  • How did the changed authorship of the second and third articles affect the way you evaluated their appeal to ethos?
  • How do you think authorship should affect the way you evaluate a text’s appeal to ethos?
  • When checking a text’s credibility, how can you ensure that your evaluation doesn’t depend upon fallible elements?
For Instructors:

During this discussion, be sure to highlight the importance of authorship and multiple methods of evaluation in determining a text’s credibility.

3. Read and Discuss

As a class, we will briefly read the following articles:

  1. Article 1: “How three MIT students fooled the world of scientific journals” by Adam Conner-Simona
  2. Article 2: “What an Audacious Hoax Reveals About Academia” by Yascha Mounk

After reviewing the articles, we will discuss the following questions as a class:

  • How do these articles affect your idea of how texts appeal to ethos and/or attain credibility?
  • When checking a text’s credibility, how can you ensure that your evaluation doesn’t depend upon fallible elements?

4. Evaluate Authors

As a class, we will look at two online texts and a “debrief” of their respective authors. Consider, when looking at these texts, how you would evaluate each text’s appeal to ethos based on the “stats” of their authors. What kinds of information about an author affect their credibility? What details do you generally look for?

Article 1: “Euthanasia and assisted suicide – contagion and corruption of compassion”

Author 1: Alex Schadenberg

Article 2: “Attitudes of Michigan Physicians and the Public toward Legalizing Physician-Assisted Suicide and Voluntary Euthanasia”

Author 2: Jerald Bachman

For Instructors:

When discussing the above-listed articles and their authors, be sure to highlight the fact that credibility can often be established by an author’s educational and professional background.

4. Brainstorm Methods of Evaluating Ethos

 In small groups, take the next 3-5 minutes to brainstorm a list of elements to look for/evaluate when analyzing a text’s appeal to ethos.

5. Apply Appeals to Ethos

Pretend that you’re a representative of a certain company (e.g., Amazon, Chipotle, Sephora, etc.), and you’re tasked with responding to a complaint from a customer. In small groups, consider the following questions:

  • How can you display ethos in your “bad news letter” (i.e., when responding to the customer)?
  • What details or information might you include?
  • How might you manipulate your letter’s tone, diction, and/or structure?

6. Apply Appeals to Pathos

Pretend that you’re a representative of a certain company (e.g., Amazon, Chipotle, Sephora, etc.), and you’re tasked with responding to a complaint from a customer. In small groups, consider the following questions:

  • How can you display pathos in your “bad news letter” (i.e., when responding to the customer)?
  • What details or information might you include?
  • How might you manipulate your letter’s tone, diction, and/or structure?
For Instructors:

Before completing this step, give students a brief review of pathos. Some points to review include…

  • Pathos is present in claims that make the audience feel a certain way.
  • Pathos may persuade readers with fear, love, patriotism, guilt, hate, or joy.
  • The use of pathos can be persuasive/manipulative.
  • Pathos is the cornerstone of moving people to action.

After completing this step, you may also go over some key words and phrases that may help appeal to pathos when composing bad news letters, such as the following:

  • Unfortunately
  • Regrettably
  • We regret…
  • In the future…
  • Issue
  • Error
  • Miscommunication
  • In the meantime…
  • We know you have many options…
  • Thank you for being understanding…
  • We recognize…

7. Analyze Video

Watch the following ad for Microsoft Surface and consider how it appeals to logos: “Real People – Microsoft Surface – Meet ‘Mac Book.’” What techniques does it use?

For Instructors:

Before completing this step, give students a brief review of pathos. Some points to review include…

  • Logos refers to any attempt to appeal to the intellect.
  • Logos appeals to the left side of the audience’s brain. The audience finds certain patterns, conventions, and modes of reasoning to be convincing and persuasive. 
  • The audience relies on reasoning and facts to make its decision. Numbers, polls, and statistics are also examples of the persuasive use of logic

8. Apply Appeals to Logos

Pretend that you’re a representative of a certain company (e.g., Amazon, Chipotle, Sephora, etc.), and you’re tasked with responding to a complaint from a customer. In small groups, consider the following questions:

  • How can you display logos in your “bad news letter” (i.e., when responding to the customer)?
  • What details or information might you include?
  • How might you manipulate your letter’s tone, diction, and/or structure?