After a couple of days of station work on the rhetorical appeals, I like to spend a lesson bridging those stations into the quiz: going back through what students found, comparing responses, and modeling strong answers.
In one station, students watched three commercials and identified the dominant appeal in each; we talk through those together, referencing the commercials rather than replaying them. In another, students wrote their own script for a ridiculous, as-seen-on-TV-style infomercial built around a particular appeal; if there’s time, a quick table read from each group is a fun way to share those out.
I spend the most time on the station built around the Nixon “In Event of Moon Disaster” speech, since it’s essentially a dry run for the quiz with a different text. If a student’s answer is missing a full analysis with evidence, we talk through what’s missing, and if a group has a strong response, I’ll show it under my document camera or type it up as a model for the rest of the class.
If students made posters in another station or did a magazine scavenger hunt for the appeals, I’ll highlight a few of the best examples from those too. Any remaining time becomes open study time, or, if the whole class (or a few students) need more targeted support, I have appeal-specific practice pages that isolate a single appeal, have students explain it, and then apply it.
For a whole-class review option, I like a letter-to-the-editor project. Most students don’t know what a letter to the editor actually is, so I explain the genre and share a model letter first. Then students draft their own letter to their local paper about an issue that matters in their community, labeling the appeals they used along the way. They don’t have to actually send it in, though they’re welcome to.
If the appeals are a brand new concept for a class, it’s worth turning this into a full two-day review before the quiz. I don’t publish my quizzes in these videos for test security reasons, but it follows the same format as the stations, just with a new text and slightly different questions.