Outcomes and Skills
These outcomes describe what students should be able to do by the end of the unit. They are formative: use them to plan, self-check and give feedback. They do not rank students or record results.
Knowledge
- Know the parts of the rhetorical situation: speaker or writer, audience, purpose, context, message and medium.
- Know how ethos, pathos and logos work, and how they can be used responsibly or irresponsibly.
- Know the difference between a claim, a reason, evidence and a warrant.
- Know how to test evidence for relevance, accuracy, sufficiency, currency and representativeness.
- Know how campaign strategy connects a problem, an audience, a desired change and a set of channels.
- Know how visual choices such as framing, colour, type and layout shape meaning.
Skills
| Skill | What it looks like | Next step if it is not yet secure |
|---|---|---|
| Rhetorical analysis | Names a choice, explains its effect on a specific audience and connects it to purpose. | Annotate one sentence or image at a time using: choice, effect, audience, purpose. |
| Audience analysis | Describes what an audience knows, values, needs and resists without stereotyping them. | Write three questions you would need to ask a real member of that audience. |
| Argument | States a contestable claim and supports it with reasons that are distinct from the claim. | Use the because test: my claim is true because... and because... |
| Evidence use | Selects relevant evidence, explains what it shows and acknowledges its limits. | For each source, write one sentence on what it cannot prove. |
| Research | Finds reliable sources, checks their purpose and date, and records enough detail to return to them. | Open a second source that disagrees and compare the two accounts. |
| Campaign design | Connects message, medium, audience and desired change in a coherent brief. | Explain the campaign in one sentence: who, what change, why this message. |
| Visual design | Uses image, layout and type deliberately, and can explain the effect of each choice. | Remove one element and say what changes. |
| Redrafting | Improves argument, clarity and effect in separate passes. | Do one pass for evidence only, then one for clarity only. |
| Presentation | Delivers a clear pitch, uses evidence and answers questions without defensiveness. | Rehearse the first 30 seconds and the most likely question. |
| Ethical judgement | Identifies manipulation, consent, privacy and dignity issues and proposes safeguards. | Apply the five ethical tests on the ethics page. |
What progress looks like
| From | To |
|---|---|
| Listing persuasive techniques. | Explaining how a technique affects a specific audience and serves a purpose. |
| Saying a campaign is effective because it is emotional. | Explaining which emotion is activated, how, for whom and at what cost. |
| Using a statistic because it sounds impressive. | Explaining what the statistic measures and what it does not show. |
| Designing a poster with no stated audience. | Designing for a named audience and justifying each major choice. |
| Treating a counterargument as an obstacle to dismiss. | Using the strongest objection to sharpen the campaign. |
| Adding more text when a draft is unclear. | Cutting, reordering and simplifying so the message lands. |
Formative success criteria
- I can map the rhetorical situation of a campaign text.
- I can explain how a specific choice positions an audience.
- I can write a contestable claim with two distinct reasons.
- I can use evidence accurately and explain its limits.
- I can name and answer the strongest counterargument.
- I can explain my campaign in one sentence: audience, change and message.
- I can justify a visual choice by its effect, not by taste.
- I can test a draft with an audience and change it in response.
- I can identify an ethical risk in a campaign and propose a safeguard.
These criteria are formative. They are not a ranking tool. Use them in conferences, peer feedback and self-checks, and revise your judgement as your understanding changes.