Critical Thinking I block

Prompt: Analyze the rhetorical strategies – such as arguments, assumptions, and diction – that King uses, and comment on the intended effect of the letter on its audience.

These are notes. Choose, reject, modify at will.

Conclusion:
African Americans are justified in practicing direct action at this time.
Direct action in Birmingham is wise and timely.
Direct action is a justifiable method of opposing segregation.
People are justified in taking direct action against an unjust system.

Premises:
• Current social system is unjust. (Segregation is unjust. The current system supports segregation.)
• Unjust systems are changed through negotiation; direct action is a rational, philosophically-based method (the only way) to promote negotiation.
• The problem is so bad that it needs to be addressed right now. “Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.”
• Unjust laws should be broken.

Disappointment with white moderates (whites have a moral obligation to uphold others’ freedom)
- direct action not violent and in fact will prevent violence
- not extreme, but mediates between between two extremes
- can’t suppress universal yearning for freedom & social justice; maybe “extreme” isn’t so bad
Disappointment with white church (church should uphold highest principles of justice and freedom)
- maintain status quo



Essay:
Identify audience and context, purpose of the letter
Thesis: King uses a blend of rogerian strategy, logical reasoning, and emotional appeals in order …

Possible organizational strategies:
ethos, logos, pathos
premise by premise look at techniques he he uses to prove each premise. (premises can also be considered reasoning, a point in itself).

Reasoning
Emotional appeals
Other rhetorical strategies: analogies, authority, rhet. questions, biblical diction.