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Without question, Tom Robinson would be better off today. In fact, Tom Robinson could live a life completely unimaginable and unrecognizable to the characters in Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" - the groundbreaking book, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this week.  No lynchings.  No all white male juries.  No presumption of guilt based on skin color.  No state-sanctioned discrimination. Yet, Tom would realize a sad, but undeniable truth -- that racism is still alive and all too well in contemporary America.  He would know it in the economic injustice that has left a disproportionate number of African-Americans -- 25 percent -- living in poverty.   He would see it in the criminal injustice that has left a disproportionate number of African-American men - 6 times the number of white, non-Hispanic men -- living in jails and prisons.  And he would feel it in the hate-filled, racist rhetoric that still defines too much of our political discourse - rhetoric that questions the Civil Rights Act, rhetoric that questions the birthplace of our President.

"Roosevelt's brevity exposes the rhetorical devices leaders often use in times of crisis. Take the five-step structure so popular with speechwriters it now has a name: Monroe's Motivated Sequence. In "Infamy," Roosevelt uses all five. First, win attention. Second, present a problem. Third, offer a solution. Fourth, envision the future Fifth, utter a call to action"

A column that analyzes the rhetorical strategies that Bill Clinton used in his speech at the DNC

"o teach students how to understand and apply these rhetorical principles in an academic context, I first familiarize writers with the definition of ethos, pathos and logos, using this short video from Read/Write/Think. Use the chart below to help novice writers apply the proofs to a variety of persuasive texts in their environment, such as magazine or newspaper advertisements and editorials:"

"Great oratory magnifies the lessons of great writing. Written for the ear, memorable speeches tend to use certain rhetorical devices - such as parallelism or emphatic word order - in greater measure than less dramatic forms of communication. The language strategies rise to the surface, so you may not even need a pair of X-ray reading glasses to see them."