ethos pathos logos persuasive essay 9th grade

1. Video Essay Survey
1. Do you have access to a video camera, a flip
camera, or a smart phone that has video
capabilities? If so, specify the type.
2. Do you have access to video editing software
like iMovie? If so, specify which type.
3. Do you like working in groups?
4. Do you like being a leader or a team player?
5. Are there any social issues or topics that you
may want to explore through a video essay?

2. You might be interested in covering
one of the following topics:
• Cheating and plagiarism • Underage binge drinking or drinking and
• Student pressure, anxiety, and stress driving
• Bullying • Standardized tests: How are they affecting
• How social media is changing our culture and our students and teachers?
society • The quality of school lunches and how it
• Teen pregnancy and how it is being affects students
portrayed in the media • Gender roles: Are girls and boys treated fairly
• Vegetarianism and veganism at school? Should they be treated equally?
• Dress codes: What kind of impact does a • Hunger or poverty
dress code have on school culture and • Civil rights at Leland—race, gender, class,
students? sexual orientation
• Environmental practices • The importance of _________________
• The destruction of _________________
• We need to change ________________
• We need to preserve _______________

3. “Food. Inc.” as a Video Essay
• Thesis statement
– The film examines corporate farming in the United
States, concluding that the agricultural business
produces food that is unhealthy, in a way that is
environmentally harmful and abusive of both
animals and employees.

4. Video Essay: Project Proposal
1. Which social issue do you intend to focus on
for your video essay?
2. Why do you care? Why should we care?
3. Who does this issue affect?
4. How will you expose this issue using ethos,
pathos, and or logos?
5. What do you wish to change or persuade the
viewer to do by the end of the video essay?

5. Sample Questions for my Interviewee:
Create 20 questions for him/her
1. How do you define cheating?
2. How often do you cheat?
3. Can you describe some of the ways in which you have
cheated in the past?
4. Do you worry about the moral or ethical problems with
cheating or just with getting caught?
5. Do you think the risks involved with cheating are worth it?
6. What is the main reason why you cheat? Or don’t cheat?
7. Do you believe it is necessary to cheat in order to “get
ahead in life?”
8. Do you believe that everyone who is successful has
cheated at some point in his/her life?

6. Revised call to action
• Use the call to action in Food, Inc. as inspiration.
What made that ending so powerful? If you
wanted to do something about the food industry,
did you feel like you knew what you could do in
order to insight change?
• Re-write your call to action so that it is asks your
audience to do something SPECIFIC in order to
make change.
• It may be one very powerful action or it may be a
list of smaller but still specific actions.

7. Pathos brainstorm & research
1. What do you find to be emotional about your topic?
2. Who is affected by your topic?
3. So far, what have your interviews or surveys conveyed
that is emotional?
4. Do you have any stories that you plan on telling the
audience in order to get at the emotional core of your
topic?
5. How do you plan to present these stories (or any
other elements of pathos)?
6. What effect do you want it to have on the viewers?