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3/6 AP English Language Rhetorical Analysis Essay Example #2

This is a real rhetorical analysis essay written by an AP student (personal details removed) and scored 3/6 by our AI grader — one of many AP English Language essay examples in our library.

The Prompt

In the following letter, Abigail Adams (1744–1818) writes to her son John Quincy Adams, who is traveling abroad with his father, John Adams, a United States diplomat and later the country’s second president. Read the letter carefully. Then, in a well-developed essay, analyze the rhetorical strategies Adams uses to advise her son. Support your analysis with specific references to the text.

The Passage

12 January, 1780. MY DEAR SON, I hope you have had no occasion, either from enemies or the dangers of the sea, to repent your second voyage to France. If I had thought your reluctance arose from proper deliberation, or that you 5 were capable of judging what was most for your own Line benefit, I should not have urged you to accompany your father and brother when you appeared so averse to the voyage. You, however, readily submitted to my advice, 10 and, I hope, will never have occasion yourself, nor give me reason, to lament it. Your knowledge of the language must give you greater advantages now than you could possibly have reaped whilst ignorant of it; and as you increase in years, you will find your 15 understanding opening and daily improving. Some author, that I have met with, compares a judicious traveller to a river, that increases its stream the further it flows from its source; or to certain springs, which, running through rich veins of 20 minerals, improve their qualities as they pass along. It will be expected of you, my son, that, as you are favored with superior advantages under the instructive eye of a tender parent, your improvement should bear some proportion to your advantages. Nothing is 25 wanting with you but attention, diligence, and steady application. Nature has not been deficient. These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. 30 Would Cicero have shone so distinguished an orator if he had not been roused, kindled, and inflamed by the tyranny of Catiline, Verres, and Mark Anthony? The habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. All history will convince you of this, 35 and that wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised and animated by scenes that engage the heart, then those qualities, which would otherwise lie 40 dormant, wake into life and form the character of the hero and the statesman. War, tyranny, and desolation are the scourges of the Almighty, and ought no doubt to be deprecated. Yet it is your lot, my son, to be an eyewitness of these calamities in your own native 45 land, and, at the same time, to owe your existence among a people who have made a glorious defence of their invaded liberties, and who, aided by a generous and powerful ally, with the blessing of Heaven, will transmit this inheritance to ages yet unborn. 50 Nor ought it to be one of the least of your incitements towards exerting every power and faculty of your mind, that you have a parent who has taken so large and active a share in this contest, and discharged the trust reposed in him with so much satisfaction as 55 to be honored with the important embassy which at present calls him abroad. The strict and inviolable regard you have ever paid to truth, gives me pleasing hopes that you will not swerve from her dictates, but add justice, fortitude, 60 and every manly virtue which can adorn a good citizen, do honor to your country, and render your parents supremely happy, particularly your ever affectionate mother, A. A.

The Essay

In a letter by Abigail Adams addressed to her son and future president John Quincy Adams in 1780, she advises him not to doubt himself for having agreed to go on a voyage with his father, but instead to use his connections from being born into a politically active family to his advantage to flourish into a better man. She supports this by using her maternal tone to allure to her son’s ego, and then providing nature-related metaphors to motivate him. Adam’s purpose is to comfort her son in order to help him realize his potential. She establishes an affectionate but influential relationship with her son to appeal to him in hopes to persuade her son’s subconscious. In the beginning of her letter, Adams starts off with her well wishes, then transitions into talking about Quincy’s reluctance for agreeing to go with his father. She tells her son that if she trusted his judgement, she wouldn’t have pushed him into saying yes. She says he “appeared so averse to the voyage” (Adams, line 7) but he “readily submitted to my advice” (Adams 9). Given that she’s his mother, she knows her son best, especially his flaws and virtues, so if she didn’t think he was capable she wouldn’t have done anything. While Quincy showed some unwillingness he still agreed, and that’s what Adams wants her son to see. Using her influence as his mother, she knows that out of anyone, she is the person her son will most likely listen to. She leverages her influence to help her son realize that if he truly didn’t believe he wasn’t capable he would have said no, but he didn’t because his ego deems him capable. She transitions into a little blurb about an encounter she had with a stranger. She states the stranger compared a river to a stream and that when "running through rich veins of minerals, improve their qualities as they pass along" (Adams). Adams decides to tell this quote to her son because his participation was a surprise and a big step for his future.

Score Breakdown

Thesis (1/1)

Evidence & Commentary (2/4)

Sophistication (0/1)

What This Essay Gets Right

The writer names two of Adams's choices in the opening, her maternal tone and her nature metaphors, and ties both to a single purpose, getting John Quincy to see his own potential. That gives the body a job. Calling the bond 'an affectionate but influential relationship with her son' treats it as a move Adams makes on purpose, which is the right instinct for this prompt. The best analysis comes in the first body paragraph. Adams reminds her son that he 'appeared so averse to the voyage' yet 'readily submitted to my advice,' and the writer sees what she is doing with that memory: if he said yes, some part of him already believed he could handle the trip, and his mother is the one person positioned to point that out. Here the essay explains how a line works on its reader. It also stays organized, moving from the opening appeal to the river image without wandering.

What Went Wrong (And How to Avoid It)

The river image gets one sentence of explanation, and it is about Adams's motive: 'Adams decides to tell this quote to her son because his participation was a surprise and a big step for his future.' Why she mentions it is only half the job. The image itself carries the argument, since a stream that runs 'through rich veins of minerals' comes out improved, the way Adams expects travel and hardship to improve her son, and saying so would turn a summary into analysis. The essay also stops early. Adams's point that 'great necessities call out great virtues' never gets its own paragraph, and there is no conclusion.

Last, the thesis sets its two strategies side by side without connecting them. They do connect. Adams's authority as his mother is what lets her press on his ego at all, and the river metaphor recasts the hardship she is pushing him toward as growth, so he can accept the push without resenting it.

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