Assess students' ability to apply discourse and rhetorical analysis to identify and explain persuasion strategies in contemporary political speeches. Using one or two recent speeches (domestic or international), students should annotate transcripts to identify rhetorical devices (ethos, pathos, logos), framing, narrative structure, metaphor, repetition, modality, presuppositions, audience targeting, and common fallacies; for each example, explain how the strategy functions to persuade a target audience and evaluate its effectiveness and ethical implications in a short comparative analysis.