English Language Arts · 9th Grade

Active learning ideas

Pathos: Appealing to Emotion

Active learning works well for this topic because pathos requires students to see how emotion functions in real communication. When students analyze, discuss, and create their own examples, they move beyond abstract definitions to understand how word choice shapes feeling and judgment.

• Common Core State Standards
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.9-10.6
• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.9-10.3

• 20–40 min
• Pairs → Whole Class
• 3 activities

Activity 01

• Gallery Walk
• 40 min · Small Groups

Gallery Walk: Emotional Appeals in Advertising

Post 8-10 print or digital advertisements around the room, each tagged with a blank emotion chart. Groups rotate and annotate which emotions the ad targets, what specific words or images trigger those feelings, and whether the appeal is ethical or manipulative. Groups compare charts in a whole-class debrief.

Which rhetorical appeal is most effective when addressing a hostile audience?

Facilitation Tip

For the Gallery Walk, assign each pair a station to focus on identifying one emotional appeal at a time, rather than trying to find everything in one image.

What to look for

Provide students with a short advertisement transcript. Ask them to identify one phrase or sentence that uses pathos and explain which emotion it is intended to evoke and why.

• Understand
• Apply
• Analyze
• Create
• Relationship Skills
• Social Awareness

Activity 02

• Think-Pair-Share
• 20 min · Pairs

Think-Pair-Share: When Does Pathos Cross the Line?

Students read a short excerpt from a speech (such as MLK's 'I Have a Dream' or a political campaign script) and independently annotate every emotional appeal they notice. Pairs decide together which appeals feel legitimate versus manipulative, then share one example and their reasoning with the class.

What are the ethical implications of over-relying on emotional appeals?

Facilitation Tip

During Think-Pair-Share, direct students to use their partner’s perspective to refine their own reasoning before sharing with the whole class.

What to look for

Pose the question: 'When is it acceptable for a speaker to use emotional appeals, and when does it cross the line into manipulation? Provide an example to support your viewpoint.'

• Understand
• Apply
• Analyze
• Self-Awareness
• Relationship Skills

Activity 03

• Role Play
• 30 min · Pairs

Role Play: Rewrite the Pitch

Students receive a bland, factual argument (such as a proposal to extend school lunch hours) and rewrite one paragraph to incorporate targeted emotional appeals without distorting the facts. Partners swap drafts, rate the emotional effectiveness and ethical integrity, and give specific written feedback.

Analyze how specific word choices evoke particular emotions in an audience.

Facilitation Tip

For the Role Play, provide a clear rubric so students know exactly how their rewritten pitch will be judged on emotional appeal and credibility.

What to look for

Present students with two contrasting headlines for the same news event. Ask them to identify which headline relies more heavily on pathos and explain how specific word choices contribute to the emotional tone.

• Apply
• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Social Awareness
• Self-Awareness

A few notes on teaching this unit

Experienced teachers approach pathos by balancing analysis with creation, ensuring students both consume and produce emotional appeals. They avoid framing emotion as inherently manipulative and instead emphasize audience awareness and ethical intent. Research shows that when students practice revising texts for different audiences, they develop a more nuanced understanding of how emotion functions in persuasion.

Successful learning looks like students recognizing emotional appeals in everyday texts, explaining their effects with specific evidence, and making intentional choices when crafting persuasive messages. They should be able to distinguish between emotional appeals that support an argument and those that manipulate.

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Watch Out for These Misconceptions

• During the Gallery Walk, some students may assume that using emotion in an argument makes it weaker or dishonest.

  During the Gallery Walk, direct students to collect examples of advertisements that combine emotional language with facts or statistics, then discuss in small groups how these elements work together rather than compete.

• During the Role Play, students might believe the most emotionally intense message is always the most persuasive.

  During the Role Play, assign different audience roles to students and have them present their rewritten pitches to each group, then debrief about which emotional appeals worked for which audiences and why.

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Methods used in this brief

• Gallery Walk
• Think-Pair-Share
• Role Play