A rhetorical question is a question that is asked to make a point and not to get an answer. For example, ‘Who cares?’
Rhetorical questions are used in literature to make a statement or to draw the reader’s attention to something.
Work in pairs to identify all of the rhetorical questions in ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’. What point is Bob Dylan trying to make by asking these questions?
Understand
1. Identify one literary device used in this song. 2. Find an example of phonetic language in this song. 3. Where does the songwriter suggest that we will find the answers to these questions?
Explore
1. Choose one of the questions asked in this song and explain what it is asking in your own words.
2. Do you think the songwriter has his own answers to some of these rhetorical questions?
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3. Do you like this song? Explain your answer.
4. (a) Choose a line from the song to represent each one of the following themes and explain your choice: conflict nature inequality.
(b) Identify another theme in this song and discuss what the songwriter has to say about this theme.
Create
Think about questions that you have no answers to. Write your own poem or song addressing these questions.
Include a rhetorical question. Write phonetically in a specific dialect.
