Persuasive writing and speaking advance the progress towards social justice and equality by using 

rhetoric examples. King,Alvarez, and Yousafzai, uses rhetoric examples to advance their arguments for social 
justice and equality, either by telling it by letter or book, to speaking it to the crowd. This is how these three 
people use rhetoric in their arguments. King writes a letter from jail to the people addressing to the clergyman, 
Alvarez writer a book from her mothers perspects showing injustice, and Yousafzai speaking in front of the 
conference/crowd for equal rights. King uses the rhetoric example of pathos stronger than the others, Alvarez 
Has a stronger logos than the others, and Yousafzai has a stronger ethos. Each of them has a stronger rhetoric 
use, since each of them is fighting a different cause. Different cause, have different audiences, which then will 
result in using a stronger rhetoric example. In the end it matters to what you are fighting for.King Does a good 
job at showing these rhetoric examples. 
The purpose for king to make this letter was to persuade the clergymen to explain why they must be in 
Birmingham and why they had to act now and not wait. After king was sent to jail in Birmingham he wrote a 
letter to the clergymen, since they talked smack about him. In his rhetoric response he says "When you have to 
concoct an answer for a five-year-old son asking in agonizing pathos: 'Daddy, why do white people treat colored 
people so mean?'" This advances his purpose because he shows people how it feels to be in his shoes, as well as 
the others. It makes the readers connect with him. Later on king addresses towards the clergymen by saying 
“I'm grateful to God that, through the Negro church, the dimension of nonviolence entered our struggle." This 
advances his purpose because he is persuading the clergymen that he believes in god and that his negro church 
is relating to his struggle with non-violence, meaning that you should agree with me since I believe god as well 
as the church. He addresses the problem while showing pathos/an example of rhetoric use. King knows his 
audience and knows that if he wants them to understand him and his view point, he has to show them through 
pathos. That’ll make them understand and agree with him. He is successful on achievement this. 
Alvarez's purpose for writing this story/essay is that she wanted to persuade her audience to speak up for 
justice that is unjust. She used examples from her mother's story to show why they should speak up for justice. 
An example would be that Alvarez 's mother talks about how horrible Trujillo was when he was dictating the 
country, and how when she was younger she admired him, until she met her husband. " It was from my father 
that my mother learned why Trujillo hated blacks with such a vengeance, how he disguised his own Haitian 
ancestry, how he lightened his skin with makeup."What this shows is that her mother liked him at first but hated 
him afterward, but afraid to tell anyone, since if you spoke you would get punished.Later on in the story the 
mother shares more stories about Trujillo and how he was horrible. "To my father and other men in the country, 
the most humiliating of these tributes was the occasional parade in which women were made to march and turn 
their heads and acknowledge the great man as they passed the review stand" Another example of how her 
mother was treated horrible by this dictator known as Trujillo, as these women were forced to dance and do a 
parade just for his amusement, But after all of this her mother didn't really want to speak her opinion until after 
he died. The next piece is where rather than her mother not wanting to talk, is where her daughter would speak 
for her in her new novel. 
Yousafzai purpose for speaking was to advance for women’s rights, girls education, and free education 
for all over the world for every child. Yousafzai got asked to speak at the conference at Malala’s day where she 
got to speak in front of the crowd after recently getting targeted and shot in the head. She talks later on about 
where she learned from this act of nonviolence. "This is the compassion I have I have learned from Mohammed, 
the prophet of mercy, Jesus Christ and Lord Buddha. This the legacy of change I have inherited from Martin 
Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Muhammad Ali Jinnah” This advances her argument since she names the 
figures who did exactly what she is doing. Fighting for an equal right through no-violent acts.The next use of 
rhetoric that Yousafzai uses is again towards Pathos "The terrorists thought they would change my aims and 
stop my ambitions. But nothing changed in my life except this: weakness,fear and hopelessness died. 
Strength,power and courage was born." This advances her argument since she uses her emotions to show that 
the assassination attempt made her more powerful and that she lost weaknesses. This advances her argument 
because this shows us how she feels towards the assassination. It shows us that she is not feared by this, and 
that she got stronger because of this encounter. She uses ethos and pathos to show why she is fighting as well 
as why you should help. She uses certain figures names to bring about supporters to help with her cause. She is 
successful on calling about these supporters, which then results on them agreeing with her argument. 
Out of these three texts, from king, Yousafzai, and alvarez. I believe that king did a pretty good job of 
using rhetoric examples.Why I believe this is because his use of pathos is stronger than the others, as well as 
having abundant of it. His ethos and pathos is good enough to which it can compete against the other 
arguments. Though it needs more improvement to make it better than the others, it can still last against the 
others. Now, all of these writers show a good use of rhetoric examples of pathos,ethos, and logos. But all of 
them have something in common; It’s too progress towards social justice and equality. They all fight for a right 
that they believe is unjust. They all use rhetoric examples to change the people’s/readers minds, in a non-violent 
act. They are all successful in achieving this, since in the end people supported their cause after hearing what 
they had to say.