PARALLELISM deep-dive — Lincoln Gettysburg, Chavez Wrath of Grapes, and the parallelism scaffold

Choral reading of Lincoln Gettysburg Address (all together, standing). Listen for the rhythm of parallel structures.

• Lead the reading at a measured pace (Lincoln intended slow, weighty delivery)
• Pause briefly after 'of the people, by the people, for the people' to let the tricolon land
• Affirm: this 272-word speech is short BECAUSE every word does rhetorical work

PARALLELISM is the foundation rhetorical device. It means MATCHING GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURE across phrases, clauses, or sentences. Look at MG-3. The rule is: when you list items or ideas, match their grammatical form. RIGHT: 'She likes reading, writing, and hiking.' (all gerunds — verbs ending in -ing). WRONG: 'She likes reading, writing, and to hike.' (gerund-gerund-infinitive — broken). Why does this matter? Because broken parallelism JARS the reader's ear. Matching forms creates BALANCE and MEMORABILITY. Lincoln's 'government OF the people, BY the people, FOR the people' is a TRICOLON (3-part parallel) using parallel prepositional phrases. Chavez says in Wrath of Grapes: 'We are men and women who have suffered AND endured much, AND we are not afraid of suffering.' — parallel verbs ('suffered AND endured'). The fix for broken parallelism: name the grammatical form of the FIRST item, then match the rest. Today we practice both identifying parallelism in mentor texts AND constructing our own.

• Lincoln uses ANAPHORA (repetition of 'we cannot') + PARALLELISM (matching modal-verb construction) + tricolon (3-part). Devices stack.

  model Highlight in blue: 'we cannot dedicate — we cannot consecrate — we cannot hallow — this ground.' Three parallel modal-verb clauses. Tricolon.

  prompt Read paragraph 3 of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.
• Once one item is an infinitive ('to learn'), all items must be infinitives.

  model Match: 'We came to learn, to teach, AND to lead.' (3 parallel infinitives.)

  prompt Fix this broken parallel: 'We came to learn, to teach, and we wanted to lead.'
• Three is the magic number. Anything less than 3 doesn't quite register as parallelism; anything more than 4 starts feeling like a list.

  model Sample: 'For our schools, for our families, for our future, we demand change.' (3 parallel 'for' prepositional phrases.)

  prompt Construct a parallel structure with 3 prepositional phrases for your fall topic.

• Cold Call: identify the broken parallel in 'She enjoys swimming, biking, and to run.'
• Cold Call: name the grammatical form Lincoln uses in 'of the people, by the people, for the people.'
• Pair-share: construct one parallel structure on your fall topic and read aloud

• Annotate paragraph 2 of Chavez's Wrath of Grapes. Highlight parallel structures in blue. Identify the grammatical form being matched (verbs, prepositional phrases, infinitives).

  scaffold Partial-fill with 1 parallel already highlighted; student finds 2 more
• Parallelism scaffold: use the 3-slot template ('We must ___, we must ___, we must ___.') for your fall topic. Match grammatical form in all 3 slots.

  scaffold Worksheet with 3 templates (infinitive, prepositional phrase, verb)
• Hochman sentence-combining drill: combine 3 short sentences into 1 parallel sentence. Sentences: 'Maya is brave. Maya is honest. Maya is generous.' → ?

  scaffold Worked example provided: 'Maya is brave, honest, and generous.' (3 parallel adjectives.)

• Construct one tricolon (3-part parallel) on any topic. Identify the grammatical form you matched.

• Restate: parallelism = matching grammatical structure; tricolon = 3-part parallel; foundation of antithesis and anaphora
• Preview tomorrow's anaphora work (King I Have a Dream, Nakate climate speech)

• Construct 2 original parallel structures on your fall argument topic. One must be a tricolon. Bring tomorrow.