Final answer:
Barack Obama used the rhetorical strategy of pathos in his statement about the importance of education for children in Chicago, eliciting an emotional response from the audience to underscore the issue's significance.
Step-by-step explanation:
When Barack Obama said, "If there's a child on the south side of Chicago that can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child," he was utilizing the rhetorical strategy of pathos. Pathos is the use of appeals to feelings and emotions shared by an audience. In this case, Obama is evoking empathy and concern for the well-being of children, aiming to make his audience feel the importance of the issue on an emotional level. This appeal to the audience's emotions is intended to inspire them to care about and potentially take action on the educational challenges faced by children in Chicago.
The rhetorical strategies of ethos, logos, and pathos are important tools in persuasive speech and writing. Ethos appeals to the speaker's credibility and authority, logos appeals to logic and reason, and pathos appeals to the audience's emotions. In contrast to ethos and logos, pathos does not rely on the speaker's authority or logical arguments, but rather seeks to influence the audience by eliciting an emotional response.