Courses: Public Speaking, Rhetorical Criticism, Persuasion, Political Communication, and Media Communication. Objectives: By the end of this activity, students should be able to: explain the key components of Lloyd Bitzer's rhetorical situation; assess and navigate various conditions affecting various speaking situations; conduct audience analysis…

Students rarely question the relevance of most communication courses. For example, most students realize that courses focused on improving public speaking and interpersonal skills will benefit them personally and professionally after graduation. Convincing them that a rhetorical theory and criticism course is equally empowering can be a bit more…

Courses: Argumentation, Public Speaking, Political Communication. Objectives: After completing this unit activity, students should be able to (1) demonstrate comprehension of Burke's (1941) concept of terministic screens; (2) apply the concept of terministic screens to write a brief political autobiography of themselves that analyzes the history…

The purpose of this course is to revive the commonplace book and revise it for the digital age. Though by the early modern period (c. 1500-1800) assembling quotations and other material had long been a trusted means of moral and rhetorical development, it was during that time that so-called "commonplace books" came into being as…

When students enter the basic public speaking classroom,When students enter the basic public speaking classroom, they are asked to develop an introductory speech. This assignment typically focuses on a speech of self-introduction for which there are several pedagogical underpinnings: it provides an immediate and relatively stress-free speaking…

Most every writing teacher can relate to the curse of reading yet another incoherent essay, the contents of which resemble an unorganized junk drawer of thoughts. Such essays cry out for a main idea. The remedy is a thesis, and teachers rightly take pains to help students discover this. Yet in spite of this, writing teachers ought to bear in mind…

Audience and situational context, the latter defined as a pairing of time and place coordinates, have passed through stages of union, separation, and identification in the history of rhetoric. From Aristotle through Cicero and Quintilian to Hugh Blair and George Campbell, audience was a synecdoche for the situations of utterance that defined…

Cites evidence of Gothic strains in eighteenth-century rhetorical practice. Uses a narrative account by Edmund Burke to illustrate representative Gothic themes, images, and strategies. Judges the Gothic voice to be significant as an instance of the ways in which general aesthetic sensibilities are deployed for rhetorical ends. (MS)

An alternative conception to the idea that the audience determines the nature of a speech. (CH)

Examines public address in the post-bellum South (focusing on the years 1865 to 1900) as a form of epideictic speaking, in order to illuminate both the genre and the Southern mind. (SR)

Argues that Lincoln modeled certain major speeches on a chiasmus, and that this stylistic device governs the integration of form and function in Lincoln's presidential rhetoric. Argues that the chiasmus reveals that Lincoln saw himself as called by God to fulfill a special messianic mission. (MS)

Television evangelist Jimmy Swaggart's public speech of apology following revelations of his sexual relationship with a prostitute provides the basis for a study of the rhetorical genres of apologia and compliance-gaining discourse. Apologia is public speech used by prominent persons to repair damage done to their reputations by allegations of…

Examines the writing of Pliny the Younger as representative of rhetorical theory and practice in the period between Quintilian and Fronto. Points out that Pliny's ideas on speech preparation, invention and arrangement, style, and delivery give answers to some of the timeless questions of rhetoric. (PD)

Emphasizes the complementary nature of the work of the rhetorical historian and the rhetorical critic. (MH)

Contends that rhetoric of apologia constitutes a discrete genre and suggests that the needs that motivate apologetic speaking are inner-directed, social or personal and tend to shape the speech itself. (MH)