Rhetoric Skills

Rhetoric-The Power of Words

 

The 'Study of Rhetoric', rather than just a 'speech' oral focus,  is becoming a popular, Stage 5 unit in many schools. While preparing to teach it as the first unit to my Year 10 class this year, I thought it might make a useful blog topic. It has great potential for raising student awareness of the power of persuasive language on many levels, but most importantly for teaching how language is shaped for a given purpose. In a world bombarded by advertising, political campaigning and media editoralising, it has become more important in an educational context,to raise student understanding of rhetorical purpose, context and methodology. Critical thinking skills need to be taught and students should become familiar with the ways language can be explicitly used to mould an audience's interpretive response.

 

Current affairs and social issues are largely communicated via a mass media conduit. This unfortunately, often comprises only 30 second 'newsbites' on television or radio or online news updates. While many 'insight' websites offer coverage with greater depth and detail, these are not going to be frequented by a large adolescent audience. Media filtered news will be the way most teenagers will learn about the contemporary world. Mass media is manufactured for a readily accepting audience. As the satiric 'Frontline' TV series demonstrated, fact and truth have become commodified products, reworked to meet industry agendas. Teaching media literacy skills and  how 'rhetoric' works is an excellent way to begin a real engagement with the power of language.  Many so-called 'Advertising' or 'Propaganda' units in school programs lack sufficient substance; just touching the surface; much in the same way that news and politics is communicated.

 

Tackling how Rhetoric functions however, gets to the more nitty gritty functionality of language itself and the many ways in which it is manipulated to sway audiences. The Ancient Greeks looked at rhetoric in relation to spoken speech but the Romans extended it to include written language as well. When viewed in this broader way, rhetoric, written and spoken, is constantly bombarding our senses. Looking at movie speeches is an effective 'way in' for this sort of unit. It allows you look at the importance of context in shaping language. Purpose + audience = register is an easy equation to use when trying to explain the relationship between what is being communicated and how it is done. You can probably get no better single online resource than that given below. It looks at rheotircal history, techniques and also has links to 'Americanrhetoric' which is a brillaint site for famous speeches from history and the movies.

 



http://www.putlearningfirst.com/language/20rhet/20rhet.html 

 

There are also many sites that focus on explicit speeches by famous orators such as Winston Churchill or Martin Luther King showing analytical details and tasks. Some of the most enjoyable ways into a Rhetorical unit however is via short clips to trigger discussion about how ideas can be effectively communicated. The following ones usually engage students:

 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6wRkzCW5qI

 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKC5LsVO9k0&feature=related    

 

The following advertisement has also been a good way to begin a rhetorical unit in the past. Quick but effective ways to show the power of language highlights the validity of studying how it works.

If you are teaching rhetoric as a topic, I hope these suggestions and resources prove useful. If you are not currently including a rhetoric unit, give it some thought when you are re-evaluating your curriculum.

 

Barbara