Western teachers working in China often experience cultural conflicts arising from, for instance, the ways that Chinese students perceive face and express criticism. To better understand these face-concerned conflicts, this paper explores the role and significance of email for a group of Chinese students to communicate pedagogical criticism with…

In the last 15 years, writing center scholars have increasingly called for more evidence to validate writing centers' practices. Work by Paula Gillespie (2002), Neal Lerner (2009), and Isabelle Thompson et al. (2009) underscore this need. Missing from these discussions, however, is a thorough understanding of the past and current research…

Historical nonfiction is effective in teaching rhetoric for two main reasons. First, historical texts communicate through a real-world lens that students can understand and find familiar. Students study history and are exposed to current events through the news, school, and each other. Second, since history affects people's lives so broadly, its…

The surface-level experience of hypertextuality as formless and unbounded, blurring boundaries among texts and between readers and writers, is created by a deep structure which is not normally presented to readers and which, like the ultrastructure of living cells, defines and controls texts' nature and functions. Most readers, restricted to…

This paper discusses both the persistent and changing features of rhetorical criticism during the past 60 years. From a review of 75 critical studies that were published from 1915 to 1925, from 1965 to 1968, in 1973, and from 1975 to 1977, three observations are made: First, most studies of rhetorical criticism have been, and continue to be, case…

This article presents a detailed case study analysis of oral and written language expressed by Jacqueline Meyer, a teacher of elementary English Language Learners (ELL),as she struggled to navigate the current political terrain with her students. Ms. Meyer's district adopted commercial materials and increased the amount and substance of testing…

Demonstrates that, because of certain elements of the rhetorical situation in which "Kent State" was presented and because of the nature of its composition, the docudrama functioned to purify the image of Bill Schroeder, one of the four students killed on the Kent State University campus on May 4, 1970. (PD)

Analyzes the rhetorical practices and the theoretical writings of Dionysius of Halicarnassus. Concludes that he regarded orations as practical instruments and that the judgment that he was disinterested in persuasion is untenable. (JMF)

Approaches film criticism using classical and modern rhetorical concepts. Discusses the nature and effectiveness of the filmmaker's modes of appeal--to logos, pathos, and ethos, and the appropriateness of his/her rhetorical stance--the balance of attitudes toward subject, audience, and his/her creative self. (JMF)

This paper offers a critical approach to television viewing that considers the literary and rhetorical impact of television programing. The methodology described is composed of three stages of criticism that are designed to examine and describe television drama: (1) the descriptive stage, in which the critic examines the plot, characters,…

Argues that 19th-century "declarative"/"reiterative" rhetoric derives theoretical authorization from the 82nd "Athenaum Fragment" of Friedrich Schlegel. Analyzes content and rhetorical structure of Schlegel's polemical/reiterative rejection of "philosophical and scientific demonstration." Discusses the…

The article is an exploration of the meanings and worthiness of criticism as a significant phenomenon in the evolution of educational research during the 1990s. While drawing on an overview of the vast amount of documents expressing criticisms of educational research in the UK, western and eastern continental Europe and the USA, it summarises the…

Compares presidential inaugural addresses before and after 1932 in terms of rhetorical style and substance. Presents the stylistic response of the latter group to a new rhetorical situation characterized by audience heterogeneity and the need for ritualistic unity. (JMF)

Argues that identifying Gorgias's "Helen" as an epideictic speech is misleading; the speech is not veiled defense of the "Art of Rhetoric"; Gorgias may have inaugurated the prose genre of encomia; and "Helen"'s most significant theoretical contribution is to offer a secular account of the workings of the logos that…

Richard Nixon's "Checkers" speech, a response to charges brought against the "Nixon fund," was primarily an effort to explain the behavior of Eisenhower's 1952 presidential-campaign staff. The effectiveness of this speech was largely due to Nixon's self-disclosure within the context of the speech's narrative mode. In…