Courses: This single-class teaching activity was designed for courses on public speaking, rhetorical criticism, and critical thinking. In addition, instructors can adapt this activity for online or face-to-face courses on intercultural communication, organizational communication, listening, and political communication. Objectives: By completing…

Courses: Rhetorical Criticism, Composition, Environmental Communication. Objectives: This unit activity, for which students view a documentary to identify and evaluate persuasive ethos and then create their own rhetorical messages for reducing food waste, serves as a platform for teaching both the critique and practice of rhetoric, as well as…

Over the last couple of years, White nationalist groups have been at the forefront of American political life, especially with the events in Charlottesville, Virginia. The historical roots of White nationalist movements run deep in the United States and are most closely associated with the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). In this article the authors explore…

Because in his Gettysburg Address, President Abraham Lincoln said, "we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain," and "...that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth," it is accurate to report that he spoke the words "perish from the earth" and "died in vain." But if his 1864…

Kenneth Burke is typically regarded as the single most significant figure in 20th-century rhetorical studies. Undergraduate textbooks in rhetorical criticism, rhetorical theory, and communication theory typically include coverage of Burke's theory of dramatism. In this article, the author describes a classroom activity dubbed "Burke Bingo" that…

This article presents an activity which makes use of Don McLean's song "American Pie," to engage students in fantasy-theme analysis. This discussion ultimately demonstrates how reality is constructed to satisfy the views shared by groups and individuals. Fantasy-theme analysis argues that audiences frequently shape their own connotation of an…

In a collaborative effort in teaching literary analysis, two professors aimed to make the usually seamless act of reading visible and ideologically bound by emphasizing the constructed nature of interpretation. A course was pieced together that asked questions about literature, that assumed that both students and teachers are subjects constructed…

Discusses ways speech communication instructors can use the film "Thelma and Louise" in an upper-division rhetorical criticism class to illustrate three different critical approaches: pentadic, feminist, and ideological criticism. (SR)

Suggests that understanding the "tools of rhetorical analysis" in relation to persuasion can help business communication teachers better incorporate the concept of consensus building into their courses. Discusses incorporating rhetorical techniques (using metaphors, calling on readers' schemata, and using narratives) into a business…

Describes a method of teaching students to identify and analyze misleading or manipulative rhetoric used in political campaigns. Provides excerpts from student-written journals based on the 1992 presidential debates. Argues that such activities are beneficial in English classes. (HB)

Describes a seven-week critical-inquiry unit in a writing course for college sophomores that studies the 1953 Rosenberg trial. Uses this unit to illustrate the importance of dissonance in learning development, and how rhetorical inquiry in Kenneth Burke's concept of "perspective by incongruity" leads to critical inquiry and deeper…

Discusses Kenneth Burke's notion of "symbolic action" as applied to texts and how it mediates perceptions. Discusses some ways to teach students to get outside their own perspectives and notice what they are overlooking (thus teaching Burke's "perspective by incongruity"). (SR)