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During Reading in Action Students often learn through modeling activities, and the essay below provides a thorough example of critical reading. Important parts of the essay have been underlined throughout the text, which indicate the points of focus. You should carefully review these underlined sections to see not only what has been deemed as important, but also what sorts of annotations are provided in the margin. Following the During-Reading section, annotations correspond to four different aspects: Determining Content Connecting Content Recognizing Writing Strategies Evaluating Style Please see the underlined parts, the annotations and the hover link for information on how they connect to any of the four "During-Reading" tasks. Classical Rhetoric in the Modern World 1¶ For many people today, rhetoric has become a distasteful word synonymous with politicians who lie to constituents and advertisers who deceive their customers. The common perception of rhetoric is that it connotes the ability to misuse words to prevaricate, hide the truth, obstruct true meaning, and generally convince audiences into believing in a position that perhaps they normally would not have adopted had they not been tricked. Modeling During Reading: Author's Points—rhetoric viewed by many as negative, masking truth ​Reader's Ideas— Would this be when Pres. Clinton using tricky terms about Monica Lewinsky; Pres. Nixon called “tricky Dick”? 2¶ The problem with this as that this common perception prevents us from understanding how important rhetoric is to the modern world. Rhetoric should be praised and thought of in terms of the broader use of the term: a concise method used by orators and writers to present material and ideas in an understandable way to audiences. Indeed, rhetoric has not lost its place or usefulness in our modern day if one takes the number of speeches given by public figures or the number of reports provided for the public good. From the State of the Union Address to weekly press conferences by public officials to debates in the local school boards, people use rhetorical skills without really acknowledging their importance or their origin. Modeling During Reading: Author's Points—rhetoric should be praised as important and useful, not condemned. Reader's Ideas—I felt moved by Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. 3¶ ​Without knowing it, rhetoric has a great deal to do with the development of democracy and the function of citizens within a society. Indeed, speaking and writing have been an incredibly important component of civic participation for a very long time. From the time of Aristotle, who first formulated a rhetorical method still in use today, to Cicero in Rome, to President Lincoln in America, classical rhetoric has informed civic life and civic policies within the polis of the community. Indeed, the rhetorical tradition has been a constant for over two thousand years, and nearly every great orator or writer we remember studied classical rhetoric in order to perfect their public speaking and writing prowess. Modeling During Reading: Author's Points:Claim #1—rhetoric contributes to our function within democratic society. Reader's Ideas I wonder about rhetoric now. Does it have the same importance as it used to? 4¶ Of course, the art of rhetoric, the specific training in how to present one’s ideas to convince an audience, can be corrupted, but this is no reason to condemn rhetoric itself. Even as long ago as 320 BC Aristotle argued against using rhetoric in the pejorative sense to convince or prevaricate for selfish gain as did the Sophists of that era. For teachers like Aristotle and Plato, sophists were merely itinerant scholars who would sell their skills (speaking and writing strategies) to the highest bidder without the ethical component of instruction, which was that rhetoric be used for the public good. The ability to organize ideas and to present them effectively to an audience by using logic, emotion, or ethical ideas was thought to be incredibly powerful—as it is today. Modeling During Reading: Author's Points—people condemned out of hand rhetoric even back in 320 BC, but it is not enough to denounce it Author's Points--sophists, scholars, sell,s kills, speaking Reader's Ideas: Would lawyers constitute the modern sophists? ​ 5¶ Because of this dichotomy between sophists and traditional rhetors, Aristotle broke his method of rhetoric down into three main components: ethos, logos, and pathos. Ethos connotes the character of the speaker, his ethical background, and today also considers the moral or ethical dimension of the argument. Logos, on the other hand, deals with the logical aspects of the argument and that there be a logical progression in the thought process that avoids the use of logical fallacies. The third component, pathos, is often referred to as the emotional appeal. A speaker who understood the pathos of his audience had great power that must be handled carefully, for he understood then how to manipulate his audience using emotions rather than using logic. This advanced form of psychology required that would-be rhetors understand the circumstances of the address and the constitution of the audience so as to better move the audience to a suitable position. For skilled rhetoricians, an audience becomes "putty in their hands," as malleable emotions can be manipulated. Modeling During Reading: Author's Points—of different parts of rhetoric: ethos (ethical), logos (logical), and pathos (emotional) appeals Author's Points—idiom of putty in the hands for pathos (emotional) appeals Reader's Ideas—Emotional appeals seem very common in TV commercials and in advertising ​6¶ Given these three broad components, according to Aristotle’s method, there were also five stages to developing and presenting a speech: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. Each stage was significant in the process of formulating material and would be impacted by the particular appeal(s) that were to be used. Indeed, this method taught students how to formulate an argument, how to arrange its parts, what style would be appropriate to the audience, memory devices to remember the speech, and proper delivery techniques for public speaking. Modeling During Reading: Author's Points—five stages in developing speech/writing: invention, arrangement, style, memory, delivery Reader's Ideas— I had to consider the same stages for my Valedictorian speech 7¶ This five-stage program for speech development formulated by Plato and Socrates and set down by Aristotle was added to by Latin scholars such as Cicero, Quintillian and the anonymous author of the Rhetorica Ad Herrenium. It was this survival of classical rhetoric that came to America with the colonists, but which underwent a significant change and adaptation by American rhetors in the 19th Century. While still using parts of classical rhetoric, there was a change to a more “common sense” approach which included far more personal experience that operated as exemplars for audiences which would “excite understanding and imagination.” Modeling During Reading: Author's Points—continued historical background and five steps to rhetoric. Reader's Ideas—Perhaps I should look up these famous rhetors. 8¶ It may seem that the skills of rhetoric died with the ancient Greeks or Romans a vague, ancient theory, but rhetoric is no less important today. The very principles of argumentation that form the backbone for many college textbooks are based on classical rhetoric. Today, though, rhetoric suffers a negative aura as something that dirty politicians practice when they learn to speak for hours without saying anything. However, we should not condemn rhetoric, for at its base it is the glue that holds our civic society together. Proper speaking and writing techniques allow citizens to act when an injustice has been done; they allow citizens to formulate arguments for or against new laws; rhetoric helps people clearly organize their thoughts. The problem is not that people are trained in rhetoric. It is that not enough are. In addition to teaching people the methods of argument, rhetoric also teaches them how to argue in a civil way, which is absolutely essential for a civilized society. Without rhetoric, people won’t have the skills to be proper citizens and participate in the democratic process, and we become slowly just a mob of people screaming invective, not debating civilly. Modeling During Reading: Author's Points-Claim #2—Rhetoric should be rehabilitated. It’s key to a “civil society.” Author's Points-Claim #3 —Rhetoric is integral part of being a citizen in democracy. Author's Points-Claim #4—Without rhetorical training, people become part of a mob. Reader's Ideas—Similar ideas in the essay "Citizenship and Friendship Revisited" by Vance and Papadomichelaki