The Rhetoric of a Desperate Candlestick {Teaching an Introduction to Rhetoric}

When it comes to introducing rhetoric, I used to always turn to commercials. Commercials have obvious elements to analyze and oftentimes very clearly lean toward an ethos, pathos, or logos approach, but the more I learn about the art of teaching rhetoric itself, the less I’m interested in having student slap labels on tools within an argument. What’s become more important to me over recent years and my training in AP Language and Composition, has been helping students understand the impact of the rhetorical situation — the BIG picture of the argument itself.

Have you ever introduced rhetoric, used a commercial, and at some point asked: who is the speaker? Who is the audience? Have the kids looked back at you with glazed eyes and vague answers like, “Um, Chester Cheeto? Us?” Advertising tends to be aimed at wider audiences, making the speaker/audience relationship difficult to analyze for beginning rhetoricians. Your kids might cry and learn what pathos is during a Budweiser Super Bowl ad with a lost puppy, but will they be able to tell you why on EARTH that was the angle that Budweiser took in the first place?

This is what has become increasingly important to me over the years: the ability to understand the why of the specific choices within an argument. Let’s take a few rhetorical situations for example:

• In 2020, the collective senior class in the United States called on Barack Obama to deliver their commencement address. That speech, despite the content, has already started making an argument, because as we know, the sitting President was not asked to deliver that speech. How does that impact the argument? What about the rest of what’s contextually implied by the spring of 2020? What relationship does Obama have with an audience of 2020 graduates? These are vital questions that can be addressed by all students, but often don’t get asked. The former President also spoke at the funeral for Rep. John Lewis the same year.

• In 1999, Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel delivered a speech entitled “The Perils of Indifference” as part of the Millennium Series (a series of cultural presentations at the White House hosted by the Clintons). In his speech, Wiesel highlights some dark, unforgivable moments of American apathy during WW2, but understanding the tension that must have created in the room, a room full of Congresspeople, officials, and the President and First Lady, is a powerful energy to understand in the speech. The speaker/audience relationship here adds an entirely different and elevated understanding to the speech itself.

THE RHETORICAL SITUATION

So what is the rhetorical situation? The rhetorical situation are the surrounding factors, details, and events of a speech or other piece of rhetoric/argument. They are the conditions under which the argument is made, and therefore, impossible to ignore or leave unaddressed when performing rhetorical analysis. We typically break down the rhetorical situation into the following points of consideration:

SPEAKER: Who is delivering the argument? Who (or what corporation/entity) is behind the speaker? What affiliations or biases does this speaker have? What are the general demographics of this speaker (race, gender, age, etc.)

PURPOSE: What is the purpose of this speech? Note, the purpose and message are different. The purpose is the verb of the argument (to beg, to sanctify, to entertain, to plead, to undermine, to create distraction). The purpose is related to the delivery of the argument.

AUDIENCE: Who is the argument FOR? What details describe this audience? What is the demographic makeup of this audience? What are the affiliations or biases of this audience? What are the vulnerabilities of this audience that could be dialed in to?

CONTEXT: What are the big picture, time and date specific details that describe this moment in history? How is the speaker and/or audience related to this context? How is the timing of this argument relevant? What happened just before the delivery? What do we know about the emotions or collective feelings toward relevant subjects during this time?

EXIGENCE: What is the impetus for the speaker to speak NOW? The urgency? What is propelling this argument in this particular moment?

USING BEAUTY AND THE BEAST

So, you might be wondering what I’m using instead of commercials to introduce rhetoric? I like using fictional scenarios that students are familliar with. For the past few years, I’ve been using the song “Be Our Guest” from Beauty in the Beast. First, I set the stage with my students. Then, we watch the scene together.

What I particularly like about this song and argument is that Lumiere’s message to Belle is something that most don’t ever pay attention to. Lumiere’s job is to get Belle to stick around without revealing to her anything about the actual situation at hand. The nuances between the speaker and audience are fun for kids to discuss and accessible to many students regardless of their reading levels.

After watching the scene, we work our way through the rhetorical triangle (speaker, audience, message). Then, I add the layer of the rhetorical situation on to the triangle by discussing context, purpose, and exigence. After all that, we finally dig into the song itself and analyze for rhetorical choices, appeals and tone.

This lesson can be a last two or three class periods. It could also be something done in one class period quickly as an overview (depending on student’s past experiences). Either way, I’d love to share my slide deck with you that provides an anchor to the lesson. Thanks for tagging along!