Plato, Aristotle, & Quintilian on Rhetoric
And Tips on Teaching Rhetoric in a K-12 School
My school teaches Rhetoric in 11th grade as a prerequisite for Senior Thesis. However, the goal is to integrate rhetoric throughout K-12 in both formal and informal ways.
Ways to support rhetoric in your classes:
Give students regular opportunities to teach their peers (homework review, demonstration, etc.)
Provide scenarios for debate and public discussion.
Ask students to defend their position on an issue. Experiment with varying increments of preparation time.
Incorporate presentations, oral questions, or Oxford tutorials into your assessments.
Model identifying the Three Means of Persuasion (ethos, pathos, logos) when evaluating a text’s content or credibility.
Expose students to memorable quotations that they can use as commonplaces in their speeches.
Even if you don’t teach a rhetoric course, how do you provide opportunities for practice in your class or home?