Blog #10: Rhetoric

I didn't encounter the term rhetoric until late into my education (I think high school) and even then it was strictly in the political sense. I didn't really encounter and understand the rhetorical triangle until college where it was assumed that it had been taught to me earlier in my school career. So, I was incredibly late to the game. Even now I'm only superficially versed in the subject, an unfortunate deficit. But I liked this line from Burke's line regarding the importance of rhetoric in a world that is confronting the dehumanizing effect of technology on people. I see it in regards to how little my students critically think about subjects, or in some respect how they aren't being asked to do that in class settings. They are constantly distracted with all forms of social media. However, they are not more informed because of it, in fact they are less. Few really think about the posts, pictures or videos that they are seeing and reading about. So, when they are asked to write in-depth, they seem to lack the tools to do it. They are flummoxed. They are familiar with the rhetorical triangle, so at least their teachers got that right, but I think Burke’s pentad gives them an added resource. To look at things in terms of act, scene, agent, agency, and purpose. I don’t know how I would go about actually teach these terms and how to get them to start working with these theories, but I do think that it gives students more resources for how to write their papers.