Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons^™

Playing It Safe As Pedagogy: Finding The Conventional Wisdom In Convention, Dawn Lowry

Proceedings of the National Developmental Conference on Individual Events

As forensic educators, I know we are supposed to love all events equally, but one event escapes my comprehension. Rhetorical criticism is like rhythmic gymnastics to me; I can appreciate its verbal dexterity but I always feel like I am missing something. So when a successful coach of the event let me in on a secret, I was grateful. Explain the tenets so people feel like they understand something; don’t shy away from complicated terminology but relate it to concrete examples easily grasped. Explanation through comparison a la Aristotle, this made sense. Yet when I suggested this technique to a …