What a wonderful opportunity this election has been for those teaching History of Rhetoric. I haven’t been this year, but I have been teaching the future English teachers and MAT students in English 520, Traditionally taken the semester before student teaching, the students in this class are very invested in literacy and have a healthy regard for literature and shapely academic prose.

They also do a great job incorporating current events and pop culture into their teaching, with the aim of connecting better with their students. One student-run in-class exercise this semester involved a comparative analysis of the the education policies for both John McCain and Barack Obama, using text taken directly from each campaign’s web sites. What a good choice for 22 current and future teachers! As expected, the two policy statements were quite different, leading to a good discussion--intelligent people discussing important issues without rancor.

It’s too bad that doesn’t happen more often in public venues. I may be idealistic, but I strongly believe that if more universities included a rhetoric course for undergraduates in the gen-ed requirements--say, using a text like Crowley and Hawhee’s Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students--it would be, at the very least, much harder to use rhetorical fallacies effectively in public debates; it also might reduce the number of those dreadful ad hominem ads if more people recognized them for what they are. Here’s to more ethos and a return to a balanced use of pathos to encourage the best in humanity rather than overtly appealing to humanity’s emotional underbelly. Then, maybe, I could see more ads where I don’t mentally extend the required “ I’m Luther Candidate and I approved this message” to the necessary end of the sentence: “...and I should be ashamed.”