Ethos, Pathos, Logos, and...Romeos???

Like Jake, I found this essay to be less than enlightening, but I must admit that this is not a concept that I’ve ever studied before. I have heard the word and I understood it enough…to keep my mouth shut.

I never seemed to be able to wrap my head around it.. So I confess that I didn’t go into the text with much in the way of prior knowledge and quite honestly, I walked away from the reading with little more. While I can certainly appreciate the ethos represented by Covino and his plethora of credits, those very same citations became cumbersome and obtrusive. Never one to be thwarted easily, I decided to do a little research on my own, hoping to find a way to make meaning of the rhetoric.

So after an hour or so on the internet, I had a better idea or at least didn’t feel quite so stupid.

In its basic form rhetoric is “the art of speaking or writing effectively and persuasively” (Merriman-Webster). Well, that seems simple enough. Why is this so complicated? It’s so complicated because no one seems to be able to agree on just what is the “real” theory of rhetoric. The concept of rhetoric is so profound that it goes back to 600 BCE with the Sophists (who are they?). In Ancient Greece guys like Aristotle and Socrates (them I know) and a bunch of their cronies sat around in their bed sheets thinking deep thoughts and waxing poetic in the original philosopher’s think tank. Here in the “cradle of civilization” is where much of our traditional theories of rhetoric originate, but even those brainiacs couldn’t agree. So while the theorists battle it out, once again, I’ll look through the eyes of my freshman for some common ground that we can use in the classroom.

Personally, I like the idea from Gerard A. Hauser (Introduction to Rhetorical Theory, 1986):

“Rhetoric is an instrumental use of language…One person engages another person in an exchange of symbols to accomplish some goal. It is not communication for communication’s sake. Rhetoric is communication that attempts to coordinate social action…its goal is to influence human choices on specific matters that require immediate attention.”

Kenneth Burke agrees when he defines rhetoric as “the use of symbols to induce cooperation in those who by nature respond to symbols” (45). As human beings, we are the users of symbols. We are the writers, the speech makers, the ones who can make sense of those symbols. Ancient rhetoric focused primarily on speech, but today’s rhetoric encompasses not only the spoken and written word, but also the symbols found in media such as film, radio, television, internet, etc.

Think about the recent political conventions… better examples of rhetoric can not be found.

I get the idea of the relevance of rhetoric as it, “increased professional attention to the teaching of writing… [Which legitimized the field of composition]… (37). Kinneavy posits the importance of the communication triangle of writer, audience, and context as the “relationship that attends all language use” (37) Isn’t this something we talk about with our students when they are writing? Think about your audience, the message that you, the writer, want to get across, and the best medium to present that message? If rhetoric is the talk that prompts action, then aren’t we teaching rhetoric whenever we ask kids to respond to a prompt that forces them to take a stand, support that stance with evidence, and thereby convince the audience of their idea of truth?

The last quarter of the freshman year is driven by the big idea of “Making Good Choices.” A study of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet anchors this design. At the end of the play, I ask my students to consider the following and choose either option A or B.

Friar Lawrence has been accused of involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of Romeo and Juliet. Remember that involuntary manslaughter is the unlawful killing of another human being without intent.

A. You are the prosecuting attorney in the case against Friar Lawrence. It is your job to prove that the friar is guilty and deserves to be punished.

B. You are the defense attorney in the case against Friar Lawrence. It is your job to prove that the friar is not guilty and therefore deserves no punishment.

Directions: You must take a stance, establish your credibility with the jury, support your claims with evidence from the play, citing both speaker and line, and then make a passionate plea to the jury in hopes that you will persuade them of either guilt or innocence.

We are considering the writer, the audience, and the context, as students are forced to establish ethos (credibility), pathos (emotional appeal), and logos (deductive reasoning) in order to make a persuasive appeal that will instigate some action.

Geez, I guess I’ve been teaching rhetoric all along…who knew??