Ethos, Pathos, Logos...that's all I know...

Rhetorical Pedagogy
“Rhetorical Pedagogy” by William A. Covino

I admit rhetoric is something I have minimal knowledge about. All I know is ethos, pathos, logos, and a few of the famed theorists in rhetoric (e.g. Aristotle). Rhetorical Pedagogy (RP) seems to have some trouble figuring out how they fit into the modern make-up of compositional theory. That said, the historical presence of rhetoric has always been strong, but as time has progressed the historical/traditional rhetoricians have had trouble defining themselves and their field in modern education. While rhetoric has been everything from strictly structured to ambiguous and globally encompassing, rhetoric’s attention to audience, context, the message being portrayed via language is still necessary to consider today in teaching writing. However, what to take from RP seems to be the struggle for teachers. Personally, I think some rhetorical training and/or a thorough review of RP in a class would’ve been helpful to me as a budding teacher. I can see the value of knowing those early concepts and perhaps I could use some of those concepts in class more effectively, if I knew more. Therefore, I do question how much of RP should be a part of my teaching style/class. I also wonder how to use RP in a freshman composition class where the students don’t usually write a ‘traditional’ persuasive paper (yes, I aware that ‘traditional’ is somewhat nondescript on my end). Can I use RP in other ways, for other papers, and with text? I think so, but I feel I don’t know enough about the foundational theories/texts; therefore, RP seems to a large mountain to scale and I don’t know where to start. I even have trouble getting students to understand rhetorical strategies, which often start with the ‘basic’ ethos, pathos, and logos. I hope class will give me some practical applications or ideas of how to take this pedagogy and build upon what I already try to do.