Critical Thinking
lessons in rhetoric for kids

The Rhetorical Situation

FacebookTwitterPinterestWhenever you find yourself communicating with the intent of modifying someone’s or a group’s perspective, you are within a rhetorical situation. This unique context encompasses a topic, listeners or readers, and specific boundaries. Each time you write an essay, have a verbal discussion or listen to a debate, it happens

Critical Thinking

Don’t Fall for that Fallacy, Part One

FacebookTwitterPinterestWhen you fall for a fallacy, you are taken in by false or misleading reasoning. Some fallacies appeal to such emotions as pity or guilt. Others leverage your anger or your fear. When you learn to recognize these kinds of fallacies, you are less susceptible to their squishy, insubstantial logic.

Critical Thinking
teach kids about rhetoric in advertising - pathos

Rhetoric in Advertising – Activities for Kids

FacebookTwitterPinterestActivity: Pretend You’re a Marketer 1. Create an ad based on emotion. Use rhetoric containing emotive force. (Note: Rhetoric frequently involves language that contains emotive force and affects what others believe without actually providing logical reasons for a claim.) Look at Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotion below and decide which emotional

Critical Thinking

Aristotle & Rhetoric

FacebookTwitterPinterest In Aristotle’s world, rhetoric was the art of discovering all available means of persuasion, and he heavily emphasized the logical aspect of this process. He considered rhetoric a counterpart of both logic and politics, and called it “the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of