Every August, educators around the globe unite in a common purpose, a ritual as dull as scraping cuticle that we might as well blame on the late Cicero—we draft syllabi. While it’s true that that the tedium will often conjure flashes of euphoria as we experience the rush of designing
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WHAT IS FANTASY-THEME CRITICISM? Fantasy-theme criticism is a method of rhetorical criticism that seeks to understand how shared realities within a group shape the way people think and act (you might look up symbolic convergence theory, which is the theory that propels this criticism, and which explores how people come
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WHAT IS CLUSTER ANALYSIS? Cluster analysis, as a method of rhetorical criticism, is a process critics can use to evaluate the perspectives and worldviews of a person communicating something. The term “cluster” is used because we can learn a lot about what someone is thinking (even subconsciously) by “clustering” key
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What is Neo-Aristotelian Method of Rhetorical Criticism? Neo-Aristotelian is one of the original methods of rhetorical criticism; named after Aristotle, it is also known as neo-classical or traditional criticism. As may be inferred from these names, when you analyze an artifact (artifacts can be anything from political speeches to advertisements
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The SOAPSTone Strategy for Written Analysis is a simple method of rhetorical criticism designed to help with the process of analyzing texts, writing about written texts, and even planning for the writing of an original text. SOAPSTone is an acronym, standing for Speaker, Occasion, Audience, Purpose, Subject, and Tone. By
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When it comes to promoting and remembering messages, visual images are almost always the most powerful. Research has shown over and over and over again that nearly every human being is a visual learner–we learn faster, we remember more, and we process messages with more clarity when images are attached
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Full disclosure: I don’t know everything there is to know about teaching. Shoot, I probably know far less than most of the people taking the time to read this post. So take my “rules for teaching” suggestions below with a large, crumbly grain of salt. With that out of the
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Home > Speaking > Presentation Ninja Because of the nature of my job, I give a lot of presentations and, as a result, I get asked this a lot: what makes for a good a presentation? Unfortunately, that’s much more of a loaded question than even I would typically like
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Guest Submission Infographic design by Jesse Cervantes Visit Jesse’s personal website If you live pretty much anywhere in the Western United States (and now in Virginia and Maryland), there’s no question you’ve tickled your tastebuds with Cafe Rio’s famous Pork Salad–a little taste of heaven and some of best Mexican cuisine to
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I may have fallen in love with a new way to learn (or teach, however you look at it). It’s kind of crazy and it threw me out of my comfort zone, but it changed the way I think about teaching. It included four cameras, a non-governmental organization (NGO), and
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