The History of Rhetoric

A History of Rhetoric, posted on the Bedford St. Martin's Web Site, will refresh your knowledge of the history of the field. This is one of the online chapters of The Bedford Bibliography for Teachers of Writing (Fifth Edition), written by Patricia Bizzell, Bruce Herzberg, and Nedra Reynolds.

A more concise history is Joseph Petraglia-Bahri's narrative essay, A Brief Overview of Rhetoric, on the Rhetoric Resources Web site at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Rhetoric Resource Pages and Search Engines

• An excellent resource site for instructors and students alike is The Forest of Rhetoric: silva rhetoricae, an online guide to rhetoric created by Dr. Gideon Burton of Brigham Young University. The site provides an easy-to-navigate overview of key concepts in rhetoric as well as illuminating examples of Rhetorical Analysis. The webpage's right frame hosts an index of terms and figures of speech. If your students are struggling with terms of rhetoric, you can send them here to study the principles of rhetoric they need to employ in their essays.
  
  
• Another wonderful resource site on the web is The Rhetoric Page at Kettering University created by Dr. Mark Gellis. Here you'll find not only resources for students and teachers, but also Rhetoric, Composition, and Communication Links to journals, conferences, and organizations of interest to teachers and scholars of rhetoric.
  
  
• A third web site hosting a range of rhetoric resources is Rhetoric, Scholarly and Pedagogical Resources for Rhetoricians from the eServer (formerly at Carnegie Mellon, now based at the University of Washington). Here you can follow links to works of classical rhetoric, such as Aristotle's Rhetoric or Cicero's works or Plato's Gorgias. There are also articles on literacy and education, and links to glossaries of rhetorical terms.
  
  
• A Glossary of Rhetorical Terms with Examples, a page hosting definitions and examples of classical terms of rhetoric, is maintained by Ross Scaife at the University of Kentucky. Be sure to scroll to the bottom of the page and visit the links to additional Rhetoric Resources on the Web.

Rhetoric Programs

The Second Rhetoric Page at Kettering University, created by Dr. Mark Gellis, hosts links (to quote Dr. Gellis's own words) "on writing, rhetoric and writing programs, literature and popular culture links, politics and political rhetoric, religion and religious rhetoric, law and legal issues, indices of colleges and universities, publishers, links for finding individuals and organizations, news and information services, and other related subjects."

Rhetoric, from the eServer (formerly at Carnegie Mellon, now based at the University of Washington), offers a list of Rhetoric Programs. Also consult the List of Web Pages of Individual Rhetoricians.

Classical Rhetoric and PWR Assignments

• If you want your students to comprehend the significance of the rhetorical situation, or the persuasive appeals Logos, Pathos, and Ethos, direct them to Dr. Gideon Burton's Forest of Rhetoric website where they will find a discussion of the Greek term kairos as well as the Roman definition and an explanation of the relation of kairos to audience and other crucial aspects of classical and contemporary rhetoric. Students can also explore the "sample rhetorical analysis in terms of audience" and explore the links to "figures of speech and audience" as well as "related topics of invention."
  
  
• Six Ways to Think about Rhetoric, an especially good set of writing exercises designed to help students understand the conceptual and practical aspects of rhetoric, can be found on Dr. Mark Gellis's website at Kettering University. He generously gives permission for teachers to use his assignments (although he requests that teachers who make use of these documents cite him as the author), and the assignments for using Claims and Evidence or for Constructing a Proposal and Mini-Thesis merit a closer look.
  
  
• The Rhetoric Resources Web site, maintained by Joseph Petraglia-Bahri at the Georgia Institute of Technology, offers an excellent model of potential assignments to use in your teaching. By clicking on "Figures" at the bottom of the page, you go to a list of student-written biographies on rhetoricians from Artistotle to Vico. See the discussion of the Major Works and the list of references at the end of each bio. The "Issues" and "Terms" sections demonstrate ways that students can write about rhetoric in your classes.

Assignments in Visual Rhetoric and Digital Rhetoric

A course syllabus for Virtual Rhetorics in Internet Culture, by Cynthia Haynes from the University of Texas at Dallas, offers an excellent reading list (with links) as well as descriptions of assignments for graduate students in the Program in Writing and Rhetoric at UTD. You might generate your own ideas for student websites and other visual rhetoric projects by examining these rich pages.