Perelman explains that the understanding of rhetoric is murky. To be honest, I haven’t always been clear on what rhetoric was… until I had to teach it to 101 and 201 students. The article, “The New Rhetoric: A Theory of Practical Reasoning” defines rhetoric (“for the ancients”) as “the theory of persuasive discourse – broken down into five parts:
I appreciated the in-class assignment we had with the MLK speech. The group I was a part of looked at the speech with Perelman in mind. Perelman’s new rhetoric focuses on good intention, audience, rhetorical listening, and makes sure to be easy to understand (just to name a few). I loved this assignment so much that I had my 201 students do it as well. It was a great way to understand rhetoric and apply it to a relevant (and popular) speech.
Lorin's Rhetoric Journal 