By Ghenwa Elkhoury

You want to know the truth? Rhetoric hides, and it hides in the places you least expect it to. 

 As teaching fellows who have some prior experience in the theory and practice of rhetoric and persuasion, we must not only  know where to look, but also how to spread the knowledge of hidden rhetoric. If you’re here, you’re probably a teaching fellow wondering how to further include the art of rhetoric and persuasion into your classes. But as you look into the souls of your 24 or even 50 uninterested college students, you wonder if what you’re about to teach them will help them in any way later on. 

If you’re ever unsure, I’m here to tell you it does;  I’m here to briefly tell you why (it’s supposed to be how, but the why works better with this picture I found). 

The “Why”

No matter what major our students are enrolled in, what educational background they come from, or what their interests may be, they’re all in school for at least one similar reason (at least I really hope so): they’re looking to get a job after they graduate. Their professions will vary across a wide range of fields–some will go on to be engineers, others accountants and marketers, but these are only three examples in a world so big. 

The bottom line here is: no matter where they’re going, they’re going to need what they learn in their English Communications class to partially succeed in the workplace, and we need to show them that part of it, we need to show them why: why they need classes like these, and why this all matters. 

The authors of “Hidden Arguments: Rhetoric and Persuasion in Diverse Forms of Technical Communication” discuss these exact ideas  in their article, and even conduct a study to prove their points valid. McCaughy and Fitzpatrick mention that “ While many of our students will not be technical writers formally, they will be asked—sometimes daily or even hourly, depending on their profession—to perform technical writing” (307). This is our why. Even though our students will most likely take on fields that don’t carry the name of “Communicator”, or “Writer” , that does  not mean they are not expected to write on  a daily basis. 

The art of Writing is a tough craft, but there’s always a place to start and there are so many methods, tips, and tricks to make it easier. Check out this blog on Smashing Magazine for tips! 

And if we come to think of it… how often have we been in the same shoes of our students? I remember enrolling in classes as an undergraduate and lasting the whole 14 weeks while wondering what this course will do for me in the future, and leaving with no answer. This is the exact reason why we need to tell our students about hidden rhetoric, because it affects everyone. Besides, letting our students know what they’ll get out of this might increase numbers of course engagement. 

Making the Shift from Student to Professional 

A few details fall under this practice of rhetoric and persuasion in the classroom, and they are preparing students how to tailor their content to be specific to their audience and follow the rhetorical situation, where they include aspects of context, genre, purpose, and mode even. The authors write, “In successful transfer, a student enters a workplace with the ability to recognize the average of those modal practices and the awareness to shift direction as the authentic audience, genre, and purpose require” (315).

There is a moment of transfer when a student leaves the classroom and enters the workplace, and it is our responsibility to take action and prepare them for that transfer, because it will make all the difference.