Many students start practicing the art of rhetoric before they're really able to understand what it is. That's okay. In fact, that's how many of us learn. We first encounter a truth, play with it even, and then we start to understand it. In short, Rhetoric is communicating well. When we start studying the art of rhetoric, we analyze and breakdown the parts of communication into small pieces that we can understand. We've learned how to think in logic, we've learned how to wrestle with those thoughts in debate, and now we need to master how to communicate them with rhetoric.
The close relationship between debate and rhetoric is why so many clubs in the United States are "Speech and Debate" clubs. I'm no expert on teaching rhetoric and I'm certainly no great rhetorician, but I do enjoy a good speech. Every great speech contains some key parts, and appeals to specific parts of us as humans.
As our children wrestle with the great ideas of the past and develop their own great ideas it's important for us to teach them how to communicate well by mastering the art of rhetoric.
Rhetoric has 5 canons, each of which contains more than a year's worth of studying and practice to master. Thankfully, our children have many years to build on their rhetoric skills. Middle school students progress toward rhetoric by studying the what. What do we put into a good speech? What do we need to use in order to persuade?
High school students practice rhetoric by applying the what into the how. How do we communicate an idea? How do we appeal to a person's emotions, ethics, and logic?
How do you get started with learning the art of rhetoric? Look to God. He is the great communicator. God spoke creation into existence. Christ spoke the hope of salvation. Paul spoke redemption through Christ to the masses. Build good thinking skills with logic, engage in debate to hone those skills, and practice speaking.