Engaging in civil dialogue and conversation makes us effective mechanisms of change in society. The ability to deliver a convincing message benefits students throughout their public, personal, and professional lives. This course explores persuasive writing and speaking and helps students learn to craft messages of influence. Students create and assess arguments, detect discrepancies and faults in reasoning, and learn to understand commonsensical associations between thoughts and ideas.
In this semester course, students engage in audience analysis during speech brainstorming, organization, and delivery. Students explore different areas of persuasive speaking including, but not limited to, law, social media, public issues, and policy. Students create formal speeches to inspire a call to action and sway opinion, brief extemporaneous speeches, argument analyses, and peer speech evaluations. Group work aids preparation and provides a forum to try out arguments and ideas.
