Final Essays: Alysha DeLange

Rhetoric and Religion
Rhetoric can be found in almost any written or spoken word. Specifically in religion, rhetoric is extremely important.

Jesus was the best rhetorician of all. He spoke in parables to convey surface level teachings to those who could not understand the deeper meanings. By doing so, he was able to teach his audience at any stage of spirituality. I think it is incredible that when I personally read his teachings, each time I find new depth or new meaning.

There are many examples of rhetoric that can be found in LDS scripture. Take Samuel the Lamanite who cried repentance on the wall, or Ammon who preached to King Lamoni. Had these prophets not been able to utilize rhetoric, the Nephites would've never looked for the sign of Jesus' birth and King Lamoni and his people would have never been converted. These prophets understood that rhetoric is the key to influencing people, and utilized it to the best of their abilities.

Augustine was a convert to the Christian church, who once criticized the bible for its lack of rhetoric. But upon intense analysis, he, himself, found that there is all sorts of rhetoric in the Bible. Augustine really understood Christian doctrine, that anything that goes contrary to good Christian morals should be taken figuratively. A lot of figurative language can be found in the bible, as well as the book of mormon.

Nowadays prophets speak to us at general conference, missionaries spread the gospel around the world, and people join the church every day. It is because of the rhetorical devices and strategies used in their speech that they are able to feel the spirit and believe the words of the prophets and missionaries.

Rhetoric is one of the most important components of the gospel that can be found in the scriptures.


Rhetoric in Jacob 2-3

Jacob uses a number of rhetorical devices in his sermon in Jacob 2-3. First, he starts off making a persuasive appeal to the emotions of the audience using pathos. He allows himself to be vulnerable in front of the people by admitting that his garments are not clean and that by teaching, he hopes to clean himself. This allows the people to fully listen to what he says and to strive to believe on his words.

Jacob later makes another pathetic appeal to the audiences emotions when he begins to speak about how their God would love to clean them and to see them follow Him in righteousness. No one would want to change if there is no reason to. Jacob conveys the love of the father and tells the audience of His love for them.

Jacob also uses cause and effect to persuade repentance. He explains that because their actions have been abominable in the eyes of God, the consequences that will come unless they repent will be dire and sad.

Jacob also compares them to the Lamanites, their hated enemies, who are prospering more than they because of their righteousness. He makes this persuasive appeal to show them that they are suffering because of their wickedness and also to show that righteous leads to prospering.

Jacob also uses repetition. He tells the audience several times to remember, triggering their minds to really remember what he is saying. After all, rhetoric counts for nothing if it is not remembered and does not spark change.

While there are many more instances of the use of rhetorical devices in Jacob 2-3, theses particular ones stuck out to me. I think that by studying the scriptures analytically while looking for rhetorical devices, we can get more meaning out of their teachings.

Psychology Student, Huh?

Hey you! Yes, you! I can see it- you’re a people watcher. People fascinate you. It’s nothing to be ashamed about…as long as you’re not creepy about it. If you’re not creepy, you’ve picked the right field of study. Psychology and social work are right up your alley.  Hopefully this study will take you where you want to go, where you can people-watch to your heart’s content while you counsel and help people. There are some things that you should know before you get much further, though.

School and Experience

            Since you are at the beginning of your career exploration, there will likely be a lot of questions about requirements for classes and other school-related issues. Let’s start with the basics. Yes, you do have to take all the dreaded GEs. Trust me- they’ll be worth it. These classes will make you much more well-rounded, which will help you in talking to a variety of people. And those pesky pre-requisite classes will be helpful in their own ways, too. If they weren’t necessary, they wouldn’t be part of the curriculum. Pay close attention, too, because before you know it, you’ll be out in the real world, and a lot of the concepts you learn in class will be very applicable. What you don’t realize as you’re taking these classes is that every piece of information that you learn that seems more applicable to another field will help you relate more to people in general. If you know a little bit about civilization and anthropology and science, you’ll be able to converse with a larger population and build your credibility as a therapist. Even though they aren’t required, take some sociology classes, in addition to the psychology classes. These classes will help you understand human behavior and community dynamics that will be important to social work.

            Taking classes and going to school will not be enough to prepare you for real social work settings. Internships and research will give you the best understanding of the field. Real interactions with people will give you the most experience and give you the best perspective, so make sure you are looking for opportunities to broaden your horizons. I was lucky enough to find an amazing opportunity, interning at the Utah State Prison. In this setting, I get to work with a lesser-valued population, one on one, under the supervision of a license psychologist. There are also social workers in the prison that I get to shadow. I get to administer psychological tests and interact with inmates in a controlled, psychological setting. This opportunity has been invaluable to my learning. I have been able to apply concepts from classes directly to my internship, which has helped me get a better idea of the field.

It's about Character!

            One of the first things you will learn early on in this field is that it is not just about watching people. There will be countless social interactions with people of all ages, religions, cultures, and opinions. If you’re really in it for the right reasons, you aim to lessen people’s suffering, to understand why people do things, and to create a community that gives people opportunities for improvement. That being said, you’re going to be interacting with a lot of different people and it’s important that you don’t say the wrong thing and that you abide by a few rules.

            In medieval Catholic culture, social work evolved with the idea of almsgiving. In giving alms, people would give to those less fortunate to alleviate suffering. They would give food, money, service, and time to the poor and needy. This idea started with the Church commandment to act with charity and love. Today this same idea, of selfless service and giving, is central to social work and highly prized in many psychology settings as well. It is a long-standing practice that values respect. One way of showing respect to people is understanding their culture and talking with compassion, intent, and conscientiousness.

Communication is Key

            As a social worker, you have to be able to read the situation and react appropriately. There’s going to be a fine balance of informing people about what they need to hear and making them feel comfortable with what you are saying and building a thing called rapport. Rapport is a place of comfort when you build an attachment with someone and gain their trust and can easily talk to them. Gaining rapport means that you have to be gentle and understanding and show empathy to get people to trust you. Unfortunately, sometimes in this profession, you need to tell people things that they don’t want to hear and that can weaken the rapport. If you have built rapport first, your negative, but necessary messages will be taken better. This is why reading the situation and understanding circumstances and people is very important.

            Let me give you an example of a situation you could face. “Marie” is a woman with two children who were recently taken away because of her addiction to drugs. The goal of the social worker in this setting is to help her understand what she can do to get her kids back and sooth her anger and sadness. If Marie were to come into my office, I would start out by asking her to relay the situation to me to the best of her abilities. I would listen intently, ask questions when necessary, and tell her how much we care to see her family back together and to keep her family safe. All of these things would likely bring her comfort and build rapport without compromising my position to keep her kids safe. Originally, I would seem like the “bad guy” but after sitting down and understanding the situation from her point of view, hopefully she will see me as helpful and not harmful. The next step would be to tell her what she needs to hear. It would be helpful to understand laws and history to be able to tell her the things that she can be working on to get her family back. I would end the situation by asking if she had any questions or if there was anything that she would like help with. This would once again establish rapport and maintain the trust already established. Granted, not all situations will be this smooth- in this line of work; because we are “the bad guys,” we are likely to be met with a lot of opposition and anger. You will need to work on speaking with compassion, but neutrality; equality, but authority.

            Other situations when you’ll need to watch what you are communicating is in the case of written reports. In this situation, it is not as important to give compassion as it is to give truth. You will be doing a lot of paperwork, documenting interactions and requests. These need to be written very formally and honestly. Most of the time, these reports are sent to people with greater authority, allowing them to make decisions on behalf of clients. Because these higher authorities don’t always have contact with the clients, it is important to give an honest and unbiased account of the situation. For example, in writing notes about a client’s behavior, it would be more proper to write “Mr. Adams gave little eye-contact during our interaction, and only spoke once, and very quietly” instead of “Mr. Adams is shy and doesn’t care about therapy.” As you can see, the second report very well could be a correct interpretation, but the first is more accurate and unbiased. It is written in a way that allows for interpretation by multiple people, since no one can truly know another’s motivations and thought processes. It could be that Mr. Adams had a cold and didn’t want to speak and that he had been crying all day and was ashamed to make eye contact because his eyes were red and puffy. Of course, if they were red and puffy, those would be observational notes I would make, too. If Mr. Adams were going to court to determine his eligibility for clearance in his Alcoholics Anonymous program, if I had written the first report, the court may consider that Mr. Adams is not taking his program or therapy seriously.  What you write and portray could mean the difference between a positive or negative court decision for the client. This type of work is very common, so get used to writing objectively and without bias.

The Basics

            These examples showcase the importance of reading a situation, being educated in the history and practices behind social work and psychology, and knowing how to speak and write in a way that facilitates the desired results. I wouldn’t go into this field if you can’t speak eloquently and tactfully. I wouldn’t continue on this path if you were worried about being unbiased. Of course, there will be situations in which you have a very strong opinion, but these are not situations in which you can lose your professionalism. Good reading, writing, and speaking are all necessary to this field because it helps you to establish credibility and professionalism with your clients. No one is going to trust a therapist that they believe is uneducated, lacks compassion, and is biased.

            Hopefully, this account of the work you will be doing and the necessary components won’t scare you off too much. If you take your education seriously and really care to learn about people, you should be fine. 

Making Connections: the need for good communication skills in manufacturing

The changes which have taken place in the manufacturing field have made communication and a knowledge of rhetorical principles critical if one wishes to succeed in the world of manufacturing. Manufacturers of goods have worked in generally the same way since people have been making things out of raw materials. They developed systems which worked really well in their times and with their level technology. The courses required in the curriculum at BYU work really well in this older system. Over the course of history manufacturers have pretty much done things in the same way, but recently things have changed. Manufacturing in present day isn’t the same as it always was, new technology and the advances in computers and communication has changed the way manufacturers interact with their clients. People still make something valuable or useful from something less valuable or raw, however, the way that people make products has changed, the way people present their products has changed, and the way products come to market has changed. Communication between consumer and manufacturer has now become extremely important in all these changes. Unfortunately the curriculum for manufacturing engineering doesn’t emphasize this contemporary style communication. I hope stress to you why it is important to and engineer to have a knowledge of rhetorical principles. With proper and effective communication comes growth and opportunity, without it complications, misunderstanding and rejection can frustrate your efforts as an engineer.

New ways call for new communication

You can see that production and manufacturing of goods has changed since antiquity, and even in the last fifty years. Change in manufacturing will never stop, and this change brings with it a need for communication in new ways. Everyone who has spoken to a car lover has heard the phrase, “they just don’t make them like this anymore.” Most often this phrase is said to show displeasure

with the current method of producing things. In this field in transition the techniques and technology of the present create new ways of manufacturing which might be viewed adversely when used in the production of certain products. For example, Ferrari still sand cast their engine blocks by hand, a very slow and arduous process.  With the advances of metallurgy and a processes like injection molding, many more engines could be produced both faster and cheaper, which means more Ferraris could be made. Even though Ferrari knows this, they still sand cast their engine blocks by hand. Ferrari insists that the old world way is better, they even say the method they employ makes their engines is a work of art and the customers think this way too. If a manufacturer were lucky enough to work with Ferrari, the engineer would need to be mindful of this sentiment. In many companies there is an idea that, “the way we’ve done it is the way we’ll do it.” Knowing one’s audience is critical in any position of consulting, even one which is related to manufacturing. Rhetorical principles will undoubtedly aid anyone who stands in a position where their opinion is shared. If an engineer were to disregard the attachment Ferrari has to their method they would be making a mistake, they could even offend people by suggesting to switch to another method. A knowledge of rhetorical principles brings about sensitivity and if it is absolutely critical, a way to most effectively make suggestions.

The new and old ways

For most of history a man’s reputation was a result of his hard work and superior skill, if you produced quality goods people heard about it. This has been the model for a very long time. Bartolomeo Beretta of Gardone received 296 ducats as payment for 185 arquebus barrels sold to the Arsenal of Venice in 1526. Beretta’s products were chosen by the highly discriminating Republic of Venice because of their excellence. Beretta already had a reputation from his prior clients which

Beretta's receipt fro the arsenal of Venice

helped him secure this business. Because of his prior customers’ satisfaction he flourished as a merchant-artisan. I’m sure that the armory of Venice had to rely simply on Beretta’s good name as they contacted him to make the barrels. Perhaps the arsenal had seen something Beretta had already crafted. This transaction shows how the majority of business was conducted in the past - if you make good products, you build a reputation which is spread by word of mouth and people come seeking your products. This is the classic way of way of building a reputation as an artisan. In this system a completed example is necessary. This seems only natural that a buyer came to inspect a barrel to see whether it was good quality. This has changed in our time, quite frequently in our time the product must be fully conceptualized and computer rendered before a prototype could be attempted. The engineer must communicate to his audience through digital renders what he wants his audience to know. Other times a plastic model may be 3d printed and shown to potential customers, maybe a model is milled out of metal and painted to look like the finished product. It depends on the audience.  Showing the head engineer a plastic model won’t be as effective as showing a CAD model. An engineer needs to recognize that the way they present their ideas matters almost as much as the idea itself. Ineffective communication may spoil even the best ideas. A manufacturing engineer must use effective communication if he wishes to promote his ideas in the best way possible. The engineer must understand his audience enough to know what will capture their attention, the engineer must show the qualities of the product without actually having the product in hand, the engineer can best do this by refined communication and the use of rhetorical devices.

How to communicate the strengths

In modern manufacturing the consumer wants some kind of assurance that the product they will receive is of sufficient quality. There are several ways to communicate this, but not all of them are equal, depending on the audience an engineer may change how he presents his product to potential customers. In Beretta’s time the only way was to show a finished product, or maybe a similar item which would show the craftsmanship by presenting the actual item which is being inspected. In our times it has become it is much too expensive to simply create a prototype as a first step.  

The engineer must show people how they can create something useful from the materials, without having the actual item in hand. Most of the time this is done without using any materials at all, with the advent of computer animated design software most early stages of development are in digitally rendered images and plans. This is a huge shift in the manufacturing world, no longer do manufactures make the product first and then analyze. Now they analyze first and then manufacture the product later. The communication has to shift in this new world of manufacturing as well to be effective. Engineers of the future will have to think what kind of presentation will best communicate the idea. Giving a presentation will have to be different when the main spectacle is a CAD drawing, for example you can’t as effectively perform a demonstration with a computer render as with a prototype. You can more easily show mechanisms and variations with a CAD drawing. What it boils down to is that often times you will have to present your work without having the finished product.

In conclusion

            Change will never cease in the world of manufacturing, there will always be a new technique, material, or process which will change how products are made. These changes require that people communicate differently than they have in the past. Not addressing this changes would be unwise and one can easily see how neglect of certain tools could make a manufacturer’s job more difficult. In that same spirit, I’ve tried to convey through this article that rhetorical principles and effective communication are tools which need to be utilized in order for the full potential of a manufacturer to be achieved.

references 

". in 1562." Beretta Since 1562. Fabbrica d'Armi Pietro Beretta, n.d. Web. 9 Dec. 2014. <http://www.beretta.com/en/world-of-beretta/since-1526/>.

Talk Ain’t Cheap: Why Effective Rhetoric and Communication is Vital for English Teaching Majors

Introduction

            In second grade, I had a particularly horrible teacher.  I cannot remember his name, but I do remember his complete and utter incompetence at explaining even the simplest concept to our class in a way we would understand.  One day, after a particularly ineffective lesson on verbs in which I was

Don't let a second grader take over your class.
Communicate!

being an extreme smart aleck, he snidely asked if I would like to teach the class.  Fully valuing the fact that he had finally recognized and accepted his own teaching ineptitude, I readily agreed, got up from my seat, strolled to the front of the class, and began to teach my second grade pupils on the value of verbs.  Needless to say, the subsequent events did not go well for me, and I was shoved back into my seat.  I realized much later that his unsuccessful teaching method came from the fact that he could not communicate with and engage his students.  I also realized much later what a rhetorical question was.

My experience illustrates an intriguing dilemma about teaching, especially English teaching: in a field all about communication, participation, and learning, why are so many teachers so ineffective at communicating to their students in a way that engages and endears them to their teacher?  We have all had terrible teachers.  Why, when they have chosen the profession of education and have all the necessary qualifications, are some so bad at what they do?  There might be several answers to this quandary.  For one, communication is not the only way to be successful in the classroom, so it can sometimes be forgotten as truly important.  Other ways to be a successful teacher are to grade quickly, enforce classroom rules, understand material completely, get along with staff, devote time to self-improvement, and love what you do.  These do not involve communication that much.  However, by far, the most important method for success is communication.  It governs nearly everything you will do as a teacher.  Your work is literally communicating and persuading students about literature, writing, and grammar, which are, in themselves, subparts of communication and persuasion.  Thus, communication is absolutely imperative to effective English teaching.  Without

These students are engaged in their English
           teacher's lesson because he can communicate
effectively to them.

effective communication, no teacher can be truly excellent.  The teachers might know the subject matter by heart.  They may have carefully constructed lesson plans.  But if teachers cannot engage students in learning the material, every carefully learned and crafted lesson goes to naught.  A bad teacher is usually a teacher who cannot communicate successfully.  Although teaching is more than just successful communication, as prospective English teaching majors, it is completely and utterly essential that you learn how to communicate and persuade well in your classes.  Learn these skills of communication now, and you will not be frustrated with your students later on.  In order to be the most effective teacher you can, you need to be able to effectively communicate on a general classroom level with the skills of clarity, arrangement, and entertainment, and on an individual basis with persuasiveness. 

Clarity in the Classroom

The most important communication will be in your classroom.  You talk the most in the classroom, and you affect the most people in the classroom.  The most important aspect of any teaching method is simply clarity.  The sign of any true comprehension of material is if you can teach it simply, carefully, and fully without any confusion, so teaching with clarity demonstrates how well you know certain material.  Simplicity is especially important when talking to a large group because the message must be comprehensible to everyone in the room, from the student with a knack for English to someone who cannot seem to grasp English concepts of grammar, literature, or writing.  This idea of clarity as the best means of teaching exists throughout history.  For example, in his De Doctrina Christiana, Saint Augustine instructed readers that the best way to teach a sermon to a large

Saint Augustine allows us to see the
               historical context and importance

of talking clearly without condescension 

group is to use simple language, but to not be tedious or over-repetitive (81).  The same principle applies not only to sermons, but also to English teaching.  You can easily slip into unwanted condescension about which St. Augustine so carefully warns us if you talk clearly but repetitively and below the level of your students.  Thus when teaching a lesson, you should always keep in mind your students as your audience and change how you teach a concept respectively.  For example, how you would explain a concept to an AP English classroom would be perhaps a more deep and complex explanation than how you explain a concept to a regular English class.  Although you will probably learn how to address different class scenarios when you do your teaching classes and student teaching, the course outcomes usually lack any mention of effective communication.  Thus, it is up to you to recognize the need for clarity when teaching.  When you use clarity and firm simplicity, your students will appreciate your teaching style and will respect you more for teaching effectively.  You will build up your character (known as ethos in rhetoric (Burton)) and admiration from students because you are concise and clear without any arrogance.

Arrangement in the Classroom

To communicate and persuade your students to learn, you need more than simply clarity.  How you arrange your lesson is also vital to effective communication.  Arrangement, in ancient Greece and Rome, was chiefly concerned with the exact order used in a usually persuasive oration (Burton), but today, arrangement is extremely important to all large-scale speaking and writing.  The importance of arrangement extends from the fact that the best way to competently teach is to form arguments and ideas that follow a logical and clarifying organization.  Many English teachers, especially those who only lecture, do not practice effective arrangement.  Even with carefully planned lessons, some teachers get easily sidetracked or jump quickly from one idea to another without any transitions or real arrangement.  I had one teacher my senior year of high school whom I regard as one of my worst teachers.  She knew her material and was highly intelligent, but she was so scatter-brained that I learned nothing from her.  Even if concepts are explained clearly, if your transitions between thoughts and ideas are as sudden, scatter-brained, and confusing like my teacher’s, all the clarity in the world will not really help successful communication in the classroom.  One of the best ways to help your arrangement is to use

We as teachers can use PowerPoints to assist
           our arrangement of our lessons.

technology such as PowerPoint and Prezi.  These presentations can add an entertainment value to your lessons, while also keeping you focused.  In order to avoid boredom, PowerPoint should be a guiding mechanism for an already basically memorized presentation, not just read out loud slide by slide.  By already knowing your own material well and by keeping to a logical and clear arrangement that moves from one idea to another, you will better help your students learn.

Entertainment in the Classroom

Today's students want instant entertainment
from their classroom experience.  We can
use entertainment to further the class
engagement levels and help classrooms learn!

Teaching high school students extends far beyond simply relaying information to your students.  In today’s world of easy and quick gratification and social media, everyone, especially teenagers, requires instant entertainment.  A huge conflict (called a stasis in rhetoric (Burton)) with teaching today is engaging students in a lesson while still maintaining a stimulating curriculum.  The best way to have the best of both worlds is to simply combine rigor with entertainment.  Thus, while your classes can still be challenging—and they should be challenging—your lessons should also have an element of entertainment.  For example, in Roman antiquity, Quintillian in his progymnasmata, writing exercises that taught grammar and how to speak and write effectively, made sure that his drills were entertaining as well as informative (Burton).  Today, our entertainment value can come from technology such as social media or videos.  However, because new technology is usually just a fad that passes rapidly, quick wit and humor inserted into your lesson is often the best way to engage students.  While you always want to remain authoritative, a pleasing and humorous speaking style (called middle style in rhetoric) will never go amiss in a classroom where students often demand entertainment.  English classes can include a ton of entertainment through wit in lessons.  For example, students might be required to diagram sentences to learn grammar, but diagraming “Josie engulfed the giant pickle into her pudgy pie hole” is much more entertaining than diagraming “Josie ate the large pickle.”  Entertained students will be usually be far more engaged in a lesson than those who are not entertained.  Teachers must always meld entertainment and engagement with the curriculum to truly help students learn.

Persuasion in One-on-One Situations

Parent and Student Meetings with you do not need
to be heated or angry experiences.  Through
persuasion to your side of a situation, parents
and students will be appeased and respect
you as an authoritative figure.

Although most of your time will be spent in the classroom, and thus most of your university learning will be geared to teaching whole classes, we often forget that we must also communicate with others on an individual basis, either with parents, students, or faculty members.  Without knowledge of persuasion as well as communication techniques, you will not be able to successfully solve issues with individuals.  Your audience has changed from a large group of people to a few or one.  How you approach individuals versus an entire classroom must also change.  Clarity and arrangement are no longer essential for your argument, but rather frank but appeasing talk is vital to convince individuals about your point.  This switch in communication is due to the fact that the context of your situation has changed, and your language must also.  For example, much of the time, the people, especially parents and students, you will be dealing with on an individual basis will be angry or frustrated at grades, behavior in the class, or other problems that classrooms typically encounter throughout the year.  Large classrooms usually do not present heated situations.  Thus, the language you use in a large classroom will be much different than the language you use to address angry individuals.  This change in language often involves an increase in persuasion for individuals.  Persuasion rather than just simple communication is much more important on an individual basis than with classrooms.  In the classrooms, your job is to teach and instruct while engaging the student’s attention and learning.  Individually, while you might be still instructing if a student has a question about an essay or assignment, you will most likely be convincing someone of your side of a situation in order to explain a bad grade or horrendous behavior.  You will be using rhetoric, the art of persuasion (Burton).  Successful individual persuasion will allow parents to accept a bad grade as reality without making you the “bad-guy.”  However, without successful persuasion on an individual basis, students and parents will likely still be angry, and you will not garner from them the respect as a successful teacher you deserve.  I have seen teachers both convince and fail to convince me that I deserved an unwanted grade.  I respected the persuasive one and continued to be frustrated with the unconvincing teacher.  Although, not commonly part of an English Teaching major’s university courses, in order to be a respected and successful teacher, it is imperative that you learn how to persuade individuals to accept your side of a situation. 

Conclusion

With successful communication and persuasion,
you can become the best English teacher you
could ever be!

Communication and persuasion are essential to the English teacher.  Although we teach communication, we are occasionally surprisingly ineffective at communicating effectively to our class and individuals.  However, in order to teach well, as we all want to do, we must be able to master the art of communication and persuasion through clarity, arrangement, entertainment, and persuasiveness.  With effective communication and persuasion, students will listen and learn from you, and a second-grader won’t try to take over your lesson. 

                                                   Works Cited

Augustine, Saint.  De Doctrina Christiana. Grand Rapids: Christian Classics Ethereal Library, n.d. Online Christian Library. Web. 13 Dec. 2014

Burton, Gideon.  Silva Rhetorica. Brigham Young University, n.d. Web. 13 Dec. 2014.