Final Exam. fall 09
Write a thorough, detailed, well-crafted response to 3 of the following prompts. Cite directly from the texts when appropriate, but of course don't bother with long quotations. These essays should be composed primarily of your own carefully chosen words.
The exam is due at gpullman@gsu.edu by Midnight on Monday December 7. It is worth 30% of your final grade in this class.
- Find an advertisement or television commercial for at least four of the fallacious topics. Explain why the fallacy "works" in this case (or why it doesn't).
- Write in detail how the 28 common topics are employed in your specific sub-field of rhetoric. Which of the 28 are most used? Which least? Also, what "special topics" have you noticed that are indigenous to your field? How does a topical perspective help you understand and contribute to the field?
- Contemporary people who need to know about persuasion inhabit a world that is in many ways very different from the world of classical Greece and as a result need different information from what the classical Greeks needed. At the same time, much hasn't changed. So what, specifically and with examples from the texts, is useful in what we read and what needs to be modified for modern times (and why).
- Compare and contrast Aristotle and his Asian counterparts.
- To what extent do you think Plato takes back in Phaedrus what he said about rhetoric in Gorgias? Be detailed and specific, citing both texts.
- Using the pieces we read at the beginning of the semester, what is sophistic rhetoric or what might it be? Keep in mind that the phrase sophistic rhetorics (plural) might be an option.
- Using Theophrastus, Aristotle, or Han Fai Tzu as a springboard, create a "new" character type that requires attention to certain or specific points in persuasion. Explain (1) how this character might persuade others as a rhetor and (2) how this character might be more easily persuaded as an audience member. This will not necessarily involve "new rhetoric," but will involve selecting from existing works which strategies, topics, or forms are best suited to this character as both a rhetor or an audience member.
- Using a theory of rhetoric developed form Plato and a theory of rhetoric from Aristotle critique Isocrates' Encomium to Helen.
- How does the critique of sophistry evolve through Isocrates' Against the Sophists, Plato's Gorgias, and Book I of Aristotle's On Rhetoric?
- Explain the ways in which Aristotle’s discussion of strategies of argumentation has influenced your tutoring practices or the course you are currently teaching/one that you can envision yourself teaching in the future. Cite specific examples from a syllabus or a teaching philosophy”
- Evaluate the justifications for going to war in Thucidydes' Periclean Funeral Oration using Aristotle's justifications for going to war in On Rhetoric.