Rhetoric Matters

A copy of a posting to CRTNET:
I want to thank Tim Levine for posting his commentary on the “lameness” of NCA journals. I thank him not because I agree with his conclusions, but because his posting offered a very teachable moment for one of my classes.
I teach the Communication Department’s Introduction to Graduate Studies course [...]

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Someone from Environment Maryland came by today to deliver the Legislative Scorecard for the 2009 MD legislative session. Happily, the scorecard revealed that all of our legislators from the Takoma Park area score quite well on environmental matters. But that’s not really surprising.
As I’ve noted, I participated in a two-day workshop on integrating sustainability in [...]

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Here is the COMM 401 Summer Session I Syllabus:
COMM 401 Syllabus

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A sharp eyed student (Joel Cohen) in my political advertising class took to heart one of the lessons we discuss–namely, that there are no accidents or happenstances in political ads. We discuss this concept in the context of, say, Mike Huckabee’s claim that the floating white cross behind his head in his 2007 Xmas ad [...]

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I’ve been frustrated everytime I teach speechwriting that I’ve been unable to locate a picture of Judson Welliver. I challenged my COMM 455 Speechwriting students to see if they could locate a picture of Welliver and one enterprising, diligent student (Josh Basile) found several! Here’s my favorite.

Welliver was the first official speechwriter (”literary assistant”) to [...]

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