If I had to guest lecture in the next section of this course, the skill I would be most confident teaching would be using ethos, logos, and pathos as rhetorical appeals. These three methods of persuasion involve credibility, logic, and emotion, respectively. They are used in order to draw the audience’s different interests and gain their attention towards the importance of an argument. Throughout the course, we have spent a lot of time understanding how to utilize these appeals effectively and how to use key quotes and information to portray them.

In order to teach this method, I would begin by providing a simple triangle diagram that separates and explain the three distinct strategies. The explanation would involve a word or two that defines the word such as “emotion/values” for “Pathos” and then the main techniques used in order to address said characteristics. In this case, possibly the use of “stories, inspiration, vivid language, etc.”

In order to reaffirm their understanding, I would go through an activity where the class would be separated into thirds and each group would receive one of the rhetorical strategies. Then, the group would discuss a manner to demonstrate their specific appeal through a short work of writing. For example, with pathos, they can write a short story that reflects a traumatic, excessively happy, heartfelt theme; something that captures the hearts and passions of an audience. In terms of logos, they could write a statement and then provide clear evidence or statistics using a made up source as way to prove their argument. For ethos, they can discuss a main point using a historical figure as a source or a famous quote from a specific leader that demonstrates the importance of their argument. Then, they would all present their work to the class, really focusing in on how they crafted their work and the steps they took in their respective categories to create the appeal.