The goal of rhetoric is to assist the truth, to present the Gospel in all its glory and power.
Kelsey Peterson
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Kelsey Peterson serves Clapham School as an instructor in rhetoric and Spanish. She is also on faculty at Wheaton College as an adjunct professor. Kelsey has been teaching at the university and secondary school level for nearly 10 years. Prior to coming to Clapham, she taught at Jonathan Edwards Classical Academy in Nashville. She began her career teaching writing, rhetoric, and literature at the University of Rochester, SUNY Geneseo, and Pennsylvania State University. She earned her MFA from Washington University in St. Louis. She is a writer, having published in numerous literary journals and received the 2019 PEN/Dau Short Story Prize for Emerging Writers. She and her family belong to All Souls Anglican Church (ACNA) in Wheaton.
In the classical education Trivium, we often talk of “grammar, logic, and rhetoric” as the essential stages of a classical education, roughly equating “grammar” to elementary school, “logic” to middle school, and “rhetoric” to high school. Though “rhetoric” may serve as shorthand for the entire Upper School experience, rhetoric in itself is an art, one of the seven liberal arts, that equip a student in the skills of wisdom. Read on to understand how Kelsey articulates the distinction of rhetoric and its intersection with biblical Christianity in her approach to its instruction at Clapham.
How would you define rhetoric to someone who’s never studied it?
Rhetoric is the art of writing and speaking well. Rhetoric differs from composition in that it includes principles of persuasion. While you do learn how to develop arguments, organize essays, and craft eloquent sentences in a rhetoric class, you also learn how to leverage these skills with a variety of audiences, purposes, and contexts. This is why rhetoric is in many ways about observing your situation and shaping your response to it accordingly. Rhetoric also adds the element of oratory: communicating convincingly often means speaking well in addition to writing well.
From the ancients to the present day, there have been conflicting opinions on the power and role of rhetoric in society. Many people have negative associations with rhetoric—it reminds them of the empty promises of politicians or the agenda-driven peddling of the media. That distrust in rhetoric has always existed. But rhetoric in this sense is like a weapon; while a weapon can be used for evil, it can also be used for good. Indeed, one could argue that because of its power and propensity to be abused, we need to learn to wield the weapon of rhetoric all the more.
Why do you believe rhetoric is important for students to learn today, especially in the digital age?
The digital age has witnessed a surge of rhetoric. People are still writing and speaking—and reading!—even though they aren’t doing those things in traditional ways (I would argue that memes are rhetorical!). The availability of generative AI has made it more, not less, urgent for students to learn rhetoric. We need students to speak reasonably and persuasively about the advantages and disadvantages of emerging technologies. We need students who know what it truly means to write and speak well—in connection with the human person, in pursuit of divine truth, and in favor of human flourishing—and how to distinguish that speech from its imitation delivered by AI.
Training in rhetoric brings with it training in wisdom and virtue. The time and effort required to develop a clear line of argumentation, to analyze and understand one’s audience deeply, to consider all sides of an issue, to organize one’s thoughts coherently, to write sentences that are clear and vivid, do not merely result in a successful essay. (ChatGPT can give you that in five seconds flat.) They result in a wiser and more virtuous person, someone who has practiced prudence, love, humility, attentiveness, diligence, and tenacity. (That, as far as I’m concerned, is not something ChatGPT can give you—and certainly not in five seconds flat.)*
*Thanks to my wise colleague Susanna Etzel for clarifying this point at a faculty meeting.
Can you share an example of a rhetorical technique or concept that you think every student should master — and why?
Yes! One of the simplest rhetorical principles is the appeal called ethos, which translates loosely to “character.” In other words, one of the ways you persuade someone to do something is by appealing to your own character. An example might help. Let’s say you want your friends to go to Six Flags with you, so you say, “Let’s go to Six Flags! Trust me, have I let you down before? We’ll go early on a Thursday; I’ve got some coupons. I know you will have a blast.” Ethos breaks down into three parts: moral virtue (ârete), practical wisdom (phronesis), and goodwill (eunoia). “Trust me, have I let you down before?” might be seen as an appeal to moral virtue. “We’ll go early on a Thursday” might be seen as practical wisdom; you know the ropes. “I’ve got some coupons. I know you will have a blast” might be seen as goodwill; you know your friends are interested in a (relatively inexpensive) good time, and you’ve covered those bases.
Aristotle claims, and I tend to agree, that the most powerful appeal is goodwill (eunoia). If the audience does not trust that you have their best interests in mind, you will not successfully reach them.
I find two things really interesting about this rhetorical technique. First, you have to know your audience deeply in order to understand how to show them goodwill. What are their interests, exactly? Second, this requires a level of genuineness in speaking and writing. Naturalness and sincerity are crucial in rhetoric. If an audience senses artificiality or manipulation, they will disengage.
How does your understanding of Christianity and the bible shape your approach to rhetoric? Do you see any connections between discipleship and teaching rhetoric?
Christianity is the foundation to my approach to rhetoric. Without anchoring in biblical truth, rhetoric quickly devolves into manipulation. Examples of Christian rhetoric in the Bible—from Paul, Peter, and Stephen, for example—clarify that the goal of rhetoric is not to make yourself look good, win the argument, and persuade the audience at all costs. The goal of rhetoric is to assist the truth, to present the Gospel in all its glory and power. In some circumstances, this might mean speaking plainly rather than eloquently or even offending your audience rather than catering to them. From a worldly perspective, this makes no sense. But we know the strange inverse logic of the Cross, that God’s power is made perfect in weakness, and that the stumbling-block has become the chief cornerstone. As with anything in the Christian life, if we are apart from Christ when we practice rhetoric, we can do nothing (John 15:5).
Teaching rhetoric, in this way, ties so clearly to discipleship. Rhetoric equips students with practical ways to advocate for truth, beauty, and goodness in their communities as well as simple strategies for sharing the gospel. It forces them into the work of articulating and delivering their beliefs, which is not easy. Once they have enough experience, though, they grow in confidence—not just in themselves, but in God—and this confidence, I think, is priceless.
What’s your favorite moment in the classroom — the thing that makes teaching rhetoric most rewarding for you?
I love the creativity it inspires in my students, from how they apply these rhetorical principles to basic situations in their own lives to how they tackle serious sociocultural problems in their Senior Thesis. It shows how flexible and meaningful these skills are.
Some of the most rewarding moments, though, are witnessing students wrestle with a topic through refutation. Refutation is the section of a speech or essay where you address counterarguments. A good refutation involves not only proving the opposing viewpoint wrong but first representing that viewpoint in its strongest possible terms. (Students tend to struggle with one or the other: it can be incredibly difficult to refute a strong counterargument, but it can be equally challenging—for other reasons—to charitably describe that counterargument.) Watching students successfully defend their claims and even find common ground with those they disagree with is deeply rewarding. It’s in those moments I can see them becoming real rhetors—not just writers and speakers putting on airs and using flashy words, but good men and women capable of loving their neighbor and defending the truth.