Rhetorical Criticism Examples

Coming into COMM 3460, my background in communication (regarding rhetoric and criticism) is not incredibly strong. I had the opportunity to take a public speaking class and learn a little bit about the importance of rhetoric, but I feel like there is still so much more for me to learn. After reading the Foss chapters and watching the videos, I have learned what the definition of “rhetoric criticism” actually is. I am still a bit nervous for the class because I have discovered the definition, but I think it will take me some time to learn how to better apply rhetoric criticism into my life. However, I am excited to go through the application process though because of the ending of the first Foss chapter (especially the final paragraph) because it gave me a

Those who are non-academic may criticize his rhetoric speech in a negative way. Some might choose the symbol “negro” to focus on throughout the entire speech. In a time where this word had so much negativity surrounding it, the speech could have easily been criticized to be a negative thing or may have even been looked over by some because it was given by a “negro” himself. However, I believe this speech is one of the greatest speeches given because of the artifacts (The Declaration of Independence, the Emancipation Proclamation, etc.) that he chose to use throughout his speech. These documents are important to many Americans, and Martin Luther King, Jr. brilliantly applies them to his speech in order to point out the ways in which the words within these documents are not properly being executed at this point in time. Throughout his speech, he creates an artifact for the American people from the words “I have a dream”. An artifact that has carried a more in-depth meaning for over fifty years and will continue to do so throughout many generations, if not, for an