🚀 go-pugleaf

I'm teaching this year in the Rhetoric Department of the U of I.  The Rhet.
Dept. is primarily a service dept. (ie. it's main mission is to teach
undergrads).  In my training it was sort of stressed that the focus of
rhetoric is communicating to an audience with a purpose.  Rather broad,
but when situated within classes that do not deal with fiction or poetry,
it pretty much provides for an audience-focussed approach to speaking and
writing.

As for my own teaching, I find that I spend about 50% of my time trying to
explain to my students why they should be interested in the concepts and
motivations behind rhetoric.  I try to find ways to convince them that
learning how to read and write rhetorically will, in general, give them an
edge in any endevour.  You keep telling them that even engineers and
business people are rewarded for being able communicators until they
believe you.  And they should, because its true.  It's just that what
passes for good communication adequate for the intended audience in any
discipline is pretty field specific.

My two cents.