Reading Response to Tuesday the 11th, for Thursday Class?

I didn't really know what to read for Thursday, since there were readings for Tuesday too, so I am just going to talk about Tuesday's readings for Thursday!

The most interesting thing I found was in our Rhetoric Tradition was on page 988 about the nineteenth century America and really some of the first times that Protestant women spoke out. The paragraph reads, "the tendency for Protestant women to speak out on public issues gave rise to sustained political movement conducted by women, a movement that began in public social action against slavery and expanded into a campaign for broad agenda of civil rights." Later on in the paragraph it says, "People of color, previously largely excluded from rhetorical tradition defined as white as well as male, would not simply imitate white rhetoric but would develop their own ways of using language for public action..."

After reading this paragraph, it made me really reexamine why I am in deciding to take this route of rhetoric and why I enjoy this major so much. Rhetoric is such a universal concept that it is so hard not to be happy thinking about it. It is the one thing that allows everyone to connect. After reading that last sentence that I quoted above, I found it so cool that people of color could develop their own ways and methods. Which all makes total sense because there are so many different cultures and practices out in the world that it is cool that rhetoric can be different too.

Rhetoric is so universal, yet such special thing. Regardless of text or oral, we are all using words and a type of vernacular to express our emotions and feelings and thoughts and persuasions. It is such a cool idea that people overlook so easily. I even overlook it and I am practicing this major everyday. Rhetoric is a unique thing and I am happy to see that the world we live in is able to express it differently in other parts of the world.