Reviews for Educational institutions and their environments

The average rating for Educational institutions and their environments based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-05-16 00:00:00 Christy Black About eight years ago, I read this book as a high school Rhetoric student. Don't remember a ton from that first read-through. These past couple months, I've re-read the book as a high school Rhetoric teacher (or an English teacher who uses classical Rhetoric to teach nearly all the writing parts of his curriculum to be more precise). The book seems to get a fair number of negative reviews on Goodreads--some of which are a bit deserved, some of which are less deserved. So here's my two cents about the book (4th edition). The book's stated aim is to take the system of classical rhetoric developed in the Greek and Roman eras and to update it in various ways for a modern era. In other words: a blend of synthesizing classical authors with each other and making them more applicable to the unique rhetorical contexts for the modern age. Probably the easiest way to sum up the book and how effective it was to accomplish this goal is to say it was a mixed bag. When it was good, the book was brilliant! But when it wasn't... it tilted toward banality. More specifically, Chapter 2 on Kairos, Chapters 5-8 on the Rhetorical Proofs, and Chapter 9 on Classical Arrangement were all quite good. Crowley and Hawhee finally helped me understand what Aristotle means when he talks about "enthymemes" (since his definition isn't the same as the modern definition of the term), they did a great job categorizing the Common Topics that can sometimes turn into a laundry list of disconnected arguments, and their synthesis on classical advice concerning Arrangement really helped me understand certain parts of that model for the first time. They had some great thoughts about why some aspects of classical rhetoric may not be relevant to us today, but also had a host of great modern examples to show why so much of classical rhetoric is relevant for us today and is much better than the traditional writing advice given in high school classrooms. While the above chapters were quite helpful, however, the others weren't. At times, that was due to clunky wording and drawn-out discussions that didn't clearly explain the issues at hand. At times, that was due to the advice being rather basic and obvious. And at times, that was due to the advice deteriorating into laundry lists of miscellaneous rules that felt haphazardly put together. There were certainly some good parts in the other chapters. But there was a lot that wasn't--along with some modern applications that seemed like stretches (such as tying an explanation of how to use libraries into a discussion of what it looks like to use the classical canon of Memory today). I don't know that I'd recommend using this as a textbook for the course in light of this (there's probably a reason I don't remember the content of this book at all from my 11th grade Rhetoric class). But there are certain sections that are helpful for students to read through (like the Arrangement chapter) and several others that I'll definitely be summarizing and synthesizing for their benefit. In addition to this, as a teacher, I definitely valued reading through this book and came out with a lot of gems that have assisted me in my understanding of Rhetoric. Even if certain parts weren't helpful, the parts that were good were really good, and some of the historical insights they gave into why classical rhetoricians did things in certain ways are not insights I would have simply gleaned from reading the primary sources. I haven't found a classical Rhetoric book I can wholeheartedly recommend for the classroom yet (my best recommendation is still Aristotle's Art of Rhetoric). But I am adding this to my shelf as a useful resource I would certainly recommend to fellow Rhetoric teachers. Rating: 3.5-4 Stars (Very Good). P.S. All the complaints about the "liberal bias" in this book? Don't listen to them. I'm a conservative, and while the authors were open about their liberal leanings, the book was rather fair and even-handed in its examples and applications to modern political situations. There's really not much political bias going on here.

Review # 2 was written on 2021-03-06 00:00:00 Jean-Francois Leblanc a lot of unnecessary information and anecdotes that made some chapters excessively long