Chapter 14: Ideas & Materials for Instruction
CHAPTER 14: Persuasive Speaking in a Democratic Society
Overview Learning Objectives Ideas for Instruction
Introduction
p. 276
Discussion questions:
14a
The Anatomy of Public Controversy
Deliberating in Good Faith
pp. 276–279
14.1 Define public controversy and
discuss what it means to deliberate in
good faith.
Discussion questions:
14b; 14c; 14d
Activities: 14a
Questions of Fact, Value, and Policy
Is That the Truth? ·Is This Good or
Bad? ·What Are We Going to Do?
pp. 279–282
14.2 Distinguish among the three
different types of persuasive issues:
fact, value, and policy.
Discussion questions:
14e
Activities: 14a;14b
Ideas for Instruction
As noted elsewhere, you will not be able to cover everything in the text—nor should you attempt to (i.e.,
“The more we teach, the less they learn.”). I always “assume” students have read the assigned reading and
that my job as an instructor is to highlight a few, select ideas from the reading (or to introduce
supplemental material) for students to contemplate, reflect upon, and apply. My goal is to help them build
meaning and internalize what they have learned, retaining it for future use.
What follows are ideas for how some material might be treated through discussion and activity.
My selections are ones I typically highlight in my own classes—depending on how much time I have to
We also provide PowerPoint slides, in case you want to review something students were to have
read. Be mindful that our slides are necessarily wordy to assist you with locating which ones you want to
use (and we’ve also coordinated them with the chapter outline we created for you). We suggest that you
Discussion Questions. Use these to stimulate discussion and prompt reflection. As students process the
material at a deeper, more meaningful level, they likely will offer interesting observations or pose
provocative questions of their own. Make note of these, literally! Let students know when you’re
particularly impressed by their thinking and let them see you writing it down in your lesson file. They will
feel valued/motivated—as long as you don’t go overboard and write down everything everybody says!
Chapter 14: Ideas & Materials for Instruction
Discussion Question 14a
Approximate time required: 3–5 min.
What distinguishes a democracy from an authoritarian regime (e.g., dictatorship)? What is required of
citizens, as a result?
Students should note that the chief distinction is that of persuasion versus coercion. An authoritarian
regime decides what will be done and why, and it ensures its edicts will be followed by employing force
and other coercion. A democracy gives voice to the people to decide their own affairs. Persuasion is the
Discussion Question 14b
Approximate time required: 3–5 min.
What is a public controversy? Why is it important for students in a public speaking class to address matters
of public controversy in their speeches?
A public controversy, students should recall, is a matter that affects a large number of people and there is
significant disagreement over how that matter should be handled. Furthermore, a decision has to be made,
requiring that the people address the issue and work together to determine what should be done. The art
Discussion Question 14c
Approximate time required: 3–5 min.
Speaking out in public entails certain responsibilities and obligations. What are these?
Students should recall that when we voice an opinion, it needs to be an informed opinion—one that we can
back up with a complete argument. Others have a right to see how we arrived at our opinion and on what
Chapter 14: Ideas & Materials for Instruction
Discussion Question 14d
Approximate time required: 3–5 min.
What is meant by “deliberating in good faith?” What does it entail?
Students should recall that deliberating in good faith entails the following:
Telling the truth as you know it. Reporting facts honestly and accurately, and sincerely believing what
you would have others to believe.
Discussion Question 14e
Approximate time required: 4–6 min.
What are the three types of persuasive issues?
Students should recall that these consist of the following:
Issues of fact: We might debate whether something even exists. If we agree that something does, in fact,
exist, we might debate to what extent it exists. We might also debate what causes or would cause
something to exist. Note: Global warming is a perfect example for each of these.
Issues of value: We might debate whether something is appropriate, legal, ethical, or moral. In these
Discussion Question 14f
Approximate time required: 4–6 min.
What is ethos? What does it consist of?
Students should recall that ethos is the listener’s perception of a speaker in terms of her or his credibility
and reputation. The word to underscore is “perception.” Ethos is not something that a speaker has and it is
detected. It is something that an audience member perceives. Since perceptions can vary, one’s ethos can
vary from listener to listener. It can also vary for the same listener given a different situation or with the
passage of time.
Chapter 14: Ideas & Materials for Instruction
Discussion Question 14g
Approximate time required: 4–6 min.
What can a speaker do to enhance her or his ethos?
Common tactics include the following, which students likely will recall from the chapter:
Show your audience that you have something in common with them. When an audience sees that you
have had similar experiences or share their values and concerns, they likely will regard you more
positively.
Discussion Question 14h
Approximate time required: 2–4 min.
What is the role of emotional appeal in a speech?
Students should recall that emotional appeals serve two fundamental purposes: to generate interest and to
motivate response. If a listener is “moved” in some way by your remarks (whether it is enjoying your
humor or sharing your concern), they will be more interested and attentive. If a listener is “moved,” they
will be more motivated to act upon what you say.
Discussion Question 14i
Approximate time required: 6–8 min.
What are some techniques a speaker can use to engage an audience emotionally?
Students will likely recall some of the following techniques discussed in the text:
Use affective language—words that have emotional connotations.
Identify shared values—how what you’re discussing relates to what they hold dear or despise, etc.
Chapter 14: Ideas & Materials for Instruction
Discussion Question 14j
Approximate time required: 4–6 min.
How are values and emotions related? What can a speaker learn from the relationship between the two?
Listeners are likely to be emotionally engaged when their own values are involved. When people evaluate
something as “good,” for example, they yearn for it and, hence, are more likely to act on its behalf. In
contrast, when they evaluate something as “bad,” they despise it to some degree and may want to thwart it
depending on their level of motivation.
An instance of how values and emotions are related can be seen in a friend’s recent observations while
watching staff in a nursing home facility. (You might share this incident with students to stimulate their
thinking and motivate their involvement with the material.)
Two staff members were supposed to be feeding residents who were unable to feed themselves.
Instead, they were so preoccupied with texting on their cell phones that they would only sporadically give
Discussion Question 14k
Approximate time required: 5–7 min.
How do we ensure we are being ethical in our use of emotional appeal?
Students should recall the following guidelines offered in the text:
Speakers must recognize and respect the power of emotions, and never use emotional appeals to
distract, disorient, or manipulate their listeners.
Speakers should never use emotional appeals that short-circuit the reasoning process or provoke an
overreaction from listeners.
Speakers should not use inflammatory language or images to arouse their audience to a heated state.
Chapter 14: Ideas & Materials for Instruction
Suggested Activities. Use these “hands-on” applications to get students actively involved with the material.
What we suggest often requires students to synthesize what is covered in the chapter, as well as what they
were to have learned from other chapters.
Activity 14a
Approximate time required: 5–7 min.
Launch class with a pop quiz (which need not actually be scored) comprised of the discussion questions
above, as well as any other items you create. Use the quiz to focus their attention and involvement as you
discuss each item. The “quiz” will also let them gauge their own performance as a student in terms of how
well they prepared for class and so on.
Activity 14b
Approximate time required: 5–7 min.
As a small group, in-class activity, instruct groups to identify and categorize persuasive messages they
have encountered in the past 24 hours or so. For example, what messages sought to establish what was
true or untrue? What messages sought to get them to evaluate something as good or as bad? What
messages sought to secure their agreement about what should be done about a particular problem?
Activity 14c
Approximate time required: 5–7 min.
Using the list generated in Activity 14b, have students describe which persuasive messages were the most
effective and which were the least effective and why. This activity can facilitate a discussion of the
principles of persuasion identified in the text as well as the presence of messages that are ethically unsound.
Activity 14d
Approximate time required: 5–7 min.
Illuminate the way ethos is determined. To do so, place students in groups of three. Have students identify
Activity 14e
Approximate time required: 3–5 min.
Read a brief news story that has some emotion attached to it. Read the story in a manner that is
completely “flat,” devoid of emotion. (In Star Trek terms, it would be as though Mr. Spock or
Chapter 14: Ideas & Materials for Instruction
After sharing the news item, ask them what they think about the story. They likely will observe
that you did not do it justice, and some may even use terms such as “cold” or “heartless” or
“unfeeling” to describe your delivery.
This brief activity will help students recognize how emotion is very natural and helps convey
It is with our passions as it is with fire and water, they are good servants, but bad masters.
–Aesop
Activity 14f
Approximate time required: 4–6 min.
Help students understand how emotions can motivate. To do so have students spend a quick moment or
two brainstorming on paper a list of actions they regularly take that are largely based upon emotional
impulses. For example, one might secure his or her child in a safety seat in the automobile out of love for
Activity 14g
Approximate time required: 12–15 min.
Have students work in small groups to develop one or more emotional appeals that would be appropriate
and effective for one of the following topics (or ones you come up with):
a. the dangers of talking on a cell phone while driving
b. the importance of developing alternative energy sources
c. why everyone should conserve water
Activity 14h
Approximate time required: 12–15 min.
Have students work in groups of four or five to discuss a particular persuasive campaign with which they
are very familiar because they are the target audience (e.g., Don’t text and drive; Buckle up; Don’t
smoke). Have them focus on one campaign and discuss its strategies (e.g., ethos, emotional appeal) and
its effectiveness.
Chapter 14: Ideas & Materials for Instruction
Activity 14i
Approximate time required: 12–15 min.
Have students assemble in groups of four to discuss the power of visualization in messages that they
encounter. Have them identify recent messages where the speaker/source imagined the future in graphic
detail (perhaps even using actual pictures), prompting them to see how the future might be bad, good, or a
contrast of the two. The messages they identify may very well be commercials on television or radio,
since visualization is a common technique.
Discuss the various examples they identify and to what extent they are effective and why. Also
contemplate how they might be improved upon.
Activity 14j
Approximate time required: 5–7 min.
Pope Francis has offered his vision of the Catholic Church as a “field hospital.” Have students
contemplate what would be visualized with those words, and the direction and/or inspiration/motivation
Activity 14k
Approximate time required: 8–10 min.
Bring in a brief clip from a popular movie where a character presents a motivational speech. For example,
the motivational speech prior to battle in “Henry V” ranks among the most powerful we’ve seen (and it is
Here are Henry’s words:
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
Activity 14l
Approximate time required: 18–20 min.
Activity 14 l : Strategically Crafting the Framework for a Persuasive Speech
Chapter 14: Ideas & Materials for Instruction
Step One: Review the text regarding how to craft a main point/idea (Chapter 8), keeping each
one clear and simple, as well as keeping it declarative and focused/limited (Chapter 5).
Point one: ______________________________________________________________
Point two: ______________________________________________________________
Point three: ______________________________________________________________
Once you have articulated the points, craft a thesis that nails down, tightly, the collective idea of
the points (& also adheres to the principles of crafting a good thesis, as discussed in Chapter 5.)
(Thesis) ____________________________________________________________________
What you have crafted should comprise the ideal framework for a speech.
This framework suggests a logical argument to be made.
Now contemplate/answer the following:
What emotions also might come into play?
What emotional appeals, then, would “belong” in the speech to supplement the logic? What would
they consist of and where would they appear?
What role could the emotional appeals potentially play?
Chapter 14: Ideas & Materials for Instruction
Lecture Ideas. Some elements in the chapter lend themselves to careful review and/or some
supplemental material. Either way, you’ll amplify something that deserves amplification. We’ll offer
some suggestions, often providing one or more corresponding PowerPoint slides.
Lecture 14a: Use one or more of the slides from the PowerPoint slideshow that accompanies this chapter
and prepare your own examples as illustrations of the concepts featured on the slide(s). Break up the
“lecture” by including some of the discussion questions we provide and/or an activity or two. Any
individual slide can function as either a preview or review of an activity or discussion item.
This I conceive to be the chemical function of humor: to change the character of our thought.
–Lin Yutang
**********************************************************
Chapter Outline: Chapter 14: Persuasive Speaking in a Democratic Society
Chapter Intro:
Persuasive speaking seeks to influence the beliefs, values, or actions of others or “make
the case” for a new policy or program. Persuasion is the chief mechanism through which
we select our leaders, determine our civic priorities, resolve controversies and disputes,
and choose among various policies. Indeed, the reliance on persuasion rather than force is
what most clearly distinguishes a democracy from a dictatorship. Persuasion is important,
because to understand persuasion is to understand human behavior.
I. The Anatomy of Public Controversy
Learning Objective 14.1—Define public controversy and discuss what it means to
deliberate in good faith.
A. Persuasion is rooted in public controversies that affect large numbers of
people.
B. Public controversies involve the choices that we must make as citizens; they
Chapter 14: Ideas & Materials for Instruction
D. In today’s political climate, some people try to exploit such controversies for
personal or political gain.
E. As citizens in a democracy, we have a right to our opinions on controversial
issues.
2. Speaking out also invites those who disagree to speak out as well.
F. Citizens have an ethical obligation to treat those who accept the invitation to
debate with civility and respect.
G. The success of democracy depends on our willingness to subject our ideas to
the scrutiny of public debate while remaining open-minded and respectful
toward those who disagree.
H. Deliberating “in good faith” entails that the participants:
1. Tell the truth, at least as they see it—the way they sincerely
believe it to be.
2. Back up personal opinions with evidence and reasoning.
a. Public debaters have an obligation to be honest and to
prove claims.
2) It does not mean settling an issue once and for all.
3. Accept the burden of proof in a particular context.
a. In public debate, the burden of proof is not as clearly
defined as in a legal context.
II. Questions of Fact, Value, and Policy
Learning Objective 14.2—Distinguish among the three different types of
persuasive issues: fact, value, and policy.
A. Is That the Truth?
1. Many public controversies rest largely upon unresolved or
debatable questions of fact.
3. Some revolve around questions about the past or predictions about
the future.
5. Questions of fact should be resolved before debating questions of
values or policy.
a. Only after we resolve major factual controversies are we
Chapter 14: Ideas & Materials for Instruction
able to evaluate those facts or determine how to respond.
B. Is This Good or Bad?
1. Issues of value focus on what we consider good or bad, right or
wrong, just or unjust, and moral or immoral.
3. They determine how we should evaluate specific facts, ideas, or
actions.
4. In many cases, the best source of the standards or criteria
employed in arguments will be the audience itself, as arguments
work best when they are grounded in the listeners’ own value
systems.
C. What Are We Going to Do?
2. Issues of policy deal with how to best solve problems.
3. We must weigh each option and its costs, feasibility, advantages,
or disadvantages.
III. Ethical Proof in Persuasive Speaking
Learning Objective 14.3—Define ethos and discuss what contributes to strong
credibility.
A. The perception we have of a speaker—whether the perception is positive or
negative—constitutes that person’s ethos.
B. Aristotle identified the speaker’s character,intelligence, and goodwill as the
most important dimensions of ethos.
C. Modern researchers have stressed that ethos depends on what an audience
thinks about the speaker, and they have noted that people sometimes have
very different perceptions of the same speaker.
D. Ethos refers to how the audience sees a speaker, not to the actual intelligence
or character of that person.
E. There are four major qualities that contribute to a positive ethos.
1. Trustworthiness
a. We are more likely to listen to and act on the advice of
2. Competence
a. Listeners tend to be persuaded more easily by speakers they
3. Open-Mindedness
a. Audiences value speakers who are willing to enter into a
dialogue with them, who consider various points of view,
Chapter 14: Ideas & Materials for Instruction
4. Dynamism
a. Audiences look positively on dynamic speakers who are
energetic and enthusiastic.
b. Dynamism does not mean ranting and raving; it means
F. How Context Affects Ethos
2. The context in which we speak determines what characteristics—
or combination of characteristics—will affect our ethos.
4. Depending on the context, the same individual might have both a
highly negative and a highly positive personal ethos.
G. Each time one speaks, people will form impressions, so it is important to keep
the constituents of ethos in mind.
H. Here are some things speakers can do to strengthen ethos:
1. Show your audience that you share their experiences and concerns.
3. Strengthen your ethos with personal experiences.
5. Show your audience that you have considered different points of
view.
6. Develop a dynamic, audience-centered delivery.
IV. Appealing to Audience Emotions
Learning Objective 14.4—Discuss the techniques and ethics of appealing to an
audience’s emotions.
A. Appealing to an audience’s emotions is fundamental to motivating them to
act.
B. If people are not emotionally involved in a topic, they are not likely to be
persuaded.
C. Successful speakers know that listeners can be motivated by appeals to
emotions.
D. Appeals to the audience’s emotions should never substitute for logical
2. Identify Shared Values
a. Listeners are more likely to be engaged when their own values are
3. Use Vivid Detail
a. Listeners respond more positively to concrete examples and stories
4. Use Visualization
a. Visualization techniques allow audiences to “see” what one is talking
about.
b. This stirs the audience’s emotions, getting them to think more deeply
about the topic and clarify information that otherwise might be vague
5. Comparing the Unfamiliar to the Familiar
a. Speakers often relate unfamiliar, new ideas or proposals to familiar
things.
F. The Ethics of Emotional Appeals
2. Ethical speakers recognize and respect the power of emotions.
4. The ethical speaker avoids overwhelming listeners with emotions so
strong that they can hardly think.
6. A sound argument should exist underneath each emotional appeal, providing a
substructure of evidence and reasoning that can withstand critical scrutiny.
Chapter 14: Ideas & Materials for Instruction
**********************************************************
Instructional ideas for Chapter Fourteen
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________