Oratory: A Speechmaking Studio

Our teachers will be great speeches wherever we find them: from Antiquity and the Elizabethan stage, to Hollywood, the Civil Rights Movement, and TEDTalks gone viral. We will explore various theories of oratory, and, like students of classical rhetoric, we will emulate masterworks in order to sharpen our own persuasive skills. As speakers, we will practice vocal and physical techniques used by performers, as well as their methods for analyzing text. During the course, students will write and deliver their own speeches, completing an immersion into speechmaking designed to help them communicate with precision, empathy, and personal conviction. (Not open to students who have taken FYSE 1355 or FYSE 1398)