Presentation

The purpose of this class is for students to acquire oral and written argumentation techniques. Groups of students must present rhetorical stratagems from a given list (stating the obvious; shifting the burden of proof; distinguishing theory from practice; using logorrhoea; etc.).

The workshops take place in several stages. First, the students organize a dramatized debate to act out the rhetorical stratagems. Then they debrief the debate to explain these stratagems, criticize them, refine them and illustrate them through examples (written documents, video or audio) taken from the political arena. Finally, the students repeat the exercise using audiovisual documents of their choice.