Watching the 2024 Presidential Election from the PWR2 Coordinator’s Corner
I’d be lying if I said I faced this presidential election cycle as a dispassionate scholar of rhetoric. However, I was able to step back and enjoy the myriad ways the two major parties’ nominees approached their candidacies. This fall I’ve watched more political speeches than ever before, and, thanks to all I’ve learned from you, my colleagues, my students, and the oral communication tutors (OCTs), I feel better equipped than ever to view them as a teacher of public speech communication. I hope you find some of my reflections applicable to your PWR 2 (and PWR 1) classrooms.
Watch with the Sound on Mute: Posture, Movement, Gesture, Facial Expression
Quite by accident, I found myself in a situation where I could watch–but not listen to–Kamala Harris accept the democratic party’s nomination for President of the United States (speech linked here). Although I was initially dismayed, I found I learned a great deal about Kamala Harris as a speaker. Her hands did a lot of powerful talking. She also has a very mobile face.
In the course of “viewing” this speech, I remembered a terrific tip shared by Mira Partha, OCT, who has delivered the “Speaking Tips” workshops in my PWR 2 course several times. Mira recommends that students watch videos of their presentations without the sound to evaluate the efficacy of their posture, movement, gesture, and facial expression. In short, when we look and listen, we can get easily overwhelmed with information that may make it difficult to evaluate the effectiveness of different components. Most people tend to dispute or qualify the claim that 90% of communication is nonverbal; however, body language–including posture, movement, gesture, and facial expression–is a powerful communication tool. Over the years, many of my students have taken up Mira’s suggestion to watch and listen to their recorded presentations on separate occasions with powerful results. If you haven’t tried this tip in class, I suggest doing so or assigning it as a reflection activity.
Attire as means of Self-Presentation
Watching portions of the election on mute also drew my focus to each of the candidates’ clothing choices. Ever since I was introduced to Deborah Tannen’s feminist piece, “There is no Unmarked Woman” I’ve considered how challenging it is for women to navigate professional standards of dress. I’m clearly not the only one who is interested in what clothing communicates about the speaker. I’ve enjoyed these terrific, historical and contextual analyses the New York Times has put together on Kamala Harris’s clothing choices for major events, as well as this discussion in Vanity Fair of Michelle Obama’s outfit the night she spoke at the Democratic National Convention.
What about Donald Trump’s choice of suits and what they communicate? Derek Guy’s incredible thread here (who knew that King Charles wore patched shoes?) convinced me that–in the eyes of some–there is no “unmarked man.” Even if you don’t think you’re interested in menswear, you might take a peek (Guy’s snootiness is off the charts, but I’m still in for his visual argument!). I’m wondering if such a thread could even be an example for a genre/modes assignment? (If you’re looking for a student breaking down the evolution and fraught history of a fashion staple, I suggest this wonderful example from Araha Uday in the Archive of Lunsford Award winners.)
Such intense scrutiny of the two major party candidates’ strategic wardrobe choices made me reflect on if and how dress informs speaking pedagogy generally. A quick survey of Contemporary Public Speaking (2023) and The Norton Field Guide to Speaking (2022) reveals that current textbooks offer little advice on dress. In the chapter on “Physical Delivery,” The Norton Field Guide offers a short section on “Appearance” before the conclusion, advising that speakers should take note of the occasion and rhetorical situation when deciding what to wear. The section concludes with an admonition that clothing and personal style should not distract the listeners (219). Contemporary Public Speaking offers approximately one page on “Adornment,” which includes “ clothing, shoes, hairstyle, makeup, jewelry, tattoos, eyewear, and prosthetics,” noting that “You can use adornment to communicate your standpoint, adapt to your context, and identify with your audience” (275); the authors of Contemporary Public Speaking argue that adornment may also be used to challenge norms and communicate the speaker’s identity position(s) in fruitful ways. (See, for example, Chaelyn Rigmaiden-Anderson’s Lunsford Award winning talk, “Professionalism of Black Hair: Workplace Standards or a Continuation of Bondage?”)
An article in Communication Teacher by Drew T. Ashby-King et al., “Expanding and constraining critical communication pedagogy in the introductory communication course: A critique of assessment rubrics” (link here) revealed that in the assessment rubrics of persuasive, introductory speaking courses at twenty universities, “dress” appears repeatedly. The authors voiced concern that evaluating dress in a low-context (vaguely worded) rubric might perpetuate class or gender bias. As proponents of critical pedagogical approaches, the authors seek to make classroom spaces responsive to differences in students’ backgrounds, identities, resources, and abilities. In her TedTalk, Mindy Scheier shares her story creating Runway of Dreams to make clothing more friendly to the 1 billion people who experience disability at some stage of life. Her talk both affirms the power clothing affords and reminds audiences that many people’s fashion choices are constrained by their embodiment.
To ethically address dress–and other aspects of delivery–the authors of the study suggest that instructors invite students to “write in” or in some way contribute their specific and individual goals for their presentation on a shared rubric, thus co-creating expectations. They also recommend–in keeping with PWR 2 pedagogy–pairing rubrics with “auto-ethnographic writing” to help students “develop a deeper awareness of themselves, others, and the learning environment they are in,” connecting their experience to the feedback they receive on rubrics or in other forms (Ashby-King et al. 199).
I look forward to hearing from you. What did you make of the non-verbal communication this election season? How have you applied it to teaching PWR 2?
