Speech Communication 475 - Fall 1999 Pennsylvania State University Studies in Public Persuasion: Abolition, Suffrage, and Civil Rights Professor Thomas W. Benson
FINAL EXAM
The final examination in SpCom 475 will consist of two essay questions, chosen from the six questions linked to this page--the two questions on which you are to write will be announced at the beginning of the exam. You may prepare for the exam alone, or you may study with other members of the class, but your answers should be your own. No notes or books will be allowed in the examination room. The aim of these questions is to provide for a comprehensive (and, I hope, stimulating) review of the books you have read this semester--both the speeches and other rhetorical texts and the historical accounts by James Stewart, Aileen Kraditor, and Harvard Sitkoff. Your answers should reflect both a thorough understanding of these historical books and an ability to analyze, interpret, compare, contrast, and historically situate the speeches and documents read during the course.
(1) The Declaration of Independence in American rhetoric.
(2) Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and the question of time.
(3) Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X debate civil rights.
(5) The rhetoric of rights and the rhetoric of expediency in the woman suffrage movement.
(6) Complaint and hope in African American rhetoric.
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