Dr. Burns for almost two hours gave us his academic past up until now - his success and his disappointments - when problem solving didn't work well. But that did not hold him back from reaching many goals.
His relaxed and humorous style of discourse was disarming just as he said of Mr. Booth, an important mentor in his life. I appreciated the time time he took to explain to us the nuts and bolts of what started long ago in Greece : The first subjects of study or the well rounded education at that time.
He wove bits if his autobiography through out as he also explained with examples what is Rhetoric: the what, when, why, and who.
As he gave us information that he wished he had had many years ago, he also defined some terms that confuse me less now: Topoi, heuristic, hermeneutics
Some things that I will take away from his inspiring talk are:
Find the common ground first before you find the point of disagreement.
Rhetoric has this effect on us- we try to persuade even as we are unsure, and we build the best truth we have.
Try to solve the problems even if we don't have all the answers.
And finally:
One should write if she is to be a teacher of writing!
Thank you Dr. Burns
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