Key exercises for the Rhetoric class take place in small-group recitations. This smaller setting is a place for students to practice and polish their rhetorical work. At the beginning of the year, students work on preliminary rhetoric exercises called progymnasmata, which practice specific fundamental skills of rhetoric: invention, arrangement, style, memory, and delivery. After these exercises, students begin working on declamations, which are larger, more formal speeches crafted in response to a prompt they have received in advance. These hall declamations are held once per term.

The hall declamations are capstone exercises that reinforce all the skills previously studied in the progymnasmata, and participants receive points for the halls they represent.

Join us on February 27, 2026, from 3:00 - 4:00 pm at the Nuart Theatre in downtown Moscow.