ABSTRACT
From classical times to the present, rhetorical scholars have cautioned communicators that they need to analyze, understand, and adapt to their audience if they are to succeed in communicating effectively. This general injunction to communicators is particularly apt in the instructional context. Although it is less common in some other cultures, instruction in the U.s. culture typically encourages students
to interact with their instructor and fellow students as an integral part of the learning process. Such interaction has many positive outcomes, not the least of which is that student communication serves as feedback to the instructor, which enables the instructor to better understand and adapt to individual student needs. Nevertheless, many students rarely, if ever, voluntarily communicate in the classroom. Of course, huge lecture classes provide little opportunity for students to talk. However, in smaller, more potentially interactive, classes it is not uncommon to find as much as 80 percent of the student-initiated communication produced by less than 20 percent of the students. While many instructors go to considerable effort to encourage student participation, many students never respond to those efforts-even when course syllabi indicate that final grades in the course will be based in part (from as little as 5 percent to over 50 percent) on student participation.
