This week’s readings, following the title Modern Rhetorical Theory, chronicles the period in collegiate history in which rhetorical invention died to streamline and standardize the composition process. Current-Traditional Rhetoric, as outline by Berlin, dominated this era—the eighteenth century and on into the major part of the nineteenth. Supplemented with Corbett’s introduction to classical rhetoric, we can see Berlin’s retelling of the age of Current-Traditional Rhetoric as a period of great loss for composition studies. It was a time when the most rigid, mundane, and superficial theories on composition were idolized for their ability to speak to all the new citizens of society post-Civil War who were now vying for the chance to become welcomed into the social and intellectual upper-class. Lauer outlines this time as one in which rhetorical invention ceased to exist in the composition curriculum, a time when Berlin agrees composition studies became the study of a fragmented argumentation, the logical and scientific yang to persuasion’s emotional and oral ying. Connors continues this historic retelling of modern rhetoric; however, gives a brief and valuable suggestion that by the late 1950s, composition studies were beginning to focus more on methods of exposition and thesis-driven texts than on the modes of discourse. This prefaces Kinneavy’s “Basic Aims of Discourse,” which further dissects the components and players of communication into modern roles each piece plays in understanding and classifying discourse.
What struck me first when reading this week was the unquestioned dominance Current-Traditional Rhetoric held for so long. Perhaps a mixture of lack of interest in composition studies and the heightened need to teach so many students at the same time, Current-Traditional Rhetoric single-handedly stunted the growth of compositional studies for over a hundred years. But I must say from personal experience this is not all that unbelievable. Teaching students is difficult and there are many factors which stand in the way of teaching effectively, everything from monetary to class-size, not to mention the fact that teaching composition is still seen as a trial-run for professors who wish to prove their worth before entering the more status-boosting realm of literary studies.
But even from a managerial perspective, one which Current-Traditional Rhetoric is all too familiar with, it is impossible to teach students all they need to learn about writing in a single year, when they are part of a class of over one hundred students. I felt this tension first-hand, just as a writing tutor, when given a half-hour or mere hour of time with a student who wished to revise (or prewrite and compose) a full-on term paper. Let alone the fact that it takes nearly half of the time given in a single session to read these papers, it was often tempting to simply add a few commas, fix a few splices, and superficially correct the paper and hand it back without giving two words of advice on how to actually write better. But the purpose of a tutor is to work in baby steps, and it was often more effective to pick out one or two areas within a paper to develop rather than to dot the student’s “I”s and cross their “T”s.
A similar point comes out of reading Lauer’s outline of the reinvigoration of the rhetorical cannon of rhetoric throughout the later half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the new millennium. Once scholars began to reimagine what could be done with writing and how it can influence study in many other areas, the possibilities for students became endless. Thankfully, it is no longer only thought that good writing is writing that is grammatically polished. Rather, good writing comes from most anywhere and anything; it is the critic’s job to find its social, psychological, hermeneutic, or epistemic place and the teacher’s job to cultivate such within his/her students.
With such a renewed sense of invention in writing, then, it seems odd that not much seems to have changed in the composition course since the reign of the Current-Traditionalists as evidenced in last week’s reading. Is it because the university is ahead of its time, and it is just a matter of time before the preparatory schools catch up? Or is it still a matter of money and class-size? Certainly, it is not a teacher’s fault that they are employed to instruct hundreds of students with no support or financial backing. But … then … whose fault is it?
1.21.2010
A Little Bit of History
So, who knew? We’re all German. Well, at least academically.
This week, aptly titled Comp Studies Origins, gives varied scholarly insights as to the beginnings and brief (but complex!) history of contemporary comp studies, with a bit of looking to the future of comp theory on behalf of Yancey. I also was extremely grateful to Nystrand, Greene, and Wiemelt for what felt like a recap of a critical theory course. It’s important to see critical theory as an evolution, a dialogue, of thought and it was nice to once again but it (and comp studies) in that context.
Brereton gives us the most ancient of comp/rhet’s modern influence on the college scene. Linked up well with Hill’s primary address to secondary school teachers in 1898, An Answer to the Cry for More English, Brereton’s Introduction paints early twentieth-century comp as that all-too-familiar grammatical policeperson whose primary joy in life is to cut deep gashes into a student’s paper, making it drip red with ink. But what I found particularly interesting in Brereton’s outline of comp studies circa 1875-1925 were the fissures he claims began to develop between comp studies programs and other areas of the academy and beyond which till now I had understood developed much later. As an example, Brereton early on cites the transformation that overtakes the American college at this time (a move toward diversified specialization, intense research, and a departure from singularity in education) as the product of more and more scholars earning their degrees in Germany, thus adopting a German educational mindset. While I recall learning about the “baptizing” of American education in the waters of German structure, this event is one I had always seen as taking its deepest effects in English departments not until the 1950s, 1960s—right around open admissions, the GI Bill, and the infinite reactions to New Criticism. But after reading Brereton, it becomes clear that Germanized ideals of research and specialization were already developing in comp studies at this time, even if they were a bit harder to find.
Another topic which caught me off guard in Brereton was the brief discussion about whether or not rhet studies should be considered an art or a science. This is an important question I think we should still be asking ourselves today, because I feel too often we take for granted that the study of composition is a study of the arts. Yes: composition is undoubtedly artistic, and there is much to gain from teaching the skill at an elementary level. But I recall (uh-oh … allusion time) a time when I was an upperclassman at my undergraduate college, Pepperdine, and was asked by a couple professors to kind of “talk-up” the English rhet/comp major to prospective students at a kind of preview day the university hosts annually. I recall in great detail one parent asking me why I was so happy with my major and I responded because I loved the research. She, of course, kind of looked at me funny and asked what could possibly be left in the field of English left to research. Unfortunately, at the time I was caught off guard and I responded sheepishly “… uh … stuff.” But if I could meet with that parent today, I would shout right at her: “EVERYTHING! … in comp/rhet, at least!” Perhaps—and I suppose this is going to reveal my true colors—there is nothing left to research in literature. We can apply Marxist theory to Joan Didion until our hands fall off, and what will we have accomplished? A whole lot of practice and exercising of Marxist criticism, but probably not much else. And while I suppose that’s all and well … that’s old rhetoric, hearkening back to the days when education prided itself on perform the same mundane act countless times. But there is much more to be discovered in the field of comp/rhet. Just to name a few areas (which personally interest me), what’s up with: hypertext, the Internet, writing with technologies, web 2.0, secondary orality, and visual rhetoric? Not much, though much more it seems every day, is being said … being researched in these areas. Perhaps this is the answer to Yancey’s bewilderment (though I suppose she’s slightly being ironic here) that there is an ever decreasing amount of jobs in the English department for literature scholars while an ever increasing amount of jobs becoming available for comp scholars. But in any case, you make the call: is comp studies an art or a science?
One final, quick question … and totally shifting gears. Hill claims, and Juzwik (et al.) support with research, that there is a vast gap in the place high school seniors are with writing proficiency with where college freshmen need to be. The answer, as commented on by Yancey and also briefly mentioned in all three histories of Brereton, Phelps, and Nystrand, is freshman composition courses. I suspect that this gap has something to do not with the stupidity of the majority of students but rather the educational “mission statements” of secondary education vs. that of the college/university. What does secondary education want to teach their students and what does the university aim at teaching their students? I think the answers are not, as some might expect, the same.
This week, aptly titled Comp Studies Origins, gives varied scholarly insights as to the beginnings and brief (but complex!) history of contemporary comp studies, with a bit of looking to the future of comp theory on behalf of Yancey. I also was extremely grateful to Nystrand, Greene, and Wiemelt for what felt like a recap of a critical theory course. It’s important to see critical theory as an evolution, a dialogue, of thought and it was nice to once again but it (and comp studies) in that context.
Brereton gives us the most ancient of comp/rhet’s modern influence on the college scene. Linked up well with Hill’s primary address to secondary school teachers in 1898, An Answer to the Cry for More English, Brereton’s Introduction paints early twentieth-century comp as that all-too-familiar grammatical policeperson whose primary joy in life is to cut deep gashes into a student’s paper, making it drip red with ink. But what I found particularly interesting in Brereton’s outline of comp studies circa 1875-1925 were the fissures he claims began to develop between comp studies programs and other areas of the academy and beyond which till now I had understood developed much later. As an example, Brereton early on cites the transformation that overtakes the American college at this time (a move toward diversified specialization, intense research, and a departure from singularity in education) as the product of more and more scholars earning their degrees in Germany, thus adopting a German educational mindset. While I recall learning about the “baptizing” of American education in the waters of German structure, this event is one I had always seen as taking its deepest effects in English departments not until the 1950s, 1960s—right around open admissions, the GI Bill, and the infinite reactions to New Criticism. But after reading Brereton, it becomes clear that Germanized ideals of research and specialization were already developing in comp studies at this time, even if they were a bit harder to find.
Another topic which caught me off guard in Brereton was the brief discussion about whether or not rhet studies should be considered an art or a science. This is an important question I think we should still be asking ourselves today, because I feel too often we take for granted that the study of composition is a study of the arts. Yes: composition is undoubtedly artistic, and there is much to gain from teaching the skill at an elementary level. But I recall (uh-oh … allusion time) a time when I was an upperclassman at my undergraduate college, Pepperdine, and was asked by a couple professors to kind of “talk-up” the English rhet/comp major to prospective students at a kind of preview day the university hosts annually. I recall in great detail one parent asking me why I was so happy with my major and I responded because I loved the research. She, of course, kind of looked at me funny and asked what could possibly be left in the field of English left to research. Unfortunately, at the time I was caught off guard and I responded sheepishly “… uh … stuff.” But if I could meet with that parent today, I would shout right at her: “EVERYTHING! … in comp/rhet, at least!” Perhaps—and I suppose this is going to reveal my true colors—there is nothing left to research in literature. We can apply Marxist theory to Joan Didion until our hands fall off, and what will we have accomplished? A whole lot of practice and exercising of Marxist criticism, but probably not much else. And while I suppose that’s all and well … that’s old rhetoric, hearkening back to the days when education prided itself on perform the same mundane act countless times. But there is much more to be discovered in the field of comp/rhet. Just to name a few areas (which personally interest me), what’s up with: hypertext, the Internet, writing with technologies, web 2.0, secondary orality, and visual rhetoric? Not much, though much more it seems every day, is being said … being researched in these areas. Perhaps this is the answer to Yancey’s bewilderment (though I suppose she’s slightly being ironic here) that there is an ever decreasing amount of jobs in the English department for literature scholars while an ever increasing amount of jobs becoming available for comp scholars. But in any case, you make the call: is comp studies an art or a science?
One final, quick question … and totally shifting gears. Hill claims, and Juzwik (et al.) support with research, that there is a vast gap in the place high school seniors are with writing proficiency with where college freshmen need to be. The answer, as commented on by Yancey and also briefly mentioned in all three histories of Brereton, Phelps, and Nystrand, is freshman composition courses. I suspect that this gap has something to do not with the stupidity of the majority of students but rather the educational “mission statements” of secondary education vs. that of the college/university. What does secondary education want to teach their students and what does the university aim at teaching their students? I think the answers are not, as some might expect, the same.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)