In the final chapter of James Crosswhite’s The Rhetoric of Reason, he dollies the camera back to consider the broader context for applying his theories in university writing programs. After such an ambitious book on elevating rhetoric for purposes of conflict resolution, this chapter’s bald confrontation of real world conflicts seems to introduce the humbling possibility, or probability, that Crosswhite’s theories might face challenges, if not limited application. After all, writing programs too often view reasoning -- what some might call critical thinking -- not as a vital means for teaching purposeful writing, but as wrong-headed pedagogy promoted by nutty teachers for “ideological ends.” (271)
This brings to mind a recent job interview for the Summer Bridge program at a local college. After a full semester in English 710, where my colleagues and I worked and re-worked our clever thematic courses, I was excited to put the tire to the pavement. In an email to the Summer Bridge coordinator, I outlined my thoughts on teaching a critical thinking course that examined the food industry. She said she liked my approach, and called me in for an interview. When we met, she seemed very impressed with my ideas. I felt we were on the same page, and thankful for my studies at SFSU. “To be honest,” she told me, “we’d never even considered having a critical thinking course in our Summer Bridge program.” Even if she they hadn’t formally offered me the job, her enthusiastic response to my ideas gave me reason for confidence. In addition, she handed me a textbook and asked me to consider using it in my course. A week later, though, she called to say, sorry, she really liked me, but she’d decided that “critical thinking was not appropriate for the Summer Bridge program.” Seriously? After calling me in specifically because she liked my curriculum ideas? Of course, this brush-off could have been a ruse, for all I know, but taken at face value, it echoes Crosswhite’s description of the troubled state of writing programs across the country that see critical thinking as too "edgy."
In a similar vein, my only other job hunting so far suggests that entry level positions may not necessarily include a class in argumentation as an option. A mentor/friend, who teaches north of Sacramento in the Placerville area, was very encouraging about job prospects at her school, but cautioned me that “freeway fliers” -- new adjunct profs who work part time at various sites, flying the freeway from job to job -- have limited choices. “Early on, most likely, you’d be getting low-level composition or even ESL classes.” Fine by me, I said. After all, I taught ESL for years in adult education and I loved it. On the other hand, it's some bittersweet news after a two-year program preparing us for a dialectic classroom where we're constantly challenging students with difficult readings and raising the bar for them to reveal their ultimate inner writers. Equally vexing, speaking to this mentor, I got the impression that her English department doesn't exactly champion critical thinking courses anymore than the above institution, especially when she informs me that most of the staff are trained with Lit MAs. With that background, how could priorities be otherwise?
Still, I look forward to teaching such a class one day. In fact, one reason I came Comp was to move away from ESL. The other reason was that I’d always wanted to lead a dialectic-based course like Crosswhite’s or William Coles’. This passion began in my undergrad Rhetoric 1A course at Cal, which was all about oral arguments and learning to “qualify my conclusions,” (275) as Crosswhite’s Chinese student puts it. I agree with Crosswhite when he speaks of the benefits of dialectic and taking part in the discourse community as “a process of becoming acquainted with new interlocutors
. . . (and) of entering conversations that are already in progress, . . . " (282) Here he's speaking about my ideal teaching environment: the teacher ignites a conversation and stands back as students battle for their ideas, occasionally stopping in the heat of the moment with a feeling of epiphany as their own ideologies take a new shape.
I especially enjoyed this final Crosswhite chapter because it offers some rich practical thoughts on choosing themes and materials for a Rhetoric of Reason-type curriculum. It’s not a good idea, he says, to develop a theme from an issue that teacher and students already have a strong opinion about. “Some things are simply to important . . . to us to argue about . . .” (283) Great point. While I generally feel ready to discuss anything with anyone, even if it means re-examining my own stance and changing it, I have to remember that not everyone feels the same, and it’s important to avoid topics that don’t lead to fertile debate. His second suggestion is to avoid yes/no, up/down conflicts, as they “force students into . . . polarized positions.” (283) I would like to think we’re all able to be more flexible; but on second thought, this angle, too, can lead to dead ends for similar reasons to the first point. Popular issues in the news can lead to superficial discussion, Crosswhite says, unless students are presented with unusually penetrating angles. Perhaps the remedy for this is to have students investigate the issues beyond the basic TV/radio media clips themselves. Finally, the author warns that having students write about their own personal conflicts can lead to dead ends as well, largely because this lacks publicly accessible information. Crosswhite doesn't see anything that would justify subjecting the whole class to "group therapy," (284) but I think it could be a potentially strong community builder, unless it's taken to the level where people are nauseated or bored with it.
After R of R’s heavy dose of theory, I found these solid tips refreshingly pragmatic.
Wednesday, December 10, 2014
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
I Think I See The Light
Ever since we started reading Crosswhite, I've been scratching my head -- a lot. Never mind his choice of dense language and arcane terminology, with precious few examples to help us visualize the application of his abstract ideas. To me, far more dubious was his mission to bring the masses to a place of non-violence through a text that could challenge even the most erudite among his philosopher clique. Then I came to Chapter 6, and I began, I think, to get a glimmer of the light Crosswhite sees, even if I question the need to pursue the ramification of every point and counter-point prior to arriving at this place.
In Chapter 6 the author unravels his view of the problems with formal logic versus informal logic. In particular, he focuses on the issue of supposed “fallacies” that arise when using the latter, some of which can work to a writer’s advantage and almost none of which, according to Crosswhite, qualify as official fallacies of logic, since the writer is usually presenting an argument, not a formal logical proof. He shows how even ambiguity is not a fallacy per se, but depends on the way the audience receives it. The problem, he says, comes when a particular audience mistakes itself for the universal audience, at which point they have stepped over the line, into the zone of the “unreasonable.” Though it’s taken him 181 pages to make this assertion, few could maintain that this isn't vital in a pursuit of settling disputes, and no one could argue that it isn’t founded on solid reasoning. Anyone who values reason would probably read this chapter and realize, “Yes, even I can be unreasonable." This is a stinging indictment for every enlightened fool, every religion, every country that prides itself on having discovered “the way” for the rest of the planet.
I wrote a couple weeks ago that I felt reason alone is incapable in waking people up to our own fallacious potential, an essential awareness for meeting another person in the middle. Interestingly, through a rhetoric of reason, Crosswhite has arrived at that same point, at least on a theoretical basis.
While I still hold that the statesmen who govern us are inherently unreasonable (even the most reasonable are corrupted by the system simply to survive the system), and are therefore immune to any such reasonable remedies, in Crosswhite’s utopia, where even the jaded can be redeemed by reason -- a world we’d all prefer to live in, perhaps -- if anything he offers could change our world, this chapter is it.
Of course, with money to be made all over the planet -- government and business in cahoots (by nefarious means or otherwise) -- and with a drowsy America unable to raise its sleepy head in objection (assuming they had an opinion), how many folks in Washington will take the reasonable path, even though they know, thanks to Crosswhite, that they're essentially despots foisting their ways on the defenseless?
Continuing his utopian model for world peace, the author insists on a consistently idealistic means of diplomacy. Argumentation, he says, depends not on our expectation of an interlocutor's having developed "a common human nature," but is essentially "a practice of hope" and a "desire to create," that is, build bridges. Expect the worst, he says, and hope for the best. (186-87) This is rich in wisdom, so far as a utopian model goes. While, by and large, I embrace this myself, politically, this can lead to trouble. In the real world, people tend to follow the notion of saving face, rather than turning the other cheek. The classic situation is the new guy arriving in a prison; the only way to have any peace, it's said, is to confront the biggest, baddest opponent to establish your reputation or end up everyone's punk. In global diplomacy, the same idea holds true. After you get into Vietnam, you don't dare pull out for fear that the whole international community will consider you "weak." How many lives have been lost because leaders couldn't risk looking like a "sissy"?
I would like to ask to what extent we can really adopt Crosswhite's notion that the writing class is "equally uncomfortable" for all participants when some have never really considered the "other," and some, especially minorities, have not only considered it, but may revel in it as a kind of vindication for marginalization.
While I still hold that the statesmen who govern us are inherently unreasonable (even the most reasonable are corrupted by the system simply to survive the system), and are therefore immune to any such reasonable remedies, in Crosswhite’s utopia, where even the jaded can be redeemed by reason -- a world we’d all prefer to live in, perhaps -- if anything he offers could change our world, this chapter is it.
Of course, with money to be made all over the planet -- government and business in cahoots (by nefarious means or otherwise) -- and with a drowsy America unable to raise its sleepy head in objection (assuming they had an opinion), how many folks in Washington will take the reasonable path, even though they know, thanks to Crosswhite, that they're essentially despots foisting their ways on the defenseless?
Continuing his utopian model for world peace, the author insists on a consistently idealistic means of diplomacy. Argumentation, he says, depends not on our expectation of an interlocutor's having developed "a common human nature," but is essentially "a practice of hope" and a "desire to create," that is, build bridges. Expect the worst, he says, and hope for the best. (186-87) This is rich in wisdom, so far as a utopian model goes. While, by and large, I embrace this myself, politically, this can lead to trouble. In the real world, people tend to follow the notion of saving face, rather than turning the other cheek. The classic situation is the new guy arriving in a prison; the only way to have any peace, it's said, is to confront the biggest, baddest opponent to establish your reputation or end up everyone's punk. In global diplomacy, the same idea holds true. After you get into Vietnam, you don't dare pull out for fear that the whole international community will consider you "weak." How many lives have been lost because leaders couldn't risk looking like a "sissy"?
I would like to ask to what extent we can really adopt Crosswhite's notion that the writing class is "equally uncomfortable" for all participants when some have never really considered the "other," and some, especially minorities, have not only considered it, but may revel in it as a kind of vindication for marginalization.
Thursday, November 13, 2014
The Bright Side of Battle
Chapter 4 in Crosswhite’s The Rhetoric of Reason brings up a number of interesting points, only a few of which are the author’s primary thoughts. Was I the only one who had a tough time with Crosswhite’s citing Hegel’s notion that, as a society, we need “the purifying experience of war” -- though not war itself, just intense conflict -- lest we lapse into corruption brought on by peace? (115) I don’t question the aspect of war itself, which seems to be Crosswhite's bone of contention; rather, I question the idea that peace is corrupting and that conflict is the remedy.
Supposedly, Hegel’s idea is that war requires us to make sacrifices that fortify our spirits, without which corporations could usurp us. First, who is he addressing? Certainly not the wealthy, especially not the folks in the military-industrial complex, and nor their happy stockholders. Who, then? One would assume it’s the rank-and-file who actually stand to lose during a war: everyone else. What kind of sacrifices do they make? They tend to lose jobs, lose income, lose housing, lose entitlements. For veterans, at best, they lose years away from loved ones; in combat, thousands die while the injured lose appendages, eyesight, mental and emotional capabilities and any hope of future livelihood, further encumbering themselves, their families or the state. How does this sacrifice prevent social corruption? Presumably, it wakes people up from the tendency to get fat and lazy, the tendency to take our freedoms for granted, the tendency to lower our defenses.
By contrast, nations plunged into war presumably have the advantage of skirting the rot of corruption and steeling themselves, instead, against corrupt corporations. This would suggest that Syria and Iraq, among others embroiled in battle, have the benefit of knowing who to trust and who not to trust. Yet few really understand the causes or the culprits, though the mainstream media serve it up like the "blue ribbon special" on the daily menu. For that matter, the US has been at war for some fourteen years, give or take, in Afghanistan and Iraq. We’ve lost thousands of soldiers to a cause no one can name. And, just when we thought there was a hope for peace, we’re marching back into the same bloody limbo. All this, and barely a voice is raised to question or protest it. Anyone aware of the corporate ownership of US media and its influence on bending journalism to its own agenda might have a hard time believing that, thanks to Hegel's "advantages" of war, we’ve avoided corporate domination. Rather, one has to question whether war has stripped the scales of corruption from America’s eyes or added another layer.
On a less strident note, I enjoyed Crosswhite’s endorsement of teachers’ “seeing things from the students’ points of view” in trying to help them develop claims and counter-claims. (130) In my mind, the ideal classroom activity for this is debate, whereby students work together, focusing on their own arguments and anticipating the arguments of their interlocutors. Still, in conferences and in written feedback, teachers also have the potential to play what Crosswhite calls “the ultimate audience-arbiter of the effectiveness of arguments. . .” (130) Ideally, we can nurture a sense of real back-and-forthness, a dialectic where “(e)veryone has a chance to be taken equally seriously.” (120) The question is, after we’ve studied for years and polished ourselves to become true professionals; after we’ve set ourselves up as the repositories of Compositional wisdom, to what extent can we keep our minds open to dialogue with students, to really hear their viewpoints, to possibly reconsider our own opinions, “to modify them, or take up new purposes altogether,” to quote Crosswhite. (122)
Supposedly, Hegel’s idea is that war requires us to make sacrifices that fortify our spirits, without which corporations could usurp us. First, who is he addressing? Certainly not the wealthy, especially not the folks in the military-industrial complex, and nor their happy stockholders. Who, then? One would assume it’s the rank-and-file who actually stand to lose during a war: everyone else. What kind of sacrifices do they make? They tend to lose jobs, lose income, lose housing, lose entitlements. For veterans, at best, they lose years away from loved ones; in combat, thousands die while the injured lose appendages, eyesight, mental and emotional capabilities and any hope of future livelihood, further encumbering themselves, their families or the state. How does this sacrifice prevent social corruption? Presumably, it wakes people up from the tendency to get fat and lazy, the tendency to take our freedoms for granted, the tendency to lower our defenses.
By contrast, nations plunged into war presumably have the advantage of skirting the rot of corruption and steeling themselves, instead, against corrupt corporations. This would suggest that Syria and Iraq, among others embroiled in battle, have the benefit of knowing who to trust and who not to trust. Yet few really understand the causes or the culprits, though the mainstream media serve it up like the "blue ribbon special" on the daily menu. For that matter, the US has been at war for some fourteen years, give or take, in Afghanistan and Iraq. We’ve lost thousands of soldiers to a cause no one can name. And, just when we thought there was a hope for peace, we’re marching back into the same bloody limbo. All this, and barely a voice is raised to question or protest it. Anyone aware of the corporate ownership of US media and its influence on bending journalism to its own agenda might have a hard time believing that, thanks to Hegel's "advantages" of war, we’ve avoided corporate domination. Rather, one has to question whether war has stripped the scales of corruption from America’s eyes or added another layer.
On a less strident note, I enjoyed Crosswhite’s endorsement of teachers’ “seeing things from the students’ points of view” in trying to help them develop claims and counter-claims. (130) In my mind, the ideal classroom activity for this is debate, whereby students work together, focusing on their own arguments and anticipating the arguments of their interlocutors. Still, in conferences and in written feedback, teachers also have the potential to play what Crosswhite calls “the ultimate audience-arbiter of the effectiveness of arguments. . .” (130) Ideally, we can nurture a sense of real back-and-forthness, a dialectic where “(e)veryone has a chance to be taken equally seriously.” (120) The question is, after we’ve studied for years and polished ourselves to become true professionals; after we’ve set ourselves up as the repositories of Compositional wisdom, to what extent can we keep our minds open to dialogue with students, to really hear their viewpoints, to possibly reconsider our own opinions, “to modify them, or take up new purposes altogether,” to quote Crosswhite. (122)
Tuesday, October 28, 2014
Crosswhite, Wallace and Heard
This week’s readings challenge us to break through conventional barriers in curriculum design, argument and in our role in the drama for social justice. I had to think twice about how I think and act to “the other,” and this is making me question what I’ve come to accept as justice. In “Repositioning Curriculum Design,” Matthew Heard offers a re-working, in a sense, of Wiggins and McTighe’s “essential questions,” asking us to re-imagine curriculum planning as an opportunity to problematize our thinking and our students’ thinking, rather than, in Brock Dethier’s words, simply trying to “keep your boss happy.” ( 318) As intriguing as Heard's ideas are, I have to say: easier said than done. My limited exposure to departmental politics suggests little leeway for personal idiosyncrasies and probably even less when it comes to stepping outside the lines of curriculum expectations. Nonetheless, several of Heard’s innovations, like “goal-free” evaluations point to a brave, new pedagogy, if and when a teacher has the job security -- and the temerity -- to test conventional limits.
In The Rhetoric of Reason, James Crosswhite derides traditional argument bereft of emotion, “free from the limitations of culture, politics and commitment.” (41) Instead, he argues for a reconstruction of the theory of argumentation because the conventional assumptions -- that if we could “put aside our strong feelings, . . . our gender, our nationality and ethnic identities, . . . then we could reason our way to agreements” -- in his view, aren’t working. (44) Of course, it’s hard to argue against Crosswhite's stand on argument. If our own stalemate Congress weren’t enough validation, just look (if you dare) at the fifty-plus years of dead-end debates between Israel and Palestine (not that you can do so without discussing the sugar-daddy behind the curtain). Unfortunately, Crosswhite, in this first chapter of his book, engages us only in the problems of traditional argumentation, leaving us to wait for better solutions.
Like Crosswhite, David Wallace defies conventions that threaten to make us less human. In confronting discourse in general and the Composition discourse community in particular, Wallace, in his article, “Unwelcome Stories,” takes issue with the pretense that we are to, quoting Lynn Bloom, “‘avoid any suggestion that there’s a real human being’” relating real experiences in our writings and general discourse. (545) Rather, Wallace champions our rights to speak from a place of truth -- especially on behalf of the marginalized -- despite the dominant politics of the Composition community that both question and resist such daring. Where Crosswhite puts his faith in fighting for social justice through a reconstructed approach to argumentation, Wallace advances, quoting Royster, “cross-boundary discourses.” If I understand correctly, this means to engage the powers that be, addressing issues that have for too long gone unaddressed -- particularly the dominant’s self-satisfied view of itself as the only view, which marginalizes all “others” without regard. Wallace augments this concept to point the finger at himself as well. Thus, while he’s a gay man, he takes significant pains to point out his own limits of understanding when discussing a colleague who is both gay and Black.
You have to hand it Wallace for making the noble effort to “go the extra mile” to understand someone whose shoes he’s never walked in before. While it’s hardly fair to compare Wallace to Crosswhite since, the latter has yet to unveil his methods fully, for me, it’s hard to deny that Wallace’s approach may well bear more fruit in the long run. If I get the gist of Crossman’s stance, a re-vamped apparatus of argumentation is what’s needed to bring humanity together. I’d put my money on Wallace’s take, if only because it’s the only thing that’s ever worked for me: making the effort to try to see another person’s point view. Unless I’m missing something, this is the first step toward real empathy. The Spanish-speaking world has an expression that goes far beyond “I’m sorry” and would seem to be the ideal path toward bringing disparate individuals and groups together: “Lo siento” or “I feel (your pain).”
As an embarrassingly flawed human with many years attempting self-reflection toward bridging the gap between me and those around me, I appreciate these intellectual moves toward reconciliation. By themselves, however, I wonder if they can bring us any closer to a sense of justice or peace. Rather, I worry that they are essentially intellectual moves when what’s needed is spiritual reflection. Given, such a discussion is probably deemed as controversial in academia as Wallace’s discussions of race and sexuality. Nonetheless, from my experience, I can’t imagine real success in “cross-boundary” discourse without the profound benefits of coming to know myself, my flaws, my potential, in an ongoing examination of how I communicate -- and sometimes mis-communicate -- with others. Otherwise, all to often, I end up blaming “the other.”
Of course, when it comes to developing a system of rhetoric for working out fair play, Wallace is right. Self-reflection is only the first step in any pursuit of justice. Beyond recognizing my own fallacies and "the other's" innate values and rights, we need healthy communication skills that center discourse on justice and clarity, and reduce the common human habit whereby I find my foot in my mouth once again. Wallace's most important point, it seems, is that "language and rhetoric are never neutral" (553). Never? But we've come so far! Some fifty years after the Civil Rights Amendment, Wallace reminds us that there's a "real danger in congratulating ourselves on what we have achieved and failing to continuously attend to our complicity in maintaining the discourses of power." (549) Maintenance is the key word, I think. Given that improvements have been made, the job is never over. Maintenance of our discourse is particularly at issue when speaking/writing to/about the marginalized, as Wallace offers: "I want to show engaged respect for wisdom drawn from experiences with marginalization that I have not lived; I want to seek out both what is common in our experiences in speaking and writing from the margins as well as what is different." (551) He's taking a stand for something too few of us consider: that the battle of equality is never over and must be attended to in every conversation we have, every paper we write, and to do so, this must be an active pursuit, a seeking out. Thus, conscious mindfulness is essential for social justice because, while there's no substitute for spiritual self-reflection, for most of us, it doesn't occur to us to self-reflect on matters we consider to be "wrapped up" and laid to rest.
Repeatedly, Wallace brings up the disturbing notion of universal complicity, that we're all implicated in this interchange. For me, this comes to a head when Wallace refers to Malea Powell, a Native American, who denounces the dominant discourse for its core imperialism. When it comes to complicity, I wonder who can finally escape the brand of "imperialist" in this country -- except perhaps those who actively educate themselves and others and resist it. No doubt, Powell is right on the money with his indictment. Post-WWII liberals sometimes scratch their heads in disbelief at the atrocities in Vietnam or Iraq or CIA assassinations in Central and South America, but, in fact, this is only good old-fashioned Yankee imperialism, born in our North American land-grab, bought with the blood of Native Americans and slaves, an imperialism just raising its head again after a pretense of nobility during WWII -- a war whose start, we now know, was funded by American corporations with full knowledge of the Oval Office. At the heart of our grand ole tradition of imperialism is the ignorant American who prefers not to know what's going on and looks the other way (an apt description of myself for too long). Of course, this is central, again, to Crosswhite and Wallace and Powell's appeals for communication and justice because no bridges can be built between us and "the others" so long as we are ("blissfully") unaware of their lot, or if we are so brainwashed with a jingoism that drains us of all humanity that we grow self-satisfied with the narrowness of personal achievements and material accumulation, resistant to the work and the risk of becoming informed about our own complicity.
In The Rhetoric of Reason, James Crosswhite derides traditional argument bereft of emotion, “free from the limitations of culture, politics and commitment.” (41) Instead, he argues for a reconstruction of the theory of argumentation because the conventional assumptions -- that if we could “put aside our strong feelings, . . . our gender, our nationality and ethnic identities, . . . then we could reason our way to agreements” -- in his view, aren’t working. (44) Of course, it’s hard to argue against Crosswhite's stand on argument. If our own stalemate Congress weren’t enough validation, just look (if you dare) at the fifty-plus years of dead-end debates between Israel and Palestine (not that you can do so without discussing the sugar-daddy behind the curtain). Unfortunately, Crosswhite, in this first chapter of his book, engages us only in the problems of traditional argumentation, leaving us to wait for better solutions.
Like Crosswhite, David Wallace defies conventions that threaten to make us less human. In confronting discourse in general and the Composition discourse community in particular, Wallace, in his article, “Unwelcome Stories,” takes issue with the pretense that we are to, quoting Lynn Bloom, “‘avoid any suggestion that there’s a real human being’” relating real experiences in our writings and general discourse. (545) Rather, Wallace champions our rights to speak from a place of truth -- especially on behalf of the marginalized -- despite the dominant politics of the Composition community that both question and resist such daring. Where Crosswhite puts his faith in fighting for social justice through a reconstructed approach to argumentation, Wallace advances, quoting Royster, “cross-boundary discourses.” If I understand correctly, this means to engage the powers that be, addressing issues that have for too long gone unaddressed -- particularly the dominant’s self-satisfied view of itself as the only view, which marginalizes all “others” without regard. Wallace augments this concept to point the finger at himself as well. Thus, while he’s a gay man, he takes significant pains to point out his own limits of understanding when discussing a colleague who is both gay and Black.
You have to hand it Wallace for making the noble effort to “go the extra mile” to understand someone whose shoes he’s never walked in before. While it’s hardly fair to compare Wallace to Crosswhite since, the latter has yet to unveil his methods fully, for me, it’s hard to deny that Wallace’s approach may well bear more fruit in the long run. If I get the gist of Crossman’s stance, a re-vamped apparatus of argumentation is what’s needed to bring humanity together. I’d put my money on Wallace’s take, if only because it’s the only thing that’s ever worked for me: making the effort to try to see another person’s point view. Unless I’m missing something, this is the first step toward real empathy. The Spanish-speaking world has an expression that goes far beyond “I’m sorry” and would seem to be the ideal path toward bringing disparate individuals and groups together: “Lo siento” or “I feel (your pain).”
As an embarrassingly flawed human with many years attempting self-reflection toward bridging the gap between me and those around me, I appreciate these intellectual moves toward reconciliation. By themselves, however, I wonder if they can bring us any closer to a sense of justice or peace. Rather, I worry that they are essentially intellectual moves when what’s needed is spiritual reflection. Given, such a discussion is probably deemed as controversial in academia as Wallace’s discussions of race and sexuality. Nonetheless, from my experience, I can’t imagine real success in “cross-boundary” discourse without the profound benefits of coming to know myself, my flaws, my potential, in an ongoing examination of how I communicate -- and sometimes mis-communicate -- with others. Otherwise, all to often, I end up blaming “the other.”
Of course, when it comes to developing a system of rhetoric for working out fair play, Wallace is right. Self-reflection is only the first step in any pursuit of justice. Beyond recognizing my own fallacies and "the other's" innate values and rights, we need healthy communication skills that center discourse on justice and clarity, and reduce the common human habit whereby I find my foot in my mouth once again. Wallace's most important point, it seems, is that "language and rhetoric are never neutral" (553). Never? But we've come so far! Some fifty years after the Civil Rights Amendment, Wallace reminds us that there's a "real danger in congratulating ourselves on what we have achieved and failing to continuously attend to our complicity in maintaining the discourses of power." (549) Maintenance is the key word, I think. Given that improvements have been made, the job is never over. Maintenance of our discourse is particularly at issue when speaking/writing to/about the marginalized, as Wallace offers: "I want to show engaged respect for wisdom drawn from experiences with marginalization that I have not lived; I want to seek out both what is common in our experiences in speaking and writing from the margins as well as what is different." (551) He's taking a stand for something too few of us consider: that the battle of equality is never over and must be attended to in every conversation we have, every paper we write, and to do so, this must be an active pursuit, a seeking out. Thus, conscious mindfulness is essential for social justice because, while there's no substitute for spiritual self-reflection, for most of us, it doesn't occur to us to self-reflect on matters we consider to be "wrapped up" and laid to rest.
Repeatedly, Wallace brings up the disturbing notion of universal complicity, that we're all implicated in this interchange. For me, this comes to a head when Wallace refers to Malea Powell, a Native American, who denounces the dominant discourse for its core imperialism. When it comes to complicity, I wonder who can finally escape the brand of "imperialist" in this country -- except perhaps those who actively educate themselves and others and resist it. No doubt, Powell is right on the money with his indictment. Post-WWII liberals sometimes scratch their heads in disbelief at the atrocities in Vietnam or Iraq or CIA assassinations in Central and South America, but, in fact, this is only good old-fashioned Yankee imperialism, born in our North American land-grab, bought with the blood of Native Americans and slaves, an imperialism just raising its head again after a pretense of nobility during WWII -- a war whose start, we now know, was funded by American corporations with full knowledge of the Oval Office. At the heart of our grand ole tradition of imperialism is the ignorant American who prefers not to know what's going on and looks the other way (an apt description of myself for too long). Of course, this is central, again, to Crosswhite and Wallace and Powell's appeals for communication and justice because no bridges can be built between us and "the others" so long as we are ("blissfully") unaware of their lot, or if we are so brainwashed with a jingoism that drains us of all humanity that we grow self-satisfied with the narrowness of personal achievements and material accumulation, resistant to the work and the risk of becoming informed about our own complicity.
Sunday, October 26, 2014
Mirror, Mirror
When I compare the content of my blogs to those of more daring students, like the esteemed Mr. Fimbres, Ms. Solis or Mr. Luckett (I never knew the world of medieval monks could be so fascinating!), I’m struck by the self-confidence and exploratory nature of their blogs, and, by contrast, the play-it-safe conventionality, of mine. I appear to have a need to “color within the lines” compared to some more freewheeling writers, who may or may not feel impressed to address the readings head-on. I suppose that, after diving into the readings rigorously, I use the blog to sum up my impressions in a sometimes predictable fashion, compared to those who use the blog as launch pad, testing the boundaries of the genre. While I admire these artistic and philosophical departures, I don’t see myself moving in that direction any time soon. If the shoe don’t fit . . .
When it comes to speaking back to the writings, if I speak out too negatively, I find myself wondering if I’ve taken too much license, letting my emotions cloud my judgement, to extent that I might have missed essential content. Yet, when I read Gabriela’s blog last week, as she lambasted a few of the readings, I cursed myself for missing the rhetorical points she found so jarring and objectionable; her points were so insightful, I wondered for a moment if we’d read the same articles. Nonetheless, while I was writing, I was certainly sincere in my enjoyment of the articles, especially those building curricula from happenings on the Web.
I’ve often thought of myself as reading the world with a critical eye, a bit like the late George Carlin questioning everything he would see. But this class is informing me that I have a long way to go in terms of truly analyzing rhetorically. In my second rhetorical analysis, for example, while I feel I’ve come a good distance since my first paper, my weak spot is not extrapolating far enough, not exploring, in Gerald Graff’s words, the “So What?” I guess there’s no better exercise to build that “muscle” than rhetorical analysis and revision. And blogging in good company.
When it comes to speaking back to the writings, if I speak out too negatively, I find myself wondering if I’ve taken too much license, letting my emotions cloud my judgement, to extent that I might have missed essential content. Yet, when I read Gabriela’s blog last week, as she lambasted a few of the readings, I cursed myself for missing the rhetorical points she found so jarring and objectionable; her points were so insightful, I wondered for a moment if we’d read the same articles. Nonetheless, while I was writing, I was certainly sincere in my enjoyment of the articles, especially those building curricula from happenings on the Web.
I’ve often thought of myself as reading the world with a critical eye, a bit like the late George Carlin questioning everything he would see. But this class is informing me that I have a long way to go in terms of truly analyzing rhetorically. In my second rhetorical analysis, for example, while I feel I’ve come a good distance since my first paper, my weak spot is not extrapolating far enough, not exploring, in Gerald Graff’s words, the “So What?” I guess there’s no better exercise to build that “muscle” than rhetorical analysis and revision. And blogging in good company.
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Above and Beyond Either/Or
They say it’s unbecoming to gush, but I have to say this week’s readings were the most interesting and most applicable I’ve read in some time -- great! As we’re all moving toward our final rhetorical analysis projects, it seems fitting that these four articles are models of rhetorical analysis. At the same time, I enjoyed the common thread of “back-and-forthness” that they advocate as a rhetorical tool and as a dialectical spirit.
For Jackson and Wallin, what’s needed in our teaching of argument is more argumentation, that is, focus on the dialectic process. They point out that we can ask our students to write for the imaginary audience, as Ong suggests, but, in the age of YouTube, this methodology is quickly being outmoded by interactive technology that our students are already using. While the Internet has its share of drawbacks -- anonymity that can give way to mistreatment of interlocutors -- the authors recommend a “crosspollination” of thought (380), a back-and-forthness to develop “hybrid writing activities,” (391) borrowing from in-class rhetorical techniques and YouTube debates, like the one the authors analyze rhetorically following the Andrew Meyers tasing at the University of Florida. I think this is one of the most exciting ideas I’ve ever heard of. I enjoy blogging and occasionally responding to colleague’s blogs. But, as a teacher, I can see where a “hot topic” could capture a kind of passion that probably only comes from a current event. In the same way, Alex has a found a way to do that that gets his students involved in critical thinking and social action through local metropolitan politics. We can all take a lesson from Alex, I think.
There’s a back-and-forthness as well in Wang’s vision of blending Chinese and Western feminist thought to create a new hybrid form, gleaning the best aspects of each. Where Western feminism has a tendency to argue in a strictly binary us/them fashion, still Wang finds some aspects useful; while initial Chinese feminism was loaded with paternalism (written by Chinese men), she’s not throwing it out completely either. More representative of her tack, the article deals primarily with the development of Chinese feminist rhetorical terminology and the rhetorical analysis of Chinese feminist rhetoric as represented by authors Chen and Yang. I found it unusually open-minded of Wang that she refuses to fully embrace the us/them dichotomy of Western feminism, along with what I understand to be the feminist ambivalence toward women’s role as mother and/or wife. From my experience, having come of age during the 70s and 80s, educated women that I knew, whether or not they called themselves feminists, generally rejected traditional women’s roles out of hand, often disparaging women who would “settle” for motherhood as “baby factories.” (In truth, I have no concept of the current feminist platform on this subject, so things may have changed. In fact, until I read Kirsch and Royster, I was under the apprehension that American feminism had faded out.) By contrast, Wang finds Chen writing vigorously to propose new, positive, creative roles for women in the home and beyond. This I find both brilliant and common sense, the opposite of an either/or mentality which, in my experience, has the potential for frustrating men, women and the children they’re raising as well, especially contributing to eroded self-esteem for husbands and sons and a lack of intimacy between husband and wife.
Kirsch and Royster present a rhetorical analysis of American feminist writing, at the same time focusing on the back-and-forthness of dialectics to raise the bar on re-examining feminist literature, to take it beyond “the three Rs -- rescue, recovery and (re)inscription.” (647) Their method involves a closer look at the writings and the women who wrote them (“tacking in”) and pulling back to view the subject from a broader perspective (“tacking out”). (649) Perhaps equally important, they say their methodology is built on the give and take of the personal, “paying attention to . . . intuition and sensory experiences,” e.g. Malea Powell’s visceral reaction to the writing of Charles Eastman, on one hand, and examining artifacts with professional scrutiny on the other (657). I found this passage moving, not so much because of the emotional impact, but because Kirsch and Royster are broad-minded enough to embrace the value of “intuition and sensory experiences,” which strikes me as one of the truly feminine qualities inherent in human beings. Though we all possess it, for me, women have this in an abundance. By contrast, I can’t imagine any male organization insisting on such a feature as fundamental to their methodology. I salute Kirsch and Royster who, like Bo Wang, choose to include this archetypal -- not stereotypical -- feminine element, rather than mistakenly diminishing their femininity by too keenly emulating men, who by and large, don’t even acknowledge such a trait.
If there’s a back-and-forthness to the Enos and Borrowman article, it would be in the subject matter. Like Jackson and Wallin, they’re inspired by the possibilities of using the Web to teach composition, so, by definition, there’s a built-in interconnectedness, though, where the former method teaches students the concept of audience, the latter teaches ways of establishing ethos for online sources. Spotlighting Arthur Butz and his Holocaust denier friends’ websites, the Enos and Borrowman illustrate both the challenges of ascertaining online authors’ credibility and various techniques for discerning the legitimate from the fake. Going back to the topic of our final rhetorical analysis project, this article cleverly models a variety of ways some websites pull the wool over the eyes of the less than savvy. More than a precautionary guide for our students, we can probably all benefit from paying attention to these subtle ploys in the era of the hyper-slick online ruse. We would all do well to read this again to soak up the insight, from the rhetoric that avoids even discussing the Holocaust to the false assumption that Butz is on the level just because he’s a prof at a top university, to the other impressive-looking websites he’s linked to. I imagine there must be hundreds of charlatans on the Internet -- OK, thousands! If that’s depressing at first thought, it’s a reason to smile in that they all provide opportunities for us to teach this invaluable critical thinking skill to our students, using their tricks as teaching material.
I’m curious: What do my colleagues think about feminism these days, and in what ways is it important in their lives? To what extent have they been shaped by feminism? Which has had a greater role in shaping who you are today -- feminism or the Web?
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
Audience & Agency
This week’s articles raise some complications and point to opportunities for classroom applications as well. Principal are the notions of audience and agency -- what they imply generally and specifically for FYC writing. As Michelle notes, Goffman goes on for many pages about various forms and functions of talking. While I, too, found this less than fascinating (am I his intended audience?), I have to concede that complicating our thought on audience, to some degree, is exactly what our students need. Initially, I feel, most novice writers tend to have either no perception of audience, or perhaps a vague, simplistic concept, which can lead to vague, simplistic compositions. On the other hand, while it’s healthy to stretch our minds to consider the 31 flavors of speaker and audience, I’m actually more reticent to push students too far in this direction, to the extent that they freeze up -- exactly the opposite of where I want to take them.
The more I read Goffman, the more it occurs to me that we both talk far less and far more these days. Increasingly, we have less occasion to speak face to face with colleagues, friends or even adversaries, in part due to electronic media, in part because we’re all so busy. Even in Congress, where a few years back they installed closed-circuit television cameras, I understand that representatives more and more are avoiding debate on the congressional floor, opting instead to receive speech summaries from assistants who take notes from the CCT. At the same time, nowadays, everyone’s multitasking, returning phone calls or texting while driving; makes you wonder how Western Civilization ever got along without the smart phone. Is all that purposeful talking or are we hooked on them like sex addicts chasing sex? Potentially, all this intercourse (!) could be positive for our students, ever mindful of audience on some level.
When Goffman downplays the legitimacy of TV audiences, calling them merely “vicarious” because they cannot interact in real time, I feel the writer does his own theory a disservice. His article is truncated at best if his intentions are limited to speaking. Certainly this is exactly the scope of his paper, but, for our purposes, his thoughts merit broader application for the classroom, which begs our re-imagining the his points for the written word. If he calls the TV audience vicarious, this is only one step better than those out of earshot, relegated, as he says to “unratified” listening. For the student writer, considering audience means considering the ratified as well as the unratified, that is, if we’re willing to truly lead them down that rabbit hole. As general communicators, this notion of the unratified raises the sobering subject of uninvited readers taking in social media -- like this blog! -- though, the more we know about government surveillance, the more likely it is that the uninvited invite themselves on a regular basis.
Kershbaum raises the thorny issue of feeling like a failure in communication when our audience rejects, not only what we’re saying, but who we are as agents. He refers to Hockenberry’s misadventure with a woman who rejected the way he represented himself as disabled: “I did not realize I was part of her own confrontation with the experience of disability.” At first, his urge is to foist his agency upon his audience: “...I am John!...You must deal with me as I think of myself.” (58) At length, he sees that communication is not so simple. This again complicates things for our students. Just when they were settling into a solid understanding of the writer/audience relationship, the author defines rhetorical agency as “a negotiation in which individuals do not have full control of their own identity.” (60) Like Kershbaum, students are apt to find this disturbing at first, but it may be useful as a pre-lesson to peer review work, where some students are often dismayed by their peers’ apparent misinterpretations. Ultimately, language and meaning are never neutral, but are socially constructed. As a teacher, I need to take this as a caution as well, when reading a student paper, not to jump to conclusions about the content in writing simply because, initially, it represents “facts” differently than I’d preconceived them.
Cooper offers a similar lesson, namely not to presume that we have the answers, though I feel she shoots herself in the foot by using Obama as the personification of this concept. Cooper’s perspective of refraining from a rush to decision can be richly instructive for student brainstorming and, again, for me to keep myself open to options in the classroom. I like the way she makes her point by citing Cass Sunstein, a close friend of Obama in law school, who says of her pal, Barack, “with Obama, it’s like Learned Hand when he said, ‘The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right.’” This is a spirit worth emulating, from the science lab to the English class to the floor of Congress. For young writers, it forces them back to seriously re-consider their opponent’s counterpoints, an essential step for successful argumentation. In the case of the president, however, especially now, as this former anti-war candidate marches into battle while flatly ignoring the polls that overwhelmingly decry such bloodshed, it’s truly difficult to imagine a character who has turned his back on Cooper’s idea of open-minded dialog more than Barack Obama.
The more I read Goffman, the more it occurs to me that we both talk far less and far more these days. Increasingly, we have less occasion to speak face to face with colleagues, friends or even adversaries, in part due to electronic media, in part because we’re all so busy. Even in Congress, where a few years back they installed closed-circuit television cameras, I understand that representatives more and more are avoiding debate on the congressional floor, opting instead to receive speech summaries from assistants who take notes from the CCT. At the same time, nowadays, everyone’s multitasking, returning phone calls or texting while driving; makes you wonder how Western Civilization ever got along without the smart phone. Is all that purposeful talking or are we hooked on them like sex addicts chasing sex? Potentially, all this intercourse (!) could be positive for our students, ever mindful of audience on some level.
When Goffman downplays the legitimacy of TV audiences, calling them merely “vicarious” because they cannot interact in real time, I feel the writer does his own theory a disservice. His article is truncated at best if his intentions are limited to speaking. Certainly this is exactly the scope of his paper, but, for our purposes, his thoughts merit broader application for the classroom, which begs our re-imagining the his points for the written word. If he calls the TV audience vicarious, this is only one step better than those out of earshot, relegated, as he says to “unratified” listening. For the student writer, considering audience means considering the ratified as well as the unratified, that is, if we’re willing to truly lead them down that rabbit hole. As general communicators, this notion of the unratified raises the sobering subject of uninvited readers taking in social media -- like this blog! -- though, the more we know about government surveillance, the more likely it is that the uninvited invite themselves on a regular basis.
Kershbaum raises the thorny issue of feeling like a failure in communication when our audience rejects, not only what we’re saying, but who we are as agents. He refers to Hockenberry’s misadventure with a woman who rejected the way he represented himself as disabled: “I did not realize I was part of her own confrontation with the experience of disability.” At first, his urge is to foist his agency upon his audience: “...I am John!...You must deal with me as I think of myself.” (58) At length, he sees that communication is not so simple. This again complicates things for our students. Just when they were settling into a solid understanding of the writer/audience relationship, the author defines rhetorical agency as “a negotiation in which individuals do not have full control of their own identity.” (60) Like Kershbaum, students are apt to find this disturbing at first, but it may be useful as a pre-lesson to peer review work, where some students are often dismayed by their peers’ apparent misinterpretations. Ultimately, language and meaning are never neutral, but are socially constructed. As a teacher, I need to take this as a caution as well, when reading a student paper, not to jump to conclusions about the content in writing simply because, initially, it represents “facts” differently than I’d preconceived them.
Cooper offers a similar lesson, namely not to presume that we have the answers, though I feel she shoots herself in the foot by using Obama as the personification of this concept. Cooper’s perspective of refraining from a rush to decision can be richly instructive for student brainstorming and, again, for me to keep myself open to options in the classroom. I like the way she makes her point by citing Cass Sunstein, a close friend of Obama in law school, who says of her pal, Barack, “with Obama, it’s like Learned Hand when he said, ‘The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right.’” This is a spirit worth emulating, from the science lab to the English class to the floor of Congress. For young writers, it forces them back to seriously re-consider their opponent’s counterpoints, an essential step for successful argumentation. In the case of the president, however, especially now, as this former anti-war candidate marches into battle while flatly ignoring the polls that overwhelmingly decry such bloodshed, it’s truly difficult to imagine a character who has turned his back on Cooper’s idea of open-minded dialog more than Barack Obama.
Thursday, October 2, 2014
On the Border
It’s weird how I feel empathy for Villanueva much more than I do for Noe. Or for Grant. With Noe, I put myself in the teacher’s position, a position that is fraught with responsibility to assimilate or acculturate students into academia, with all of its Western culture implications. I don’t have a problem with this, at least not from a teacher’s view. If I were a student living and studying in France or Russia or China or Brazil, I would assume that my success in that society would depend to some significant degree on how well I mastered the discourse; it would serve me well then to try on the clothes of that university, that culture, that nation. My understanding from language learning is that language reflects a culture. If I try to communicate in Spanish using American idiomatic expressions, I will generally fail. Success depends on both my mastery of the language technically and my understanding of, and blending into, the culture. If this is true for me, then this would seem to hold for my students as well. Moreover, I feel I have an obligation to help my students to fit into the garb of the university and the garb of the culture as much as I can without asking them to compromise unduly. How do we decide where to draw the line? We need to dialog about it together.
On the other hand, when I read Villanueva, I see the issue from the side of the minority student being forced to speak the dominant language. Why is this? Perhaps it’s that Villanueva expresses the awkward hybridity of assimilation that leaves people feeling “tonto” or foolish. I feel empathy for such people because I’ve felt “tonto” myself so many times. This feels human, vulnerable and three-dimensional. On the other hand, Noe celebrates the myth of the trickster, much as Grant celebrates the trickster Ehu and the Signfyin(g) Monkey, the evil genius archetype, not a three-dimensional human. This means, in the words of Grant and Noe, that minority people’s best tool is the rhetorical technique of double-talk, pun and the put-down, all of which seem to set up the minority student in an adversarial role in relation to the dominant society and, it seems, to the teacher. Personally, I don’t need to feel I’m an educational savior, but I’d really rather not have to assume my students deem me Satan from Day One, and are trying to put one over on me. Maybe I’m taking Noe and Grant too personally, but that’s my take for now.
On the other hand, Villanueva makes an excellent point that our assimilating students tend to be filled with “anger like Levia or resignation like Rodriguez” (though I’ve read Rodriguez and, to me, he didn’t sound resigned so much as divided). Clearly, if our students are truly arriving in class angry or resigned, then we need to give them opportunities to express this, and this needs to be acknowledged as part of the classroom reality.
As a teacher, I suppose I feel deeply, awkwardly tonto myself when confronted with imagining an open-minded solution that embraces all cultural variations in writing yet guides students responsibly into mastering compositional skills needed for college and beyond. I suppose the best I can do, as Noe says, is to create a classroom that is a border and not a boundary.
On the other hand, when I read Villanueva, I see the issue from the side of the minority student being forced to speak the dominant language. Why is this? Perhaps it’s that Villanueva expresses the awkward hybridity of assimilation that leaves people feeling “tonto” or foolish. I feel empathy for such people because I’ve felt “tonto” myself so many times. This feels human, vulnerable and three-dimensional. On the other hand, Noe celebrates the myth of the trickster, much as Grant celebrates the trickster Ehu and the Signfyin(g) Monkey, the evil genius archetype, not a three-dimensional human. This means, in the words of Grant and Noe, that minority people’s best tool is the rhetorical technique of double-talk, pun and the put-down, all of which seem to set up the minority student in an adversarial role in relation to the dominant society and, it seems, to the teacher. Personally, I don’t need to feel I’m an educational savior, but I’d really rather not have to assume my students deem me Satan from Day One, and are trying to put one over on me. Maybe I’m taking Noe and Grant too personally, but that’s my take for now.
On the other hand, Villanueva makes an excellent point that our assimilating students tend to be filled with “anger like Levia or resignation like Rodriguez” (though I’ve read Rodriguez and, to me, he didn’t sound resigned so much as divided). Clearly, if our students are truly arriving in class angry or resigned, then we need to give them opportunities to express this, and this needs to be acknowledged as part of the classroom reality.
As a teacher, I suppose I feel deeply, awkwardly tonto myself when confronted with imagining an open-minded solution that embraces all cultural variations in writing yet guides students responsibly into mastering compositional skills needed for college and beyond. I suppose the best I can do, as Noe says, is to create a classroom that is a border and not a boundary.
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Rinche to the Rescue
In “The Corrido,” Mark Noe’s main point seems to be that, as educators, we tend to compartmentalize students, especially, in Noe’s view, Latinos. Certainly, we expect our students to try on the clothes of academia, as Bartholomae posits. Inevitably, the clothes may not fit initially, but generally speaking, we find that they come to fit us in time. Noe holds that such mimicking leads to assimilation, and implies this is a bad thing, at least for Latinos. While many in mainstream America might feel that assimilation is one of the ideals of a melting pot like America, Noe maintains that what’s needed is to treat students as neither mainstream nor minority, allowing a non-biased assessment of them and their writing. “The best that I can do,” he writes, “is to fashion an invitation that refigures that classroom as a border rather than a boundary” ( 603), that is, an environment where student work is appreciated independent of Western attitudes, such as individualism.
Having lived and taught ESL in Los Angeles more than twenty years, an area where border people, in Noe’s terms, outnumber the Anglos, my own experience tells me Noe’s well-intended thoughts are potentially damaging to those he’s hoping to help. Specifically, I disagree with Noe’s simplistic depiction of Latinos and his assumption that he has the ready remedy.
Key to his philosophy is that people of the border resist assimilation, so he personifies them with the corrido of Gregorio Cortez, an almost mythic figure who stands for those who refuse to be categorized. My experience, though, is that Latinos are not so easily categorized. True, many choose to take what suits them from gringo culture, maintaining pretty traditional values, including speaking Spanish in the home. Indeed, some Latinos in border areas are true nomads, spending three months north of the border, another three south, and so on, so they have little allegiance to the US.
By and large, though, the more non-assimilating Latinos I’ve known are first generation arrivals or visitors. Their children are increasingly assimilating, embracing Anglo traditions, including Ivy League education and the materialistic, corporate life it engenders. In the middle we find a real mix of the two extremes -- for example, young people in community college or at nursing schools who speak “Spanglish”, middle-age housewives proud of their American suburbs who help their kids with homework in spite of a language gap, teenagers who eat tons of junk food, like most American teens, and who are as likely to twerk as to cumbia. Personally, I find that every time I try to typify Latinos in a single adjective or using a single metaphor as Noe does with the rhetoric of the corrido, my inexactitude classifies millions of people inappropriately and offends plenty. Identifying Latinos with Gregorio Cortez is like identifying all Anglos with George Washington’s chopping down the cherry tree. Most Latinos I know wouldn’t care to be described so reductively, especially by a rinche.
Noe says we need to relax the “borders” within the classroom to accommodate Latino writing. He reasons that Latinos “bring an exemplary discourse into the classroom,” calling them “established strategies of discursive resistance” born at the “intersection of Spanish conquest and Ameridian resistance” (603). Here Noe goes beyond his Gregorio Cortez stereotype to portray Latinos as having a natural “resistance” that lends itself nicely to critical thinking in the composition classroom, but how does he know all Latinos possess such talent? According to the above, he seems to believe that such inherent communicative capacity is the result of American Indian culture colliding with Spanish Conquistadors: it’s all due to the reverberations of history. Using this indicator, today’s German youth have a strong propensity to commit atrocities, yet we’ve seen no evidence of this. Rather, this sort of reasoning has the potential, like Noe’s inadvertent stereotyping of Latinos in the person of Gregorio Cortez, to do more harm than good for our Latino students. Even if what he says is true for a portion of the people, it’s just wrong for so many more.
But let’s assume for a moment that Noe’s notions hold water. The real question is whether these students and their families would opt for an adjusted assessment program for composition. My feeling is that some might prefer his plan in the short run, since it’s liable to reduce assessment strictures, maybe boost some GPAs and possibly even promote understanding between the cultures. On the other hand, just as the STROL movement has at times been hotly protested by the very groups it’s sought to assist, so too, there’s the real possibility that Noe’s tack will find angry Latino parents condemning the “dumbing down” of our curriculum for robbing their children of opportunities to be educated and evaluated on the same terms as other students.
It seems to me that there’s a fine line between helping students with an open-minded assessment and encouraging them to retain certain behaviors which could be limiting to them in their college careers and beyond. In the worst case scenario, Latino students under Noe’s curriculum might well find themselves shocked in time when other professors castigate them for work deemed flatly unacceptable -- work that teachers like Noe legitimized and encouraged. Perhaps worst of all, that same student may run into real trouble in the real world when she’s unable to step back objectively and write a business letter that appeals to Anglo recipients on Anglo terms. In this case, would it be fair to lay the responsibility on Noe for his good intentions? Some would say yes. As we saw in the Killingsworth book, when a representative from the dominant ethnic group seeks to speak on behalf of an oppressed minority, the rhetoric can come off pretentious and wrong-headed, even when it’s well intentioned.
Having lived and taught ESL in Los Angeles more than twenty years, an area where border people, in Noe’s terms, outnumber the Anglos, my own experience tells me Noe’s well-intended thoughts are potentially damaging to those he’s hoping to help. Specifically, I disagree with Noe’s simplistic depiction of Latinos and his assumption that he has the ready remedy.
Key to his philosophy is that people of the border resist assimilation, so he personifies them with the corrido of Gregorio Cortez, an almost mythic figure who stands for those who refuse to be categorized. My experience, though, is that Latinos are not so easily categorized. True, many choose to take what suits them from gringo culture, maintaining pretty traditional values, including speaking Spanish in the home. Indeed, some Latinos in border areas are true nomads, spending three months north of the border, another three south, and so on, so they have little allegiance to the US.
By and large, though, the more non-assimilating Latinos I’ve known are first generation arrivals or visitors. Their children are increasingly assimilating, embracing Anglo traditions, including Ivy League education and the materialistic, corporate life it engenders. In the middle we find a real mix of the two extremes -- for example, young people in community college or at nursing schools who speak “Spanglish”, middle-age housewives proud of their American suburbs who help their kids with homework in spite of a language gap, teenagers who eat tons of junk food, like most American teens, and who are as likely to twerk as to cumbia. Personally, I find that every time I try to typify Latinos in a single adjective or using a single metaphor as Noe does with the rhetoric of the corrido, my inexactitude classifies millions of people inappropriately and offends plenty. Identifying Latinos with Gregorio Cortez is like identifying all Anglos with George Washington’s chopping down the cherry tree. Most Latinos I know wouldn’t care to be described so reductively, especially by a rinche.
Noe says we need to relax the “borders” within the classroom to accommodate Latino writing. He reasons that Latinos “bring an exemplary discourse into the classroom,” calling them “established strategies of discursive resistance” born at the “intersection of Spanish conquest and Ameridian resistance” (603). Here Noe goes beyond his Gregorio Cortez stereotype to portray Latinos as having a natural “resistance” that lends itself nicely to critical thinking in the composition classroom, but how does he know all Latinos possess such talent? According to the above, he seems to believe that such inherent communicative capacity is the result of American Indian culture colliding with Spanish Conquistadors: it’s all due to the reverberations of history. Using this indicator, today’s German youth have a strong propensity to commit atrocities, yet we’ve seen no evidence of this. Rather, this sort of reasoning has the potential, like Noe’s inadvertent stereotyping of Latinos in the person of Gregorio Cortez, to do more harm than good for our Latino students. Even if what he says is true for a portion of the people, it’s just wrong for so many more.
But let’s assume for a moment that Noe’s notions hold water. The real question is whether these students and their families would opt for an adjusted assessment program for composition. My feeling is that some might prefer his plan in the short run, since it’s liable to reduce assessment strictures, maybe boost some GPAs and possibly even promote understanding between the cultures. On the other hand, just as the STROL movement has at times been hotly protested by the very groups it’s sought to assist, so too, there’s the real possibility that Noe’s tack will find angry Latino parents condemning the “dumbing down” of our curriculum for robbing their children of opportunities to be educated and evaluated on the same terms as other students.
It seems to me that there’s a fine line between helping students with an open-minded assessment and encouraging them to retain certain behaviors which could be limiting to them in their college careers and beyond. In the worst case scenario, Latino students under Noe’s curriculum might well find themselves shocked in time when other professors castigate them for work deemed flatly unacceptable -- work that teachers like Noe legitimized and encouraged. Perhaps worst of all, that same student may run into real trouble in the real world when she’s unable to step back objectively and write a business letter that appeals to Anglo recipients on Anglo terms. In this case, would it be fair to lay the responsibility on Noe for his good intentions? Some would say yes. As we saw in the Killingsworth book, when a representative from the dominant ethnic group seeks to speak on behalf of an oppressed minority, the rhetoric can come off pretentious and wrong-headed, even when it’s well intentioned.
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
Blog on Blog, a Reflection
Blogging for this course is a useful tool that forces me to come to terms with the material I’ve read, to try to integrate it into some sort of practical application. Blogging has the benefit of feeling like a fun interactive game, even if I’m playing solitaire. At the same time, it’s more interesting than simply scribbling a journal of notes on current authors, if only because scribbling makes my hand cramp. Of course, I could tap it out in a Word doc that I keep to myself.
Ostensibly, though, blogging’s benefit is that it builds a community of writers/readers/thinkers. Theoretically, I’m reading all my classmates’ blogs and they’re reading mine. Then again, I don’t read as many as I intend to, thus far, so I wouldn’t be shocked if others paid me the same regard.
Still, this doesn’t mean we’re not building a community, even if we don’t engage with each other in an optimum sense. At the very least, I feel I’m part of a discourse community because Nelson’s references to various blogs confirms that we’re all in this together -- reading, digesting, synthesizing and blogging.
Of course, my primary benefit from blogging is that it helps me imagine how I’ll use blogs in the classroom. We know how popular social networking is, especially for younger people (even if Paul claims blogging’s only for “old people” -- really? -- hoho). It only follows that my students would enjoy reading and sharing their writing with kids in their class, sharing the “buzz” of the hive, rather than working alone in the shadows. Unless, of course, their lack of confidence in their writing had the potential to paralyze them from blogging. But that’s the whole point -- it’s not formal writing. For people who are unsure of themselves as writers, blogging is perfect. It’s one step up from a tweet.
Week 5: Rhetorical Techniques for the Classroom
This week’s articles -- Miller’s “Genre as Social Action,” Hyland’s “Stance and Engagement” and “Research Article Introductions” by Swales and Najjar -- serve to brew up thoughts about the upcoming project as well as to make me reconsider the relationship of the teacher to the students she teaches. Tonight, it’s mostly the latter.
OK, I lied. “Genre as Social Action” didn’t move me in the same way as the other articles. Miller’s piece, from what I make of it, attempts to do for genre what Bitzer’s piece did for rhetoric as a whole, namely, to redefine the taxonomical boundaries. While I see the significance of both articles (I think), I’m afraid I lack passion for them.
Hyland, Swales and Najjar discuss rhetorical devices and moves that academic writers employ to persuade readers, and I can’t help wondering why so few college professors use these same techniques in their classrooms; certainly, I plan to. Of course, this might just be my highly subjective take on the college experience, but I doubt it. I’ve taught adult ed and substituted K-12, so I know the formal approach those teachers typically take toward lesson planning, not just for its own sake, either, but to “hook” students to ensure they “get it.” In college, by contrast, the unspoken assumption seems to be that that sort of appeal equals treating college students like children. Another assumption is that college students connect as well as K-12 students or better to the curriculum, in spite of the paucity of persuasive techniques in lesson planning. Yet dropout rates at American campuses might indicate a gap that needs to be filled, to borrow a bit of research paper terminology. I’m not talking about luring students in with cupcakes and stickers. I’m just suggesting that so many of the techniques scholars use to appeal to their academic peers in their writing might be apropos to the college classroom; it might improve lessons and the learning experience. In fact, as expensive as college is these days, it’s rather ironic that treat strangers better than their own pupils.
Hyland notes that writers consciously work to engage their audience through 1) “acknowledgment of the need to . . . meet readers’ expectations” and 2) rhetorically pulling the readers “into the discourse at critical points” (182). All too often in my college experience, class opens with the teacher saying something like, “So . . . we were in Chapter 5. By today you’ve read up to Chapter 10. (sigh) Let’s begin.” With just a bit more effort, a real sense of continuity could be established, connecting not just the chapters, but the ideas and spirit within them.
In a similar way, the Swales-Najjar article reminds us how the introduction lays out a problem or “gap” and points to a solution. This is the academic equivalent of a Sherlock Holmes story, in a sense, a mystery that the whole audience wants to solve. Of course, not every class can be presented in such an attractive, all-inclusive manner. But, when possible, students might have the immediate benefit of applying what they’re learning, which, especially college lectures I’ve had, can hardly pretend to do. To the credit of SFSU English courses I’ve had and the professors who teach them, a practical, hands-on atmosphere is created by giving students plenty of opportunities to work it out for themselves in small group discussions.
Perhaps it’s the juxtaposition of reading these materials while I’m taking English 726 and TAing for a CMS class that’s pushing me to re-think how we appeal to students rhetorically. TAing is a surprisingly powerful experience, I’m finding. I taught for a number of years and learned a great deal. Now I’m an observer-reporter-participant, and it’s forcing me to examine so many of my habits that I couldn’t really see when I was busy teaching -- some that need to stay, some that need to change.
OK, I lied. “Genre as Social Action” didn’t move me in the same way as the other articles. Miller’s piece, from what I make of it, attempts to do for genre what Bitzer’s piece did for rhetoric as a whole, namely, to redefine the taxonomical boundaries. While I see the significance of both articles (I think), I’m afraid I lack passion for them.
Hyland, Swales and Najjar discuss rhetorical devices and moves that academic writers employ to persuade readers, and I can’t help wondering why so few college professors use these same techniques in their classrooms; certainly, I plan to. Of course, this might just be my highly subjective take on the college experience, but I doubt it. I’ve taught adult ed and substituted K-12, so I know the formal approach those teachers typically take toward lesson planning, not just for its own sake, either, but to “hook” students to ensure they “get it.” In college, by contrast, the unspoken assumption seems to be that that sort of appeal equals treating college students like children. Another assumption is that college students connect as well as K-12 students or better to the curriculum, in spite of the paucity of persuasive techniques in lesson planning. Yet dropout rates at American campuses might indicate a gap that needs to be filled, to borrow a bit of research paper terminology. I’m not talking about luring students in with cupcakes and stickers. I’m just suggesting that so many of the techniques scholars use to appeal to their academic peers in their writing might be apropos to the college classroom; it might improve lessons and the learning experience. In fact, as expensive as college is these days, it’s rather ironic that treat strangers better than their own pupils.
Hyland notes that writers consciously work to engage their audience through 1) “acknowledgment of the need to . . . meet readers’ expectations” and 2) rhetorically pulling the readers “into the discourse at critical points” (182). All too often in my college experience, class opens with the teacher saying something like, “So . . . we were in Chapter 5. By today you’ve read up to Chapter 10. (sigh) Let’s begin.” With just a bit more effort, a real sense of continuity could be established, connecting not just the chapters, but the ideas and spirit within them.
In a similar way, the Swales-Najjar article reminds us how the introduction lays out a problem or “gap” and points to a solution. This is the academic equivalent of a Sherlock Holmes story, in a sense, a mystery that the whole audience wants to solve. Of course, not every class can be presented in such an attractive, all-inclusive manner. But, when possible, students might have the immediate benefit of applying what they’re learning, which, especially college lectures I’ve had, can hardly pretend to do. To the credit of SFSU English courses I’ve had and the professors who teach them, a practical, hands-on atmosphere is created by giving students plenty of opportunities to work it out for themselves in small group discussions.
Perhaps it’s the juxtaposition of reading these materials while I’m taking English 726 and TAing for a CMS class that’s pushing me to re-think how we appeal to students rhetorically. TAing is a surprisingly powerful experience, I’m finding. I taught for a number of years and learned a great deal. Now I’m an observer-reporter-participant, and it’s forcing me to examine so many of my habits that I couldn’t really see when I was busy teaching -- some that need to stay, some that need to change.
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Week 4: Phaedrus
In Appeals in Modern Rhetoric, M. Jimmie Killingsworth cites one of the most powerful of all rhetorical techniques -- appeals to the body. Perhaps nothing is so valued or sacred as one’s own body, since, from birth, it is, for most, the ultimate expression of the individual identity. At the same time, few things are so loathed and plundered as our own bodies. The human body, then, presents a fascinating dichotomy for a unit (or more) in a Composition course.
But there’s a world of difference between Whitman’s saying,“. . . each tag and part of me is a miracle . . .” and so much advertising using appeals to the body. Of course, many such appeals simply target the feeling of hunger (physcial or sexual) and the idealization of images -- what we call “beauty.” But a great number of ads aim at fabricating fear and self-loathing in order to sell products that promise to make us less fat, less bald, less wrinkly, less ugly, the implication being that such self-hatred leads to improved appearance, which leads to happiness. The success of this sort of advertising depends largely on the ability to fill us with disgust for our own bodies.
Not that these negative ploys are new. No doubt, hucksters employed them in Whitman’s time, too. On the other side, there’s a booming industry pumping up the positive appeals to the body these days, too, from Oprah telling us that fat is a myth, to the health club industry and all the muscle-building products that they promote. But I find it interesting the divergent uses for appeals to the body. Almost always, they’re extremely positive or quite negative; rarely do we find rhetoric that simply speaks in neutral or mundane tones about the body.
Of course, Whitman was “talking revolution” in the 1800s when he went beyond simply loving sensuality to actually treasuring the bodies of slaves on the auction block, recognizing in them the future of America and the future of the planet, seeing, "In him the start of populous states and rich republics . . .” Here Whitman seems to cherish the flesh and bones of these people as much as he values their minds and souls.
By contrast to such reverence for the human form, many modern appeals to the body are downright destructive. Though cigarette and alcohol commercials are almost non-existent these days, plenty of TV shows and movies represent the body as something that its owners treat with little reverence. If Hollywood is far less self-destructive than in decades like the 80s, it still promotes indiscriminate sex, booze and drugs as the epitome of fun and adventure, as is evident in a relatively benign film like “The Hangover.” Ironically, though we say we love our bodies, the media is full of images that show we loathe them or the media uses appeals to the body to make us loathe them.
According to Killingsworth, Whitman’s hate-free rhetoric about the body arose from the democratic revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, “breaking down old hierarchies of race and class . . .” Today, taking a survey of American culture, I wonder where we can find that Whitmanesque appeal to the body and mind. On one hand, we have the “devil may care” sensuality of a show like “Sex in the City” or a myriad other Hollywood movies. But again, accompanying that sensuality, so often, we find, at the least, a veiled undercurrent that tells us that, unless we look as sexy as these stars, we don’t deserve sex, love or happiness.
I suspect somewhere between “Leaves of Grass” and “The Hangover” stands modern man, on one hand loving himself, his neighbors and his planet, on the other hand, trashing himself in wild parties in an attempt to cling to an extended adolescence. Killingsworth cites Plato’s fable of Phaedrus as an apt metaphor for this tug-of-war of the human condition, a chariot-driver struggling with two horses: one -- the soul -- trying to pull the chariot toward heaven, the other -- the body and emotions -- determined to pull the chariot to earth. If this “house divided” approach implies a degree of disharmony, even an inner civil war, I believe we can apply the metaphor specifically to our love-hate view of the human body. Then again, perhaps the the two horses of Phaedrus provide a healthy balance, a synthesis of the noble and carnal.
Killingsworth calls views of "the failings of rhetoric and democracy" elitist. Do you agree? If so, why? If not, why not?
Killingsworth points out that advertising -- McLuhan calls it the “science of man embracing woman” -- depends to a large part on appeals to the body; any modern TV viewer knows this without much thought. The author notes that this is nothing new, nor is it lacking nobility; after all, even Walt Whitman used appeals to the body. In “Leaves of Grass” he writes boldly about copulation and says, “I believe in the flesh and the appetites . . .”
But there’s a world of difference between Whitman’s saying,“. . . each tag and part of me is a miracle . . .” and so much advertising using appeals to the body. Of course, many such appeals simply target the feeling of hunger (physcial or sexual) and the idealization of images -- what we call “beauty.” But a great number of ads aim at fabricating fear and self-loathing in order to sell products that promise to make us less fat, less bald, less wrinkly, less ugly, the implication being that such self-hatred leads to improved appearance, which leads to happiness. The success of this sort of advertising depends largely on the ability to fill us with disgust for our own bodies.
Not that these negative ploys are new. No doubt, hucksters employed them in Whitman’s time, too. On the other side, there’s a booming industry pumping up the positive appeals to the body these days, too, from Oprah telling us that fat is a myth, to the health club industry and all the muscle-building products that they promote. But I find it interesting the divergent uses for appeals to the body. Almost always, they’re extremely positive or quite negative; rarely do we find rhetoric that simply speaks in neutral or mundane tones about the body.
Of course, Whitman was “talking revolution” in the 1800s when he went beyond simply loving sensuality to actually treasuring the bodies of slaves on the auction block, recognizing in them the future of America and the future of the planet, seeing, "In him the start of populous states and rich republics . . .” Here Whitman seems to cherish the flesh and bones of these people as much as he values their minds and souls.
By contrast to such reverence for the human form, many modern appeals to the body are downright destructive. Though cigarette and alcohol commercials are almost non-existent these days, plenty of TV shows and movies represent the body as something that its owners treat with little reverence. If Hollywood is far less self-destructive than in decades like the 80s, it still promotes indiscriminate sex, booze and drugs as the epitome of fun and adventure, as is evident in a relatively benign film like “The Hangover.” Ironically, though we say we love our bodies, the media is full of images that show we loathe them or the media uses appeals to the body to make us loathe them.
According to Killingsworth, Whitman’s hate-free rhetoric about the body arose from the democratic revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, “breaking down old hierarchies of race and class . . .” Today, taking a survey of American culture, I wonder where we can find that Whitmanesque appeal to the body and mind. On one hand, we have the “devil may care” sensuality of a show like “Sex in the City” or a myriad other Hollywood movies. But again, accompanying that sensuality, so often, we find, at the least, a veiled undercurrent that tells us that, unless we look as sexy as these stars, we don’t deserve sex, love or happiness.
I suspect somewhere between “Leaves of Grass” and “The Hangover” stands modern man, on one hand loving himself, his neighbors and his planet, on the other hand, trashing himself in wild parties in an attempt to cling to an extended adolescence. Killingsworth cites Plato’s fable of Phaedrus as an apt metaphor for this tug-of-war of the human condition, a chariot-driver struggling with two horses: one -- the soul -- trying to pull the chariot toward heaven, the other -- the body and emotions -- determined to pull the chariot to earth. If this “house divided” approach implies a degree of disharmony, even an inner civil war, I believe we can apply the metaphor specifically to our love-hate view of the human body. Then again, perhaps the the two horses of Phaedrus provide a healthy balance, a synthesis of the noble and carnal.
Killingsworth calls views of "the failings of rhetoric and democracy" elitist. Do you agree? If so, why? If not, why not?
Monday, September 8, 2014
Week 3: Killingsworth
At first glance, M. Jimmie Killingsworth's Appeals in Modern Rhetoric looks like a typical college textbook, but it's not. After following the author for four chapters of a rather conventional survey of rhetorical forms, the reader would not be blamed for her confusion when, in Chapter 5, the author makes a calculated detour in "Appeals to Place." Before you know it, what was a fine college rhetoric text has morphed into a subtle environmentalist tract, juxtaposing Western culture to Native American culture to highlight the lessons the former could stand to learn from the latter. It might be argued that, as a rhetoric textbook, this is hardly the appropriate place, regardless of the sound philosophies espoused. Yet, Killingsworth, a master rhetor, pulls if off. How does he do it?
In Chapter 1 he notes the two meanings of "appeal" -- to plead and to please -- both of which are fundamental to the art of Killingsworth's success. First he teaches us how to "plead" through appeals; at the same time, he's boosting the reader's confidence, that is, "pleasing" us by essentially giving us what we expect, and then some. This echoes the author's own citation of Cicero, paraphrased as saying we must "please the members of our audience in order to teach or move them. Rhetoric," Killingsworth adds, is all about bringing these three purposes...together." (viii) Because he's a pleasing writer and a credible teacher, by the end of Chapter 5, we've allowed ourselves to be moved philosophically.
Yet, while his means are clever, he's laying out his own techniques of persuasion chapter by chapter, before the left turn. Using a '70s Ultra-Brite commercial to remind us how advertisers use sex to sell something as mundane (or unsavory) as tooth paste, Killingsworth notes that appeals "always involve direction and usually indirection...Don't think about the dentist; think about your sex life." (10) In this way, Killingsworth, too, is about to play a kind of shell game with us.
In Chapter 2 he shows us the advantages and disadvantages of arguing from an outsider position, and the need (and potential downfall as a result), in modern rhetoric, of "marshalling" an argument with numbers. We're reminded in Chapter 3 of the dual roles both author and audience play (author as a writing person and as a constructed persona, audience as reader and "second persona"). Key to a rhetor's success, she must "push the counterarguments into the background, and encourage the audience members to play along for a while even if they do no adopt the mask that the author has crafted for them." (36) This is how I felt after Chapter 5, fully aware of the "double audience/double author" roles, initially resistant, yet increasingly agreeing with the spiritual-environmentalist notions presented.
Through Chapter 4's accounts of Wendell Berry and Albert Hirschman, Killingsworth brings up writers who posit that "Modern life isn't as good as it appears to be." (41) These are not new perspectives on Western decline. It's simply that sequencing Chapter 5 as he does after discussions on the "futility" of our own culture in Chapter 4, explains why, even though Chapter 5 addresses rhetoric less and Native American philosophy more, he succeeds.
Killingsworth's techniques, alluded to above -- direction and indirection; pushing the counterarguments to the back; encourage the audience to play along -- are essential to his style. But these tools alone might make him seem blatantly manipulative. Actually, he's more clever and subtle than this. After introducing Kenneth Burke's A Grammar of Motives, in which Burke "devised an approach to the analysis of everything from single sentences to complex literary texts and life philosophies," this provides author the ideal justification for morphing a rhetoric textbook, and rhetoric in general, into anything that he likes. (52)
Finally, we're treated to a rich brocade of poetry and philosophy in the fifth chapter, "Appeals to Place." We're told that, where Native Americans have a deep identification with the land and a deep understanding in their rhetoric for place, white man's only identification to place is to conquer the world with globalization.
If the parts of this chapter (per the above) allude to Native American rhetoric, for the most part, Chapter 5 largely steers clear of discussions on rhetoric per se, in favor of celebrating environmentalist poetry. In place of conventional rhetoric, we're treated to nearly fifteen pages of citations from Native Americans like Vine Deloria and Leslie Silko, as well as European-American environmental-spiritual writers like Gary Snyder and Janisse Ray. Admittedly, much of it powerful and moving. After the dismal reports on Western culture in Chapter 4, and the lovely poetry in Chapter 5, I felt like joining the Lakota like that guy in "Dances With Wolves."
Q: Is a rhetoric text book the appropriate place to nudge us toward environmentalism?
Q: If it's true we're "under the spell" of the rhetor, just like the audience watching "The Matrix," like Nero, is it really possible for rhetoric to "wake us up," since it's constantly seducing us or putting us under its spell?
In Chapter 1 he notes the two meanings of "appeal" -- to plead and to please -- both of which are fundamental to the art of Killingsworth's success. First he teaches us how to "plead" through appeals; at the same time, he's boosting the reader's confidence, that is, "pleasing" us by essentially giving us what we expect, and then some. This echoes the author's own citation of Cicero, paraphrased as saying we must "please the members of our audience in order to teach or move them. Rhetoric," Killingsworth adds, is all about bringing these three purposes...together." (viii) Because he's a pleasing writer and a credible teacher, by the end of Chapter 5, we've allowed ourselves to be moved philosophically.
Yet, while his means are clever, he's laying out his own techniques of persuasion chapter by chapter, before the left turn. Using a '70s Ultra-Brite commercial to remind us how advertisers use sex to sell something as mundane (or unsavory) as tooth paste, Killingsworth notes that appeals "always involve direction and usually indirection...Don't think about the dentist; think about your sex life." (10) In this way, Killingsworth, too, is about to play a kind of shell game with us.
In Chapter 2 he shows us the advantages and disadvantages of arguing from an outsider position, and the need (and potential downfall as a result), in modern rhetoric, of "marshalling" an argument with numbers. We're reminded in Chapter 3 of the dual roles both author and audience play (author as a writing person and as a constructed persona, audience as reader and "second persona"). Key to a rhetor's success, she must "push the counterarguments into the background, and encourage the audience members to play along for a while even if they do no adopt the mask that the author has crafted for them." (36) This is how I felt after Chapter 5, fully aware of the "double audience/double author" roles, initially resistant, yet increasingly agreeing with the spiritual-environmentalist notions presented.
Through Chapter 4's accounts of Wendell Berry and Albert Hirschman, Killingsworth brings up writers who posit that "Modern life isn't as good as it appears to be." (41) These are not new perspectives on Western decline. It's simply that sequencing Chapter 5 as he does after discussions on the "futility" of our own culture in Chapter 4, explains why, even though Chapter 5 addresses rhetoric less and Native American philosophy more, he succeeds.
Killingsworth's techniques, alluded to above -- direction and indirection; pushing the counterarguments to the back; encourage the audience to play along -- are essential to his style. But these tools alone might make him seem blatantly manipulative. Actually, he's more clever and subtle than this. After introducing Kenneth Burke's A Grammar of Motives, in which Burke "devised an approach to the analysis of everything from single sentences to complex literary texts and life philosophies," this provides author the ideal justification for morphing a rhetoric textbook, and rhetoric in general, into anything that he likes. (52)
Finally, we're treated to a rich brocade of poetry and philosophy in the fifth chapter, "Appeals to Place." We're told that, where Native Americans have a deep identification with the land and a deep understanding in their rhetoric for place, white man's only identification to place is to conquer the world with globalization.
If the parts of this chapter (per the above) allude to Native American rhetoric, for the most part, Chapter 5 largely steers clear of discussions on rhetoric per se, in favor of celebrating environmentalist poetry. In place of conventional rhetoric, we're treated to nearly fifteen pages of citations from Native Americans like Vine Deloria and Leslie Silko, as well as European-American environmental-spiritual writers like Gary Snyder and Janisse Ray. Admittedly, much of it powerful and moving. After the dismal reports on Western culture in Chapter 4, and the lovely poetry in Chapter 5, I felt like joining the Lakota like that guy in "Dances With Wolves."
Q: Is a rhetoric text book the appropriate place to nudge us toward environmentalism?
Q: If it's true we're "under the spell" of the rhetor, just like the audience watching "The Matrix," like Nero, is it really possible for rhetoric to "wake us up," since it's constantly seducing us or putting us under its spell?
Thursday, September 4, 2014
Week 2: Rhetoric Wrap-Up
As a future community college composition teacher, I’ve found myself leaning increasingly toward planning curricula rooted in topics that would potentially matter (I hope) to my students. For me, this means helping them to develop mental habits of critical thinking. These articles on rhetoric got me thinking more about the usefulness of tackling rhetoric from the student point of view. Lindemann’s “What Do Teachers Need to Know About Rhetoric?” is a handy historical survey of rhetoric from the Greeks to today. Bazerman’s “Analyzing the Author’s Purpose and Technique,” a chapter from a textbook cautioning students to about media manipulation, could be ideal for a critical thinking course. The Bitzer piece, “The Rhetorical Situation,” is a unique, if a bit dry, contribution that posits that rhetoric is always a response to a situation that compels someone to speak out -- a sound analysis, though not so interesting to me.
In my opinion, the three most stimulating topics covered in these articles are 1) the philosophical battle between content and style, 2) thoughts on critical thinking and 3) “old” rhetoric vs. “new” rhetoric. Where Aristotle saw rhetoric as neither inherently good or bad (its moral impact depends on a speaker’s application), Lindemann depicts Plato as “castigating” rhetoric as an “ignoble deceit, an attempt to flatter” the listener (43). I was trying to apply this view to our fine civil servants like Mr. Obama, who, in my opinion, has broken more campaign promises than any other president in my lifetime, yet, even when I can no longer believe his words, even when he knows (see the polls) most people think he’s a massive sell-out, nonetheless, he exudes confidence and, sometimes, that sweet charm that hooked us in the first place. Is that “flattery,” as Plato put it, or just a talent to charm the pants off of you? In terms of rhetorical skills, later scholars praised such “delivery,” so Obama would get high points in this regard.
Plato wasn’t alone, though. Burke, Addison and Weaver were among scholars who kept in mind, not just the orator and the art of his persuasion, but the potential harm much rhetoric has on certain readers/listeners who cannot tell an angel from a demon in angel’s britches. We think of Hitler’s brilliant magnetism that led Germany to ruin, but there were undoubtedly Greek and Roman leaders who were clever and corrupt as well. The Bazerman piece provides a pragmatic guide for students unfamiliar with media analysis, noting key rhetorical techniques like flag waving, scapegoating and cardstacking. There are empowering suggestions for students to judge for themselves the ethos of a writer by investigating the reputation of the publication and the author. Readers are encouraged to consider how transparent an orator is by scrutinizing the evidence, the level of precision and the quality and frequency of the references. As I’ve become more active in studying up on the Washington power structure, and the local and global effects of that power, I, too, find myself looking up information on speakers -- their backgrounds, their connections, the consistency of their actions and their words. For me, these habits have helped to open my eyes; I hope my students benefit the same way.
Kenneth Burke is said to have made the most contributions to the “new” rhetoric, in part because he synthesized thought from diverse disciplines like psychology and anthropology, as opposed to the rhetoricians of the past who focused on the rhetoric alone. Burke said the “key term” of “new” rhetoric is “identification,” as when a speaker seeks to identify himself with his listener (53). I immediately think of Bush the Junior as someone who employs this technique superbly. Identification is the answer to the $10,000 question: “How could Joe Voter elect Bush president, not once, but two times?” How many times have we heard, “He might not measure up as the leader of the free world, but, heck, he’s the kinda guy you’d want to invite over for a barbecue?” In the end, voters seem to choose style over content nearly every time. This makes things a lot easier for folks. Why go to the internet to research something like 9/11? That’s hard work. On the other hand, if I’ve already made up my mind that I trust my leaders, and they never lie, heck, I’ll follow ‘em anywhere they lead...Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, name it. Identification equals trust.
I’m still left with a couple questions. Lindemann holds that rhetoric, by definition, implies the listener has choices (40). This is easy to see when I’m selling Bibles door to door; you can simply buy or shut the door. But in a multinational community where the media is either state owned (BBC) or increasingly “playing it safe” (ABC, CBS, Fox, CNN, etc) because conservative corporations own and control them, where’s the choice? By Lindemann’s definition, does that mean that, with waning choice, rhetoric isn’t really rhetoric? Does it cease to persuade? Germans under Hitler had precious few choices. Was Hitler not a rhetorician?
A final question. Bazerman walks a fine line, encouraging students toward critical thinking, yet propping up a rosy view of the world: “Fortunately, only a small fraction of writing is deliberately manipulative” (109). Bazerman goes on to reason that most novels and magazines shoot straight from the hip, so there’s little need to be careful. What about a world where hardly anyone reads novels or magazines or newspapers anymore and, anyway, like the electronic media, print media are owned by big corporations, as well? How careful do our students need to be when the majority of their information comes in sound bites from TV or their smartphone?
In my opinion, the three most stimulating topics covered in these articles are 1) the philosophical battle between content and style, 2) thoughts on critical thinking and 3) “old” rhetoric vs. “new” rhetoric. Where Aristotle saw rhetoric as neither inherently good or bad (its moral impact depends on a speaker’s application), Lindemann depicts Plato as “castigating” rhetoric as an “ignoble deceit, an attempt to flatter” the listener (43). I was trying to apply this view to our fine civil servants like Mr. Obama, who, in my opinion, has broken more campaign promises than any other president in my lifetime, yet, even when I can no longer believe his words, even when he knows (see the polls) most people think he’s a massive sell-out, nonetheless, he exudes confidence and, sometimes, that sweet charm that hooked us in the first place. Is that “flattery,” as Plato put it, or just a talent to charm the pants off of you? In terms of rhetorical skills, later scholars praised such “delivery,” so Obama would get high points in this regard.
Plato wasn’t alone, though. Burke, Addison and Weaver were among scholars who kept in mind, not just the orator and the art of his persuasion, but the potential harm much rhetoric has on certain readers/listeners who cannot tell an angel from a demon in angel’s britches. We think of Hitler’s brilliant magnetism that led Germany to ruin, but there were undoubtedly Greek and Roman leaders who were clever and corrupt as well. The Bazerman piece provides a pragmatic guide for students unfamiliar with media analysis, noting key rhetorical techniques like flag waving, scapegoating and cardstacking. There are empowering suggestions for students to judge for themselves the ethos of a writer by investigating the reputation of the publication and the author. Readers are encouraged to consider how transparent an orator is by scrutinizing the evidence, the level of precision and the quality and frequency of the references. As I’ve become more active in studying up on the Washington power structure, and the local and global effects of that power, I, too, find myself looking up information on speakers -- their backgrounds, their connections, the consistency of their actions and their words. For me, these habits have helped to open my eyes; I hope my students benefit the same way.
Kenneth Burke is said to have made the most contributions to the “new” rhetoric, in part because he synthesized thought from diverse disciplines like psychology and anthropology, as opposed to the rhetoricians of the past who focused on the rhetoric alone. Burke said the “key term” of “new” rhetoric is “identification,” as when a speaker seeks to identify himself with his listener (53). I immediately think of Bush the Junior as someone who employs this technique superbly. Identification is the answer to the $10,000 question: “How could Joe Voter elect Bush president, not once, but two times?” How many times have we heard, “He might not measure up as the leader of the free world, but, heck, he’s the kinda guy you’d want to invite over for a barbecue?” In the end, voters seem to choose style over content nearly every time. This makes things a lot easier for folks. Why go to the internet to research something like 9/11? That’s hard work. On the other hand, if I’ve already made up my mind that I trust my leaders, and they never lie, heck, I’ll follow ‘em anywhere they lead...Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, name it. Identification equals trust.
I’m still left with a couple questions. Lindemann holds that rhetoric, by definition, implies the listener has choices (40). This is easy to see when I’m selling Bibles door to door; you can simply buy or shut the door. But in a multinational community where the media is either state owned (BBC) or increasingly “playing it safe” (ABC, CBS, Fox, CNN, etc) because conservative corporations own and control them, where’s the choice? By Lindemann’s definition, does that mean that, with waning choice, rhetoric isn’t really rhetoric? Does it cease to persuade? Germans under Hitler had precious few choices. Was Hitler not a rhetorician?
A final question. Bazerman walks a fine line, encouraging students toward critical thinking, yet propping up a rosy view of the world: “Fortunately, only a small fraction of writing is deliberately manipulative” (109). Bazerman goes on to reason that most novels and magazines shoot straight from the hip, so there’s little need to be careful. What about a world where hardly anyone reads novels or magazines or newspapers anymore and, anyway, like the electronic media, print media are owned by big corporations, as well? How careful do our students need to be when the majority of their information comes in sound bites from TV or their smartphone?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)