Regarding Lynn’s Rhetoric & Composition, in his early chapters you can envision Lynn’s uphill struggle to convince his readers to think of the term rhetoric in a positive manner. Clearly this background was meant to add legitimacy and thwart the modern-day negative connotation of the word, but he has a daunting battle. The very night I read this, I had the news on and heard two different commentators in two different stories admonish politicians to “tone down the rhetoric” and “turn the tide of partisan rhetoric.”
Much of this early chapter seemed like deja vu for me, having completed a rhetorical theory course in my undergrad days – back in the stone ages, ala 1982 – the bucolic days of Reagan-speak, when people dubbed him our “great communicator” president. I personally blame the advent of the 3-word sound bite on him. He certainly knew how to craft and deliver the phrases that were big on flash, but in hindsight, perhaps short on substance. But rhetorically speaking, they worked. I vividly recall the professor I had, the type of teacher who literally jumps on chairs and desks and seems as if he’s had one too many visits to Starbucks. I distinctively recall how he noted Reagan could usually meet at least 3 out of 4 of the goals of rhetoric (which Lynn lists on page 11).
In one sense, while the people in our world given the task to persuade haven’t strayed far from rhetoric’s negative stereotype (though I do recall CBS news putting their foot down and saying every sound-bite from a politician must be 30 seconds in length to produce substance along with the flash), Lynn’s early chapters are a wonderful connect-the-dots sort of piece. They clearly show how classical/traditional rhetoric spilled over into composition (the Harvard link was fascinating), and how the two are irrevocably tied. I had never thought about the scientific influence – the ease in manufacturing paper, or the advent of the lead pencil! If you force yourself to think beyond what you think you know about these subjects, then there is an undisputable link between “rhetoric’s orality” and “composition’s textuality.” I’m always, always, always telling my students to read their work aloud, asking them to evaluate “how it sounds” to their ear, looking beyond its appearance on paper. The two must go hand in hand. Good writing is good writing, whether we hear it or see it.
There’s too much to cover in one blog re: Lynn, but bells went off for me in two areas: one, how we as teachers say we want to focus on invention or material, but if you look at many of our rubrics, they focus on final product only. FOCUS meaning F= focus, O= organization, C= content (a rather vague description), U= usage, and S= the equally vague “style.” The other area I found amusing is his take on Peter Elbow’s, Donald Graves’ and others’ approaches to process writing. Lynn seems uncomfortable at best with their warm, fuzzy way of thinking about writing, and I think wisely so. Creating a new paradigm for teaching writing does not have to be a “throw the baby out with the bath water” approach. There’s some good in past approaches, and most certainly room for new concepts. The individual pieces we read – Noth’s and specifically Hairston’s addressed this idea well. Page 86 – Hairston’s twelve step list – was an ideal summary.
I, too, liked Hairston's list of 12 principle features. Thankfully, when I taught writing, I pretty much followed most of them--largely because that's how I was taught writing and how I learned to teach it in my methods.
ReplyDeleteI'm an organizer by nature, so I'm drawn to outlining thoughts and ideas, depending on the task. I tried to teach my students that there are many different types of writing, and those different types sometimes call for different methods. I think it's crucial to remember that all students learn differently and at different rates . . . something that our current education climate likes to talk about but can't always honor.